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“Thanks,” I say again. “For all of this. For the help.”

“Help is what I do,” Treasure says, fingers deftly loosening the ribbon eyelet by eyelet. “That, and make money.” She laughs. “But I meant it, you know? If you’d have come to me, I would’ve given you a job. Place to stay. Get back on your feet. Done it for plenty of girls and I would’ve done it for you.”

My face flushes. “Thanks, Treasure.” She means it, I can tell.

“Not even dancing or anything if you didn’t wanna,” she goes on, tugging at the ties down my ribs, by my hip. “Although with these legs?” She whistles. “Just my luck that Pan found you f⁠—”

She stops short. And, too late, I realize why.

The front panel of the dress is loose on my waist, my hips, sagging to the front. Gaping right over the black X on my skin.

Out of instinct, I pull on the dress, cover it up, but it doesn’t matter. She saw. Treasure definitely saw.

She just brings her gaze even with mine, every inch of her face still.

“Do the guys know?”

“No. Yes—” I shake my head, then shake it again. “Blue does. He’s…seen it.”

“Do you want them to know?”

Slowly, I shake my head. “Not…” My voice has dropped to a whisper. “It’ll change things,” I say. “And I just…I just don’t⁠—”

“Shh, shh.” Treasure lets go of the ribbons and takes one of my hands in hers. “You don’t have to explain. I won’t say a thing. To the guys, to the girls. But I see you, okay, Tink? I see you.”

My throat’s too thick to talk, so I just nod, nod and squeeze her fingers hard as the corners of my eyes get wet with tears. And suddenly I’m crying, sobbing, collapsing onto Treasure’s tiny body with big, heaving animal sounds from some deep part of me I didn’t realize could just pop open like this. She just clutches me to her, her collarbone firm against my cheek and her jasmine-vanilla smell flooding my nose, and we stand like that for God knows how long.

“M’sorry,” I manage, once the sobs start to subside, and push gently away from her. “I just⁠—”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” Treasure lets me retreat, but takes both my hands in hers. “You understand that? Nothing. Not for what happened to you, not for how you react. Not with me. Got that?”

I sniff, hiccup, swallow, and nod. “Yeah.”

Treasure gives my hands a squeeze, and when she looks up into my face again, she looks almost pained. “Damn, I just…” She blows out a breath. “I wish I had known, Tink! Like, I could’ve helped, you know? But—” she adds as I open my mouth, and I close it again. “But I know why you did what you did. And I respect the hell out of that.”

I give a watery little laugh. “Yeah, real role model material over here.”

“Hey, Tink?” Sapphire’s voice. “Try this.” She flings something over the side of the booth. “Trust me.”

Treasure squeezes my shoulder, then pulls down the dress: glittery, green, sleek and slick and almost liquid material. She holds it at arm’s length, as best she can in the booth, and frowns.

“Green, Sapph?” she calls back.

“Just trust me,” Sapphire replies.

Treasure blows out a breath, but shrugs. “Your call,” she says, holding it out. “Whatcha say?”

Green. Back before I ran away, when I was still properly a girl, when I was Bella, I’d never wear green. Especially not a lime, pastel, sparkle-shine green. And yet, weirdly, I kind of like it. I like that it isn’t what I would’ve worn before.

“It’s…unconventional,” I say.

Treasure smirks and throws the dress at me. “So try it on.”

The dress slides on easy, cool and silky against my skin, and glides down just to the top of my thighs—short, but not too short. The top’s a soft sort of halter that clasps around the neck but hangs in soft swoops loose across my chest. And the color…

“Shit, Tink,” Treasure says, taking as much of a step back as the fitting room will let her, “they should make a Barbie out of you.” She scans me up and down. “You’re like, two-in-one biker boy and undercover badass. Look at you.” She spins a circle with her finger, and I obey, awkwardly, turning to face the narrow fitting-room mirror. The dress looks good—it really does—drapey and liquid at the chest, clingy at the hips without being so tight and short it’ll ride up miserably when I take more than two steps in a row. But overall…

Well, the blotchy face and mussed-up hair isn’t really doing me any favors.