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I thought I’d end up looking like an atrocious taxidermy accident, but this is badass.

From the bedroom, I hear Debra scratch at the back door and I walk over and open it.

She takes two steps inside, looks up at me in the mask, and freezes.

“Don’t make it weird,” I say.

Her eyes remain fixed on me as she backs away slowly.

So ungrateful. I buy her a damn luxury estate and she can’t even tell me how hot I look in my new mask.

Despite my best efforts, I’m unable to resist heading over to her place. Just to double-check, because I need to be close to her. After adding another tracker to the underside of her vehicle, I slip through the back passage and head up the tight spiral staircase. One of the boards creaks softly under my weight, causing my heartbeat to pick up. The rush never gets old.

The apartment is quiet; she’s sitting on the floor near the dresser, her phone pressed to her ear. “Yes, hi,” she says. “I’m calling to ask if you’re hiring.”

Where the fuck is she looking for jobs? She listens for a moment, then sighs. “Okay. Thank you.”

My brain starts doing the math I don’t particularly enjoy. Strip clubs exist. Anna takes pole dancing. Does she need money? Or want to get something out of her system?

She calls another number, having an identical conversation to the first and hangs up.

I take out my phone and call her from behind the wall. Her phone lights up. She glances at it, sees my name . . . and hits ignore.

My eyebrow lifts slowly. Wow. Rude.

She stares at the missed call notification, then suddenly kicks the dresser—hard.

“Fuck!”

The sound echoes through the room and she stands to pace back and forth, then collapses onto the floor like a marionette with its strings cut short. She tucks her hair behind her ears, trying to compose herself, trying to shove the explosive emotion back into a vault. Only someone with years of practice could switch it off that quickly. My chest tightens as I watch her from behind the wall, helpless.

She stares at the phone again, then reaches for it. After a reluctant breath, she makes another call. Her face is wincing before anyone even answers. Almost as if she’s hoping for a rejection.

“Hi,” she says. “Are you hiring?”

Anna picks at a thread on her jeans.

“Either,” she says quietly. “I can start right away.”

I crouch beside my car in the street in front of my apartment, running my fingers along the metal under the bumper. I’ve read too many stories about women discovering locator tags on their vehicles, but I never thought I’d be checking my car every time I got in it. My stomach twists when I feel the tiny square magnet stuck to the frame. I tug it free, then continue searching. The second tracker is identical to the first one.

After coming across the one in my glove box, I’ve been careful to check every time I leave the house. I’m sure they’re from Steve. The last thing I need is him knowing my whereabouts when I’m out and about. While driving, I take extra left turns to make sure I’m not being followed. I look over my shoulder every chance I get, and I no longer jog or go on evening walks. Grocery shopping on Friday nights has been replaced with delivery.

I set the tracker in front of my tire, hoist my duffle bag into the back seat, climb into the car, and drive—making sure I hear the plastic crack when I pull away from the curb.

When I arrived for the audition Sunday afternoon, this place looked run-down and dingy. But at nighttime? It’s even more threatening. The neon pink sign flickers over the pothole-ridden parking lot. A group of men smoke near the entrance, they laugh too loud, and it makes my skin crawl. It’s the kind of bold laughter you hear from men who hunt in packs and have fun at the expense of someone else. I know it well.

I drive around to behind the building where the employees park, and turn off the engine while leaning forward to stare at the building.

It’s different this time.

Back then, I didn’t choose anything. I didn’t get to say no—tonight I do. I’m just dancing, that’s it. No sex. No touching. No drugs. Tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I whisper once more. “It’s different this time.”

A few of the women in my class dance at some of the clubs in the city. I’ve heard them whisper about how much cash they’ve taken home in one night. For now, this is the best way for me to make a quick buck. Last week when I’d called my instructor, Fern, asking her for recommendations, she was very helpful and rattled off three clubs immediately. Before I hung up with her, she paused and added. “There’s another club, Starlight . . . Stay away from there. Management is terrible, clients are rough, it’s not safe for dancers.”

None of the three clubs she recommended were hiring. But Starlight was.

I’ve promised myself that if anything starts to feel like a relapse trigger, I’ll leave immediately. No hesitation. My sobriety is not something I’m willing to jeopardize.