Chapter 3 Reality Check

Natalie’s POV

I followed Marge’s trail of cigarette smoke across the parking lot, dragging my duffel bag behind me while the New Mexico sun tried to cook me alive.

The Silver Dollar sat beside the club, although calling it a motel seemed generous. The single-story building formed a crooked horseshoe around a cracked concrete parking lot. Half the doors were painted brown while the others were a faded yellow, as though someone had started renovating twenty years ago and given up halfway through.

A plastic horse hung over the office entrance with one missing leg, and the neon VACANCY sign buzzed even though several of the letters were burned out.

It looked like the kind of place where women disappeared and nobody noticed until housekeeping complained about the smell.

I swallowed my pride and squared my shoulders.

At least the parking lot was too exposed for someone to murder me without witnesses.

That was probably the most depressing attempt at optimism I had ever made.

Marge glanced over her shoulder, cigarette pinched between two fingers. “You planning to stand out there judging the architecture all damn day?”

“I’m trying to decide whether I should be more worried about tetanus or being chopped into pieces.”

She barked out a laugh. “Honey, anybody staying here is too broke to own the kind of tools required to chop up a body.”

“That’s incredibly comforting.”

“I have a gift.”

She stopped in front of room twelve and dug through the enormous black purse hanging from her shoulder. The thing looked heavy enough to contain a spare tire. She pushed aside several packs of cigarettes, a prescription bottle, three tubes of lipstick, a folding knife, and what appeared to be a miniature bottle of tequila before finally locating the keys.

I pretended not to notice the knife.

Marge noticed me pretending.

“Relax. That’s for opening boxes.”

“Of course it is.”

“And occasionally discouraging assholes.”

There it was.

She unlocked the door and shoved it open with one shoulder. The air-conditioning unit mounted beneath the window screamed like it was being tortured, blasting cold air into the room as fast as it could to combat the searing heat outside.

The temperature difference hit me hard enough to raise goose bumps along my arms.

The room contained two twin beds separated by a nightstand with a brass lamp bolted to it. The brown-and-orange comforters looked as though they had survived the entire 1980s and resented being asked to continue. The carpet had faded from whatever color it had originally been to a questionable shade of gray, and the floral curtains were thin enough to let streaks of sunlight bleed through them.

It was awful.

It was also the closest thing I had to a home.

Marge walked inside, tossed her cigarette onto the walkway, and ground it beneath the heel of her sandal before shutting the door behind us.

“The television works when it feels like it,” she said. “You have to smack the side twice, but only twice. Three times pisses it off.”

I stared at the ancient television sitting on the dresser. “The television has anger issues?”

“You’ll fit right in around here.”

She crossed to the closest bed, grabbed the comforter, and yanked it down. Then she pulled back the sheets and lifted the corner of the mattress with both hands.

“See?” She bent closer, examining the seams. “I told you there weren’t any bedbugs.”

I watched her search for several seconds before rubbing both arms again.

Marge dropped the mattress and started laughing.

“That isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It really isn’t.”

“You should see your face.”

“I’m homeless and about to become a stripper. Please allow me to keep what little dignity I have left.”

Her laughter faded.

For half a second, something almost tender moved through her expression, but she covered it quickly by straightening the sheets and smoothing the comforter with one tattooed hand.

“You aren’t homeless anymore,” she said. “You’re staying here.”

“As long as I dance.”

“As long as you work at the club,” she corrected. “You decide dancing isn’t for you, we’ll figure something else out. I’m not tossing your ass onto the highway after one bad night.”

The pressure behind my eyes returned so quickly that I had to look away.

I didn’t want her kindness.

Kindness made me weak. Kindness made me remember that there had once been people who cared whether I was hungry, frightened, or sleeping in some roadside motel where the television had to be physically threatened into working.

My mother would have burned the entire building down before allowing me to spend one night here.

My father would have demanded to speak to the owner, the health department, and probably the governor of New Mexico.

They were both dead.

I was alone.

“Thank you,” I managed.

Marge picked up my duffel bag and placed it on the empty bed. “Bathroom’s through there. Towels are clean, and Roy keeps soap and shampoo beside the sink.”

“Roy?”

“Housekeeping. He owns the place too.”

“That sounds efficient.”

“It’s cheap labor when you don’t have to pay yourself.”

She handed me the brass key. “Be at the club by six thirty. Not six thirty-one. The girls will show you how everything works before customers start pouring in.”

“What exactly are they going to show me?”

“How to walk in heels without breaking your neck. How to keep a titty from falling out before you want it to. How to climb onto the stage without flashing the whole damn bar.”

My stomach tightened.

“Fantastic.”

“Lola will work with you. She looks sweet, but don’t let that fool you. Her mouth could peel paint off a wall.”

“I think I’m going to like her.”

“You will, right up until she makes you stretch.”

Marge headed toward the door, then stopped with one hand on the knob.

“Lock this behind me. Use the dead bolt and the chain. If anybody knocks, you don’t open it unless you know who it is.”

“What if it’s housekeeping?”

“Housekeeping’s a seventy-year-old man named Roy. He won’t come inside unless you invite him, and if you invite him, I’ll assume you’ve completely lost your fucking mind.”

I stared at her.

Marge grinned. “Six thirty, freckles.”

She left before I could think of anything to say.

I locked the dead bolt, slid the chain into place, and stood with my back against the door while the air conditioner rattled loud enough to shake the window.

The silence underneath that noise was unbearable.

For the first time since I had escaped, there was nowhere I had to be immediately. There wasn’t a bus waiting for me, a ticket to purchase, a driver’s license to collect, or a stranger whose questions I had to dodge. I had a locked door, a bed, and several hours alone with everything I had been refusing to feel.

My knees weakened.

I dropped my duffel bag and stumbled toward the closest bed, sitting before my legs could give out completely.

The mattress dipped beneath my weight.

I stared at the faded carpet until the colors blurred.

“What the fuck am I doing?”

The question came out as a whisper.

No one answered.

I pressed both hands over my face, trying to hold myself together through sheer force. My chest had already started tightening. My breaths came too quickly, catching halfway into my lungs before rushing back out.

I knew what was happening.

I dug my fingernails into my thighs.

“Five things you can see,” I said aloud.

The ugly comforter.

The brass lamp.

The cigarette burn on the nightstand.

The stained ceiling tile.

My duffel bag.

“Four things you can touch.”

The denim covering my knees.

The mattress beneath me.

The cool metal of the room key.

The thin chain around my neck.

My fingers closed around the necklace automatically.

My mother’s diamond pendant rested beneath my shirt, the only piece of jewelry I had kept. Selling it could have paid for months of motel rooms, but the thought of handing it to a stranger made me physically ill.

It was the last thing she had given me.

Three things I could hear.

The air conditioner.

A motorcycle roaring somewhere beyond the wall.

My own ragged breathing.

Two things I could smell.

Cigarette smoke clinging to my clothes.

The lemon cleaner someone had used in the bathroom.

One thing I could taste.

Fear.

The panic slowly loosened its grip, although the grief remained lodged beneath my ribs like broken glass.

I lowered myself onto the bed and curled onto my side.

The memory came without warning.

My mother sitting across from me, staring at the bruises Daniel’s fingers had left around my arm. My father pacing in front of the fireplace, his face darkening with every word that came out of my mouth.

The grabbing.

The threats.

The way Daniel controlled where I went, who I spoke to, and what I wore.

I had spent so long making excuses for him that hearing the truth spoken aloud had made me feel sick.

My father had stopped pacing and crouched in front of me.

“You are never going back to that man.”

My mother had wrapped both arms around me.

“We’ll take care of you. You’re safe now.”

Safe.

I had believed them.

The next day, they were dead.

My parents had been murdered because I finally opened my mouth and told them what Daniel had been doing to me.

I had seen the fury in his face when he realized I had told them. I had heard the promise in his voice when he whispered that I would regret humiliating him.

Twenty-four hours later, my mother and father were gone.

A broken sound escaped my throat.

I pressed my face into the motel pillow, but the tears came anyway.

“I’m sorry.”

The words were muffled against the thin fabric.

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

If I had stayed quiet for one more day, would they still be alive?

The thought was poisonous, and I knew it. Daniel had killed them. Daniel had made that choice. Daniel was the monster.

Knowing that didn’t stop the guilt from ripping me open.

I sat up, angrier now, and tore my shirt over my head.

“You don’t own me,” I whispered.

The words sounded pathetic in the empty room.

I kicked off my shoes and stripped out of the rest of my clothes.

“You don’t fucking own me.”

My voice cracked.

I carried one of the motel towels into the bathroom.

To my surprise, it was spotless. The tile was old and cracked in places, but the sink had been scrubbed, the toilet was clean, and two tiny bottles of shampoo sat beside a wrapped bar of soap near the sink.

I turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm.

Then I stepped beneath it and finally broke.

The sob tore out of me before I could stop it.

I pressed one hand over my mouth, but there was no one to hear me through the screaming air conditioner and the steady rush of water. Every emotion I had shoved down since leaving South Carolina came spilling out at once.

Terror.

Rage.

Guilt.

Grief so deep I felt hollowed out by it.

I cried for my mother, who would have known what to say even while completely losing her mind over the motel. I cried for my father, who would have torn New Mexico apart with his bare hands to find me somewhere safe.

I cried because they had tried to protect me, and Daniel had made them pay for it.

I cried because I was alive and they weren’t.

I cried because in a few hours I would be standing beneath flashing lights, taking off my clothes for strangers while pretending my entire fucking world hadn’t been destroyed.

I sank onto the bottom of the tub, pulled my knees against my chest, and cried until the water ran cold.

When I finally stood, my eyes were swollen and my throat hurt, but the pressure inside my chest had eased.

I washed my hair with the motel shampoo and scrubbed my skin until the remaining scent of the bus, the club, and Daniel’s house disappeared down the drain.

The bruises stayed.

I wrapped the towel around myself and examined my reflection in the mirror.

My wet brown hair hung around my shoulders. Without makeup, the freckles across my nose and cheeks appeared darker. Exhaustion had hollowed the skin beneath my eyes, and the healing cut near my hairline was still visible when I pushed my hair back.

I barely recognized myself.

“Your name is Natalie Blake,” I told the woman in the mirror. “You’re twenty-five years old. You live in New Mexico. You don’t have a fiancé.”

The lie trembled in my voice.

I tightened my grip on the sink.

“You don’t have a fucking fiancé.”

That sounded better.

I changed into a clean T-shirt and shorts, ate a handful of crackers from my bag, and set an alarm on my phone for five forty-five.

It was still early enough for me to sleep for an hour before I had to walk back into hell.

I checked the dead bolt.

Then the chain.

Then the dead bolt again.

Only after confirming all three times that the door was locked did I crawl beneath the ugly orange-and-brown comforter and rest my head against the pillow.

The air conditioner screamed from beneath the window.

Motorcycles rumbled in the parking lot outside.

I closed my eyes and tried not to imagine Daniel stepping off one of them.

I tried not to see my parents’ faces.

I tried not to think about the stage waiting for me across the parking lot.

For the next hour, I only had to breathe.