The II AM Trilogy Collection Read online

  She had nothing, not even pocket change. A pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a wallet with a wide selection of fake IDs … these were her possessions. Her attackers were unenthusiastic. They decided that her body would serve as an acceptable form of currency.

  If Two had known the eventual outcome, she would’ve let them ravage her. Would’ve simply lay back and let it happen. If she’d known where her cries for help would land her, she would’ve suffered this singular violation in silence. One night to salvage the rest of her life. She didn’t know, couldn’t know, and her cries brought her saviors, and her saviors brought damnation.

  Two young girls, brandishing a gun they didn’t even know how to use, successfully chased the two men away. Two lay in the alley, battered, bleeding, clothes torn from her body. She was slipping rapidly into unconsciousness, but she tried to tell them to take her to Sid’s. Tried to tell them about Rhes and Sarah, her friends. They would help her.

  Two couldn’t make any sounds. She’d used up her voice calling for help. She heard a name: “Darren.” Then, darkness.

  Memories like crumpled Polaroids, floating in a muddy pool. Blackness, floating, a flash of light, a voice asking her name, asking about her parents. So gentle, this voice. She told the truth. Why shouldn’t she? Her mother dead, her father gone. No parents for Two, only the street.

  Sharp sting of a needle, and then gentle bliss, descending down, back into warm darkness.

  By the time her wounds had healed, and she was capable of getting out of bed, Two was fully addicted to the heroin Darren brought her once a day.

  Days passed. Escape. Why not? The heroin already held her in an iron grip, but heroin was in ready supply. She would not submit to Darren’s ownership, would not accept him as her source of the drug. She would not let him own her as he owned those other girls.

  She left him in the subway. Sliding onto the train, darting out from between the doors just as they closed, laughing and cursing as his angry face slid away. People all around her not-looking, a New York practice perfected to an art form. Two stole food and drink from a news-stand, ran from subway cops, still laughing.

  Withdrawal came, and Two was horrified by how quickly her willpower dissolved under that onslaught of pain and need. Unable to steal enough to get what she needed, she had found a dealer and paid for the heroin with the same currency Darren had initially proposed. The irony of this was not lost on her as she lay there, burning from fever, the pain of withdrawal lancing through her, and let this strange man thrust into her again and again.

  When it was done, she felt sick and defiled, but could not stop herself from asking for a fix. The dealer gave her a needle, and disappeared to obtain the rest of what she had paid for. Two shot up, nodded, dozed, unaware that she was doing so.

  Thumps on the stairs, the door kicked in, Darren’s face, raging, screaming, dragging her by the hair down the stairs, naked, jagged splinters embedding themselves deep within her thighs. Wailing as the car sped back to the apartments, shrieking as she was dragged into them and thrown into Darren’s office. There, Darren had beat her in a manner both savage and methodical, using a leather belt wrapped around his fist, beginning with her legs and moving up her naked body. Twice had Two managed to get to her feet and run for the door. Both times Darren had caught her, stronger and faster than this weak and strung-out girl. He had punched her in the stomach, threw her back into the corner, continued to hit her with the belt.

  Finally, lying on the floor, naked and sobbing, unable to move, she’d learned what the small scar he’d burned into the webbing between her left thumb and forefinger meant. It was Darren’s mark, known to the other pimps and dealers, and they understood that returning one of his girls would be worth more to them than keeping her for themselves.

  Two was trapped, branded like cattle, and there was not a dealer in the world (or at least, the scope of that which made up her world) who would sell to her. If Two wanted the heroin – and within hours, she knew, the need inside of her would be a ball of fire racing through her veins – she would have to earn it.

  She went out on the corner that very night, still bruised and aching, and stood on the corner with the other girls until one of the strange men in their dark cars finally pointed at her, and she went with him to a nearby motel. Later, in the early hours of the morning, she lay on the floor of the shower, knees pulled nearly too her chin, arms wrapped around her calves, and let the hot water wash away salty, bitter tears.

  * * *

  “Get your ass up and get ready, Two!” Darren shouted from down the hall. He kept his office near his best earners, the dubious honor of which often went to Two or her roommate.

  “Get ready for … what?” Two questioned, yawning and trying to clear her head. The heroin had made her drowsy, and she had slept through the strongest part of the high. Now there was only the afterglow, and that was rapidly fading.

  Molly was in the bathroom, probably getting high. She liked to use frequently but in small amounts, skin-popping or mixing the heroin with crack cocaine and smoking it. Two preferred larger doses injected directly into a vein.

  “Didn’t I tell you? Must’ve. Your stupid ass just forgot.” Darren’s voice held a rare tone of uncertainty.

  “Why is it, Darren, that every time you fuck up, it’s my stupid ass that just forgot?” Two muttered under her breath.

  “Somethin’ to say, bitch?” The words startled Two. Darren had come down the hall as she’d been muttering to herself, and now stood in the door.

  Two looked up at him, the fear passing. The high was already fading, but the drug was still calming her, keeping her from sustaining any strong emotions.

  “No,” she told him. “Nothing.”

  “Fuckin’ right. Listen, you got a client tonight. Weird motherfucker. I told him and told him, ‘Look, we got girls fuck you twice as good, and look better doin’ it too.’”

  Two rolled her eyes. Despite her worth to him, Darren never let a chance go by to put her down.

  “He was real particular though. Said he wanted you, and motherfucker gave me a whole list of shit you supposed to wear. Listening?”

  “Sure.”

  “Black panties, black socks, black pants, black shirt. Tie your hair back in a ponytail. Wear a gold chain. Make your pale-ass little white-girl face even paler. Black lipstick, dark eye-shadow, lots of liner. Shower first, and clean yourself well. One gold chain, no other jewelry. No deodorant, no perfume. He says it ‘disagrees with him.’ Don’t look at me like that, I’m just quoting him.”

  “What … the fuck?”

  “Look, if he wants you to look like some strung-out addict–”

  “I am an addict.” Two grumbled, her voice more insolent than was prudent. Darren looked at her for a moment.

  “You’d do well not to mention that, or I could see some severe problems developing in your future,” he said, dropping the street dialect. This was a warning; Darren never adopted this manner of speaking with a girl unless she was perilously close to severe punishment. He’d cut a finger off the last girl. Cut her finger off and turned her out in the streets, bleeding and begging, in withdrawal, without a source of the drug. All alone.

  “I’m sorry. Darren, I’m sorry!” Weak voice, heart pounding, Two was amazed that she still had this much capacity for fear in her.

  Darren sneered at her and left. As soon as she heard the door shut, Molly peeked out from the bathroom. Seeing Darren gone, she moved back into the room.

  “Even if you don’t hurt yourself, you’re going to make him hurt you sooner or later,” Molly said, and to this, Two found, she had no reply at all.

  * * *

  “You look wicked!” Molly clapped her hands and grinned. Even Two, preening before the mirror, had to admit that it was the truth. Her own predilection for black clothing had made dressing simple. The gold chain had been a bit harder, but it had been there, shoved into the back of a drawer. It would probably be broken; Men liked to tear them off in the heat
of passion. But it had been requested, and Two knew Darren would inspect her before she left.

  She was pale, her wavy blonde hair tied back with a simple piece of black rawhide. Big, green eyes now nearly luminous against her white face. Her silk blouse was low cut, her bra pushing her small breasts up and together. Her jeans were tight, emphasizing her legs, which Two had always thought the best part of her. She couldn’t claim they were long; she stood at just over 5’4”, but they were smooth and supple, shapely, the muscles not yet ravaged or wasted away by the drugs.

  She had no black lipstick. Darren’s answer to this made her grimace. “Borrow some from Lisa.”

  Molly arched an eyebrow. “This should be fun.”

  Lisa had attacked Two in the kitchen a week ago, screaming something about Two’s using ‘her shower.’ Two, who had no idea that shower territoriality was even of any significance, had been unprepared. She’d stood up, and Lisa had shoved her backwards against the table. Two had reacted instinctively, swinging back around and giving a shove of her own.

  Lisa had fallen backwards, and the altercation might well have ended there. Two could see from the other girl’s eyes that she was not accustomed to anyone putting up an actual fight. Lisa was used to simply commanding and being obeyed.

  Two had thought then of an earlier incident: Out of sheer spite, Lisa had forced Molly to turn over all of her money, strip naked, and shove the clothes down one of the building’s laundry chutes. She’d then stood at the top of the stairs and watched as Molly climbed down into the dank, spider-infested basement to retrieve them. The incident had given Molly nightmares for two weeks.

  A circle of girls had formed, though, and before either Two or Lisa could walk away, they were shoved right back into the center. Lisa, deriving confidence from the crowd, began shrieking again.

  Looking incredulous, Two drew back her fist and punched Lisa in the mouth.

  All of the fight went out of the other girl in an instant, and she crumpled to her knees. The blow had cost Two the skin on her knuckles, but it had cost Lisa two teeth.

  Darren had arrived to prevent any further damage from being done, though Two had no intention of pressing the attack. He’d grabbed Two, dragged her to his office, and slapped her twice across the face before grabbing her by the throat and forcing her up against the wall.

  “Bitch had it coming,” He’d conceded, “But now she can’t work and she looks like a damn hillbilly. Who gonna pay for the dentist? Not me.”

  “I’ll work extra,” Two had gasped, barely able to breathe, and Darren had seemed to find this amenable. He had let her go, told her to get the fuck out, gone back to whatever it was he did during the day. Gasping and choking, Two had made her way out, and had taken multiple clients a night for the next three weeks.

  Two and Lisa had not spoken since, but now Two had no choice. She took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. No response. Two knocked again, waited, grew angry. She hammered on the door. “Lisa! I know you’re in there. Open the fucking door or the next time I see you, I swear to God I’m going to make a necklace out of the rest of your teeth.”

  Click of a lock being undone. The doorknob twisted in Two’s hand and she let it go. Lisa’s puffy, petulant face stared out at her.

  “I was sleeping,” she said, not a trace of it in her voice. The dentist Darren had hired to fix her teeth had been neither sober nor careful, and there was a large, dark space between the girl’s two false front teeth.

  “I don’t care. Darren says you have to lend me your black lipstick.”

  Two had taken half a step into the room. Now she managed to move backward in time to keep the speeding door from hitting her in the face. She looked over at Molly, who was standing in their own doorway. Molly rolled her eyes. Two turned back, preparing to kick the door in, when it opened. Lisa hurled the lipstick at Two, who missed the catch. She heard it clatter against the wall behind her.

  “Don’t ever fucking ask me for anything again, cunt!” Lisa slammed the door closed again.

  “You know, you really should get that gap in your teeth fixed, hon. Your S’s whistle!” Two called, her voice all sunshine and sugar. Behind her, Molly burst into bright peals of laughter.

  * * *

  Her friends knew very little of Two’s new life. Rhes, Sarah, Sid; light that she used sometimes to drive away the dark. Darren, the epitome of kindness, gave each girl two days of the month off. Two’s were the first and third Sunday, and she typically spent them at Sid’s. She would take the drug early, letting most of its effects wear off before arriving at the bar. She didn’t want them to know. She didn’t want anyone to know.

  They still suspected. Her visits were too infrequent, yet too regular, for them to believe that she was “just busy.” Yet whenever Rhes attempted to learn where she’d been, what she was doing for money, where the bags under her eyes had come from, the air went immediately cold. Two’s expression would forbid further discussion, and Rhes, for all his kindness, could not stand to hurt. He wouldn’t interrogate her.

  Eventually, the questions stopped.

  Two felt sure that they knew of her occupation. She thought that Sarah would have guessed by now, even if Rhes was busy trying to fool himself. What was the most logical way for a young girl to survive on the street? Why would she give no information about it?

  She desperately hoped they didn’t yet suspect the drugs, though she could feel her body beginning to break down under their onslaught. Of this, far more than giving strangers the use of her body, Two was ashamed. To be enslaved so fully by something so darkly and desperately evil. Horror masquerading as bliss, disease and decay and death hiding behind a porcelain visage of joy. When the drug ran new through her veins, Two felt as if all problems had ceased to exist. When it ebbed at its lowest, Two spent her time staring out of her window at the cemetery down the block, thinking of death.

  Seeing Rhes and Sarah together depressed her. Seeing Sid, Tina the waitress, Dan the other bouncer, free to live their lives as they chose, slave only to their own whims and desires; it was terribly beautiful to Two, and she was beginning to abhor this beauty. She was beginning to hate those she so desperately wanted to love. Lately Two had begun skipping even these visits, choosing instead to spend the day in bliss and forgetfulness and floating white.

  Rhes and Sarah did not let on how much they knew because they understood how badly it would hurt Two. They were sure about the profession, had strong suspicions about the drug. Were it within their means, they would gladly have lifted Two up and stolen her away from the life she had fallen into, but they could not. There was no money to support her withdrawal, or enter her into a clinic, particularly given that such an act would likely procure wrath from unknown sources.

  So they observed, horrified, as Two began to fall apart in front of them. Her naturally light skin took on a sickly pallor, bags formed under her eyes, her voice fell to flat monotone. Worst by far was the expression of complete apathy. Two’s body moved, her mouth formed sentences, but her eyes were dead.

  Sarah wanted to confront her, at least to hear the truth. This was one of the few areas in which Rhes had ever denied her. He’d known Two far longer, lived with her, understood her. She was killing herself, but if they brought it up, he knew that she would only turn away, descend even further, let the drugs kill her that much faster. It was better to watch her die slowly, as they searched and hoped for a solution, than make it happen all at once. That was his line of thinking.

  Two might have thought differently.

  * * *

  It took Darren a moment to remember to sneer when Two entered the room, a sure sign that she had impressed him. Two stood before him, letting him survey her appearance. This was customary for Darren’s top-tier girls.

  “Not too fuckin’ bad. Lose the purse.”

  Two tilted her head, surprised. Darren was fond of purses, liked his girls to carry them even if they had nothing to carry. He said they were classy.

  “Cli
ent wants you to leave it here. That shirt tight enough? It’s starting to get cold out, and the client wants to know it’s getting cold out.”

  Two rolled her eyes. “He’ll see. He’ll know.”

  “Good. Get. Smoke on your way to the corner, because he doesn’t want to see a cigarette for the rest of the night.”

  “How does he know I–”

  “Don’t know, don’t care. Probably been stalking you. So what?” Darren looked her in the eyes, a rare occurrence. “Look: You make this guy happy. Price he paid up front for you don’t even make sense. He goes home satisfied, I may throw in an extra ration for you.”

  Two’s eyes lit up. An extra ration was Christmas. Her birthday. The return of Jesus Christ himself. She grinned, turned, and left, tossing her purse into her room as she went by.

  Outside it felt like Autumn: cool and dry. Dark. It had been a hot September, but edges of winter were lurking on the wind. The nights would be cold, before long.

  Two lit a cigarette and glanced around. A girl with bright purple hair was leaning into the window of a police cruiser, smiling and snapping her gum. No trouble there. Across the street, a man was pretending not to look at the girls loitering around. Was this her guy? If it was, he was welcome to stay where he was, looking nervous, for as long as he wanted.

  Two was still comfortably held in the afterglow of her heroin, but this had passed enough for her to feel a twinge of annoyance. The nervous ones were always a big pain in the ass. They needed constant reassurance. It was almost like babysitting, except it paid more, and you skipped right to the part where the father tries to cop a feel on the ride home.