What the fuck is going on here?
I look around for a cam, because I am one hundred percent sure that’s got to be one of her other secrets. She’s a cam girl with a teenage fetish specialty. Because that’s what this looks like. It looks staged. Like a set. And who the hell uses a landline these days?
She must have clients and they must call her.
I am so convinced of this scenario, I pick up the handset on the phone and dial *69, but there’s no dial tone. Fucking thing doesn’t even work.
“Lyssa,” I say, placing the hand set back. She doesn’t answer so I shake her. “Lyssa.”
“Hmmm,” she says, turning over in the bean bag chair.
“Wake up.”
She draws in a long, sleepy breath and rubs her eyes. “What?”
“What are you doing in here?”
She looks around then frowns. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“So you came up here?” I ask her. “And put on these clothes? And did your hair… in the dark? What the hell is going on? Are you a cam girl?”
She blinks at me. “What?” The sleepiness is gone as she squints her eyes. “A cam girl? Why the fuck would you think that?”
“Uh…” I laugh. “Because that’s what this looks like.” And also you were arrested for prostitution, pimping, and pandering. That’s why.
But I don’t say any of that out loud. Because something is off about her right now.
I’m leaning in her face as all these thoughts run through my head and she pushes me away, then gets to her feet.
“What were you doing on the bean bag?” I ask.
“What the fuck does it look like? I was sleeping.”
“Lyssa,” I say, grabbing her arm and giving her a shake. “There’s a fucking bed right there. You could’ve just slept in the bed.”
“The sheets,” she says. Like this explains everything.
“What?”
“The sheets are dirty. From that first night we were here. No one came to change them.”
I want to pull my hair out. “You’ve been sleeping up here in this bean bag the whole time? What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you change your own sheets at home?”
“Sometimes,” she says.
“So…” I open my hands in a what-the-fuck gesture.
“I just didn’t think of it.”
I have a million things to say back to this idiotic answer. Mostly mean things. Things like, Are you a moron? Are you so spoiled that you’re helpless? Incapable of formulating the simplest of solutions?
I really want to say all that. And I almost do. Because it makes no sense. This girl, right here, in this room—she is not the girl I met in that club a week ago. She is not the girl in the gold dress. She is not the girl who kneed me in the balls and punched me in the face. Who ran, who fought back, who…
Something is wrong with her.
Or no. Because it hits me.
Something is wrong with this place.
“Pack a bag,” I say. “We’re leaving.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – LYSSA
Mason is angry with me. That much I know. But I’m having trouble understanding why. I don’t know why. So I tick things off on a list.
I left his bed last night and went up to the princess room. I do remember that, but I had a good reason. And I know he’s mad that I’ve been sleeping on the bean bag this whole time, but seriously, I wasn’t gonna sleep in that dirty bed. I don’t think it’s that weird. I also think he has a problem with my clothes. And I don’t love them. But they’re familiar to me so I don’t hate them either.
Cam girl though? That came out of nowhere. Didn’t it? I don’t know. I feel confused and dizzy. Nothing makes sense anymore. And I kinda felt like things did make sense. Before. That first day I was so sure what was happening. But ever since I went up to the princess room that first night everything went weird again.
Weird again.
What do I mean?
“What the fuck are you carrying?” Mason asks me when I get downstairs.
“What?” I look down at my pink and purple unicorn backpack. “I didn’t have any luggage in that room so I grabbed this. What’s the big deal?”
“Forget it. Let’s go.”
He takes my hand and we go outside and get in the Mercedes. He looks over at me as he starts the car and says, “We’re going back to the city.”
“We are?” I say, brightening at the idea.
“Yeah, this place… I don’t really understand what’s going on, but this place isn’t good for you.” He pulls around the van and heads down the driveway.
I look back at the huge country estate and have to agree with him. “I don’t like it either.”
But I feel weird leaving. I feel jittery and nervous like I’m doing something wrong. My stepfather is gonna be pissed off when he finds out. But he won’t be here for a few more days so I try to forget about how we’re disobeying orders and just breathe deep and relax into the soft leather of the seat.