kicks up to ardently high levels. “Climb onto his lap, Little Bird.” Killian continues. My eyes shoot to him as panic seizes me. I don’t want to. I know what happens when he’s close to me or touching me. I don’t like it. I don’t like anything that makes me feel things I don’t want to feel, and right now, Killian is making me do things I don’t want to do. Feel things I don’t want to feel.
I look back at King, but he hasn’t moved. His eyes are bleak, his expression bored. I bore him.
Slowly, I step forward and sink my knees into the hard chair that he’s sitting on. Biting down on my lip, I slowly lower myself onto his crotch. My cheeks heat, and my thighs clench.
King is still in the same position, unfazed. Only now, he’s staring up at me, and I’m closer. I don’t like him this close to me. Kingston this close is not a good thing.
Everyone else slowly ceases to exist, disappearing into white noise. I can hear “Love is Madness” by Thirty Seconds to Mars playing in the background. King’s eyes are still on mine, the cigarette burning between his lips. Before he can inhale again, I remove it from his lips and bring it to my own. Inhaling softly, I roll my body in his lap to the music. His hands come to my hips as I blow the smoke out from between my lips. His fingers trace up my side until they’re buried in my hair, before he’s yanking out my hair tie. I swing my hair around as I flick the smoke behind me and bring both hands to the back of his neck. When the chorus drops, I brush my chest against his. My face is so close that I can feel his lips against mine and the words stop. Everything slows and the music fades into the background, my breathing thickening. Just as I’m about to pull away, he locks his arms around my back and pulls me in harder. I can feel him between my legs. He raises his hips up and grinds against me. His lips are hovering dangerously close to mine, and just as he opens them, he ducks to the side and bites down on my earlobe. “If you want me to fuck you like a groupie, keep doing that, but I don’t pay for my pussy.”
I don’t blink, unfazed with his cruelty. Leaning backward, I bring my hands to his cheeks. He thinks I’m a whore. As in, he thinks I wasn’t a stripper—I was a whore. “You probably couldn’t afford me anyway.” I swing my legs off his lap, shoving him away. Everything comes back into real time as the cackles of laughter erupt from around us. I forgot all about the rest of The Brothers who were here, and Killian, the little shit.
Before anyone can say anything, or worse, Killian gets inside my head again, I run out the door until the hot congestion of the tent is replaced with the cold night air. How did I get here? I had a family who loved me. My future was bright. That’s changed now.
I run to our RV and swing the door open, angry with myself for getting into this situation—even though it’s not exactly like I planned it. Tearing all of my clothes off, I slip in and out of the shower and shimmy into a long shirt before any of them get back. Opening the back curtains, I sink into my pillow and gaze out at the stars. It’s always been therapeutic for me to watch space. You don’t know what’s up there just as much as you don’t know what’s in the ocean. We think that what we see is all we know, but that’s not true at all. My eyes close slowly as I drift into sleep.
I wake before the sun comes up and throw some sweats on. I need to exercise before The Brothers wake up. If that’s what Killian is capable of, then I don’t want to know what the rest of the boys can do—particularly King. Pushing my wireless earbuds into my ears, I push play on “So Far Away” from Martin Garrix and manage to sneak out of the RV undetected. I don’t know where I’m going per se, but I know a little about New York and the surrounding suburbs. My legs carry me toward a track that has a dirt path,