I should have kept my mouth shut around Mary-Beth. I shouldn’t have told her what I knew about Eagle and her brother. I shouldn’t have tried to help.
He led me away and it felt like he had my life in his hands. I didn’t even know his name.
3
Ghost
Mercy was beautiful, and not in the way the other chicks were around here. There was something soft and unusually delicate about her. For a professional stripper, she didn’t have that strut and defiant self-confidence the others did. It was a little confusing for me. Was this girl a stripper or not?
She had golden-blonde hair, silky and long. Her eyes were blue and large and she had soft feminine features. I knew I needed to stop staring at her and just get the job done, but I couldn’t. For some reason, it made me angry to imagine other men seeing her naked, watching her strip. She could barely even meet my eye. She’d already tried to make a run for it now, tried to escape my grip. What was she even afraid of?
“Okay, okay!” she said now, snapping me out of my thoughts. We were in the hallway leading up to Drax’s office. She started pulling her arm, trying to escape again. Where was she going to go? Where would she run? So I released her and she yanked herself away, nearly stumbling over.
“Since you know my name, isn’t it fair that I should know yours too?” she said, trying to meet my eyes from under her heavy lids. I wanted to pull her to me again, but this time so I could tip her face up and force her to look at me. I wanted to claim that pink mouth.
“My name is Ghost.”
“Ghost? Your parents couldn’t have named you that,” she continued.
“That’s all you need to know.”
“Okay.”
“We need to go in. Our President is waiting in there to speak to you.”
Suddenly, she looked afraid again.
“Can I just get a moment? Please? You took me by surprise,” she said pleadingly.
“What did you think was going to happen after you told Mary-Beth what you said?”
Mercy looked up at me sharply and gulped.
“I was just trying to help her, trying to do the right thing. It looked like she needed an explanation for why her brother did the things he did.”
“Then you have to tell Drax that.”
“But I’m telling you…”
I saw the way she was kneading her fingers together. She was afraid. She didn’t know what to expect from Drax or what was waiting behind the door at the end of the hallway.
“We need to question you,” I continued, clenching my jaws.
“Ghost, I promise I don’t know anything else. I’m the new girl,” she said.
That explained it. The reason why she didn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the strippers. Why she looked so shy. She was an amateur.
“You still have to go in there and tell Drax whatever you know,” I replied. She looked up at me, meeting my eyes, her nostrils flared.
I didn’t find out what she was going to say next because Drax’s office door opened and Mary-Beth stepped out.
“Mercy!” she squealed and came running toward us. At first, it seemed like Mercy was visibly shrinking. A sudden need to protect her overtook me and I stood in Mary-Beth’s way. I knew that was irrational. Mary-Beth wasn’t going to try and hurt her, instead, she swatted me out of her way and lunged toward Mercy again.
I watched as she pulled her into her arms for a hug. Mercy’s face was frozen up. She wasn’t saying anything.
“Mercy, I’m so sorry for involving you in this, are you okay?” Mary-Beth slowly released her and took her hands.
Mercy took a few moments to respond but then nodded. Seeing her nod calmed me a little. I had no idea why I felt the need to protect her from Mary-Beth. I had to clench my palms into fists to hold myself back.
“You just need to speak to them and tell them what you told me and anything else that you know.”
“I don't know much…that’s what I’ve been trying to tell Ghost.” Mercy threw me a look and then quickly looked away. For some reason, she was refusing to hold my gaze.
Mary-Beth nodded. “Yeah, that’s okay, but they still want to hear it from you. You just have to talk to them, that is all. Everything is going to be okay, hon.”
Mercy licked her lips and released a huge sigh. Mary-Beth seemed to get uncomfortable in the silence and then started walking away. I waited till she had disappeared from the hallway before I looked at Mercy again.
“Are you ready to go in now?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a low voice.
I wasn’t sure what more to say. How to calm or encourage her. I wasn’t exactly an expert at emotional support. Neither did I actually know this girl, but my instinctual need to protect her made me stand there with her for a few extra minutes.
Finally, she looked up at me, breathing in deeply.
“It’s just that…my interaction with the President of the previous MC…erm, Crash, Mary-Beth’s brother…well, it was never good. He scared me. I’m sorry.”
“Drax is not like him. You don’t have to be afraid of him,” I replied.
She nodded. “Okay, I think I’m ready to go now.”
I led the way down the hallway to the office door and knocked before entering.
Drax was writing in his diary again and then he looked up. I saw the look of surprise on his face too. He also wasn’t expecting a stripper from Teasers to look like Mercy.
Drax squared his shoulders and put his hands together on his desk. I had a feeling he was trying to mask his pain again.
“So what do you have to tell us, Mercy?” he began.
She looked at me again and I nodded.
I didn’t realize until now that I had suddenly become her source of encouragement and support.
* * *
Everything was a blur the previous night.
