The Blue Room Vol. 2: The Blue Room Series by Kailin Gow

 
     
    Prologue
     
    Staci
     
                “ S hit...” Terrence's voice is so cold behind me.
                “No!”
I'm screaming; I’m sobbing. I'm going insane, I think – going absolutely mad.
“No – no!”
                The
one girl who was kind to me. The one girl who befriended me. The one girl who
could have given me the answers to get out of here once and for all: lying dead
in my arms.
                With
a gun in her hand.
                Like
she shot herself.
                But
I'd seen her – moments before – in the throes of ecstasy – she looked so happy
– she'd been so happy, so in love – so alive .
                Why
would Roz kill herself?
                “Staci...”
Terrence is rubbing my shoulders. “Staci, please.”
                I
round on him, but I can't speak. The tears and the screams are coming too fast.
                “Staci
– you can't be here.”
                “She
– she killed herself?”  I'm stammering; I'm stuttering; the words make no
sense. “She k-k-k-illed herself? She can't – she didn't – I saw her – she was
so happy.”
                “You
can't see this.”
                Terrence
grabs me by the arm almost roughly. He leads me down the hall – so swiftly –
back into my room and locks the door. He frog-marches me into the shower and
turns it on: the water soaks through my dress, already stained with blood. He
pulls the dress off me and puts it into the garbage, tying the plastic bag
shut.
                He
washes the blood off my hands, my face, my naked body.
                He
lets me cry in his arms.
                In
those moments he's not Terrence Blue, the nightclub impresario, the master
pimp. He's just Terrence, a boy, comforting a girl with such extraordinary
tenderness I almost swoon in his arms. He's gentle with me, careful. He's
shaking himself. His clothes are soaking wet in the shower, but he doesn't
care. He just holds me.
                “I'm
so sorry, Staci,” he whispers. “I'm so sorry you had to see that.” He swallows.
“I can't believe it myself.” He takes a deep breath and shudders.
                “She
was so happy...” My voice cracks. “She told me – she was in love.” I can't
breathe either. “Why would she do it?”
                Terrence
closes his eyes. “Roz…she got attached,” he says. His voice is almost cold.
“She'd fallen for her patron – I know that much. She really loved him. Thought
he loved her. But this place…we deal in fantasy. For him – it was just that.
For her – maybe it was more. Maybe she told him she loved him. Maybe she took
it too far – and he didn't feel the same way.”
                I
feel sick to my stomach.
                A
fantasy, that's all it is, I tell myself.
                A
fantasy you almost succumbed to yourself.
                Just
moments ago I'd been confessing my feelings to Terrence Blue – pretending like
this place, like the things we did here, like any part of this life, was real.
Just moments ago, I'd been as stupid as Rita.
                “It's
happened before,” Terrence says. “Some girls get in too deep. It gets to them.
Poor girl – she always seemed to have her head screwed on straight. Of all the
girls here – I thought when I hired her she'd be able to keep her cool. I'd
never have assigned her to Mr. X – not if I'd known...”
                Mr.
X. Where have I heard that before ?
                “What
do you mean, Mr. X?”
                “To
preserve anonymity,” Terrence says. “We never give the girls the clients'
names. Every client is assigned a letter. Mr. A, Mr. B, all the way down to Mr.
Z. Roz's client was Mr. X.”
                A
vision comes to me.