Miss Nobody

Chapter 14

CASTIGATIONS FOR THE CRUEL

Early Early Morning Day 5

Cherry and Jess noticed me, probably my shocked face, and broke into riotous laughter. Jess managed to get to her feet while I picked up the metal tray. She helped Cherry stand, both almost falling to the floor again but steadying themselves with each other.

Cherry tried to stifle her laughter as Jess shushed her. Cherry stumbled into the kitchen, grabbing the bottle before leaning heavily across the kitchen island. She pointed at me. "You look like you've seen a ghost." She giggled and hiccuped. "Boo." She broke into laughter.

"Where's your boyfriend?" I asked her hoping Keiran wasn't going to show up.

She shook her head. "Oh, he's busy. You know how men are." She took a sip from the vodka bottle. "Where's yours?" She smiled. "Everyone sees the way Mr. Zantana looks at you."

I blushed.

"Like you're a delicious piece of cake." She guzzled.

Jess walked into the kitchen holding a book. Curses & Castigations for the Cruel. "Your grandfather was a naughty boy." She opened the book and read outloud. "Losing the Looser. Get rid of that liar who lives in your bed. They will sink to the bottom. Like living led. Oh, this is promising." She rifled through the shelves, putting her supplies on the counter.

Cherry shook her head. "He was a strange man." She took a long drink from the half-empty bottle. "You don't believe in this stuff," she said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. She handed the bottle to Jess.

Jess grabbed the bottle. "It couldn't hurt to try. You don't have to be around him like I do." She shuddered and drank. She turned to me holding out the bottle of vodka. "I gotta loser and it's time I got rid of him. Drink with us like old times and we'll do girly shit. Like cast spells to get rid of bad boyfriends." She giggled.

Chef's death, and now Keiran, had changed things between us but before everything happened, Jess and Cherry had been friendly to me. It didn't bother them that I was quiet. Both of them would chat away about anything and everything and I was happy to listen. If only to not think, not worry about my life. They tried to include me in their odd friendship as much as they could.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away." She wiggled the bottle a little, enticing me.

I took the bottle and drank. "I'm going to need a chaser," I gasped. Even with the green apple flavor it tasted like rubbing alcohol marinated in gas.

Cherry grabbed a few sodas from the fridge and passed them around.

Jess looked over her spell ingredients. "There's three of us. That's good. Three is a Magical number." She placed a black pillar candle in the center of her cleared workspace on the counter.

Cherry plucked the bottle from me. "How do you know?" She looked skeptical.

"From the TV." Jess gave Cherry an exasperated look. "Hold this." She shook a jar full of rose thorns. Cherry handed me back the vodka before taking the thorns and sitting on the stool.

I gulped the alcohol preparing myself for their shenanigans. "Shouldn't there be like a protection circle or something?"

Jess looked over the page. "It doesn't say anything about that." She shrugged and placed a bowl of quills in front of me on the counter.

I sipped a little more and passed her the bottle.

She drank the rest and smashed the empty bottle against the sink.

Cherry gasped.

My eyes widened in surprise.

"We're just going to make him a little uncomfortable." Jess held her arm over the candle and slid the broken glass against the thin skin on her inner arm. Blood Magic. She chanted the words from the book as her blood dropped over the flame, making it sizzle and smoke.

The lights flickered, then settled on a sickly amber before leaving us in pitch black.

Cherry screamed and stood up, knocking the stool to the ground.

"Maybe we should light the candle?" I suggested quietly, more to myself than them.

The candle flamed to life on the counter.

Cherry screamed again.

Jess stared at me.

I shook my head.

Jess finished the chant from the book and blew out the candle.

We were quiet in the darkness. Waiting for something to happen. It felt like minutes went by before the silence was broken.

"It didn't work." The lights turned on and Cherry was standing by the light switch giggling.

Jess shrugged and closed the book. "Never hurts to try." She nodded to my rack of cooling cookie scones. "Those look good," she implored.

"They're to help with sleep." I warned her before she ate one.

She shrugged. "I'm on a diet anyway. Want to look good for our interview." She smoothed her hands over her thin body.

Cherry picked up one of the cookie scones and shrugged. "I could use some help sleeping. A lot of nightmares lately." She bit into the cookie, breaking it in half. "Ouch. Shit." Blood trickled down Cherry's chin. "My tooth broke." She spat out a bloody broken tooth onto her palm.

Morning Day 5

The cold icy-chill pricked my skin as I sat up quickly in my bed. Cherry's bloody face flashed in my mind, disorienting me. I was in my bed. In my room. Still in the same clothes I wore getting drunk with Jess and Cherry, just hours before. I vaguely recalled them walking me to my room and giggling while they dumped me on my bed.

Cherry trying to stand still as she removed my shoe. Jess telling her, "don't she'll think it's weird that someone undressed her." Cherry replying, "should we have told her we spiked it with moonshine?" Both of them giggling and stumbling as they left.

A hot shower would help with this hangover. The room spun and I leaned against the wall to make my way to the bathroom without falling.

The dizziness subsided even more as I dried myself off. I usually didn't drink that much with them, definitely not enough for me to black out but the shower helped a little and some greasy food would help soak up whatever remained in my stomach.

A small piece of crumbled black velveteen lay in the corner of my mostly empty suitcase. I put my bathrobe on instead. I wasn't about to put that skimpy dress on any time soon. Looks like it's laundry day. Mrs. Ortega had snuck that into my suitcase. I thought about contacting her but I was afraid to hear what she would say about my sleepwalking. If she asked about Jonny what would I tell her?

I jumped slightly when a loud knock sounded on the door.

"It's me," Jonny's voice carried through the heavy wood.

I tried to calm my pounding heart and opened the door.

Jonny took my breath away as he leaned against my door frame, confident, intimidating. His eye was swollen, a red cut along his eyebrow and the bridge of his nose. His lip was puffy and various bruises and cuts spread across his exposed skin.

"Well look at you all fresh...who did that to you?" He noticed the bruise on my temple and grabbed my chin to get a better look at the yellowing bruise.

I could feel the anger radiate from him, a smell like concrete after it rained, overwhelmed me. I stepped back from him, suddenly angry with him for making me feel this way about him and leaving and didn't want to give him any sympathy for his face. I pulled my bathrobe tighter around me. An annoyed expression on my face.

"Why are you covered in bruises?" He exaggerated.

"I have one bruise. I fell." I shrugged. Maybe when the homeless lady had a hold of me I somehow hit my head on something. I wasn't ready to tell anyone about that yet. The old woman didn't need to be hassled by the police.

"Did Keiran do something to you on your date?"

"It wasn't a date. Keiran just..."

"If he's laid a hand on you I will kill him."

"He hasn't touched me. It's not like that, it wasn't a date." I sighed.

"Word on the street is you two getting nice and cozy." He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, stopping himself from saying more.

"Do you have someone following me?" Probably not if he didn't know about the homeless woman.

"So it's true." His eyes darkened, waiting for my reply, to confirm or not.

"Keiran and I are just friends, he was doing me a favor." Kinda, I thought.

Jonny shrugged and took a step closer to me. "Sure."

"He's with Cherry now, anyway." I looked at Jonny, the anger lessening along with the strong smell. I inhaled deeply.

"You sound disappointed," he teased.

"It's not that. I have a lot on my mind."

His fingers were gentle on my chin as he turned my head to look at the bruise on my temple again. "I wouldn't have left you alone if I had a choice."

Things quivered in my stomach and I wanted nothing more than Jonny to kiss me but I stepped back instead. "We should keep this professional between us. You are my boss." He didn't need to know that I was cursed and bad things happened to the people I cared about but our work relationship was a flimsy excuse and we both knew it.

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. "I'm not your boss. You work for the old owners of this place. I work for the new owner." He tucked my hair behind my ear. "You're probably right though, best we keep this...what did you say? Professional." He grinned.

I was pretty sure he was teasing me again. I rolled my eyes and gathered my dirty laundry hamper, creating a barrier between us. His presence was overwhelming and distracting and I was quickly forgetting why I needed to push him away. "I just have a lot going on right now."

He nodded. "I know." He seemed sympathetic.

You don't know half of it. I stripped the sheets off my bed.

Jonny leaned against the wall. "Don't do that. Don't stop talking when I know you have something to say."

I side-eyed him and took the pillowcases. Every cell in my body wanted to tell him everything. To trust him with the memories coming back. Would he judge me like everyone else or would he die because he got close to me?

"You may not trust me but you trusted my sister?"

I nodded. I owed Mrs. Ortega my life. Her involvement in my rehabilitation was imperative to my brain recovering as much as it had. The techniques she used on me were experimentative, to say the least, but it had worked.

Jonny stood next to me, his hands on my shoulders turned me to face him. "She sent you to me for a reason. She knows I can protect you. The more you tell me, the more we can help you."

Before I second-guessed myself I blurted out, "I worked in a brothel." Tears came fast and hot, burning my eyes. "I think I was a bad person," I whispered. "I think that's why no one came to claim me. Someone put a curse on me and now they want to kill me and everyone I care about dies."

Jonny brushed back my hair and wrapped his arms around me. "I know bad people. Very bad people." He kissed my temple gently and laughed softly. "You are not one of them," he whispered in my ear.

"I don't even know what my name is." The tears spilled over and streamed down my face. I pushed away from him and walked to the large window. I wiped my tears on the newly hung curtain.

Jonny was behind me. He didn't touch me but I could feel his comforting warmth on my back. "I have something to tell you too." He stared out the window as I turned to face him. "I know you worked there. You left there talking about how you had enough money to hire a lawyer but no one knows why you needed one in the first place. There were some videos up on the internet with you doing promo for the...Casa de Gato, but nothing with personal information. We had them take down the videos. I have a copy if you want to see them but-" He trailed off and shrugged.

"How do you know all this?" My head spun with the information.

"We...I...my sister had me hire a Private Investigator before you arrived here. She wanted to help you. She said the police weren't doing much and she was worried about someone coming after you. When we found out about the House with the Red Door, she wasn't sure if we should tell you. She seemed to think you were better off not knowing but...my vote was for telling you. She hasn't spoken to me since I told her I was going to." His phone rang. He looked at it briefly, silenced it, and slid it into his back pocket.

"I'm glad to know the truth." I turned around to look out the window. I wrapped my arms around myself and thought about the memories I had of the brothel. The men were all Jonny in my daydream.

I absentmindedly played with the silver chain around my neck. Wearing the Virgin Mary seemed ironic yet comforting at the same time. Maybe I should have been mad at Jonny for invading my privacy but I'd been so alone, any help in my case was appreciated. I was grateful to Jonny and his sister. Grateful they cared enough to help. "Is this why you left?" I stayed facing the window not wanting to see his face when he answered. "Because I was a sex worker?"

"Darlin'." He moved my hair to the side. His fingertips brushing lightly over my neck. He chuckled. "We all do what we have to do."

I turned to face him with my eyebrow raised.

"I've done things too. Things to survive. To protect my family. Things that I'm not always proud of and things that I would do over and over again no matter what people say." He was gently touching my face with his thumb. Tracing my bottom lip.

I pulled him closer to me by his collar and kissed him. I wanted the loneliness to disappear, even if only for a few moments. So much for keeping this professional.

His hands tangled in my hair.

I reached for his waistband and pulled his black shirt over his head. My hands traced over his tattooed chest, careful to avoid the multiple cuts and bruises. The ones on his chest were deeper and more serious looking.