Page 2 of Underground Prince

“W—” I gripped her extended arm for balance. “What’s our safe word? I mean my safe word, to let you know when I’ve gone Code Red.”

Sighing, she dropped her arm. “Have I dragged you here against your will?”

I pouted. “No.”

“Do you need the money?”

“Yes.”

“Would I bring you somewhere unsafe?”

I glanced down at my misbehaving maid outfit, then back up at the entrance where a lithe, vulturine and kind of scary man just decided to stop in and hang out for a while.

I countered with, “Do you possess a danger meter I’m not aware of? A point at which you know we must escape?”

She shook her head. “Honestly, Scar.”

“Because I think you’re on the fritz.”

“You said you needed something,” she said, softer now. “Something to make you feel like you could live again.”

I swallowed. “You told me you were just a waitress.”

“You’re falling, Scarlet. I can’t watch it anymore. And so, I’m giving you this.”

A shuffling sound came from drums of trash behind her. Noises sounding suspiciously like a critter. “You think I need saving and you brought me to a rat-hole?”

“I don’t think you need to be rescued,” she said. “I think you need an awakening.”

That could’ve been a warning or a promise. She went on. “I know you. And I think this is what you need. But you have to promise, promise, not to tell anyone.”

I needed excitement, yes. A pounding pulse, a taste of uncertainty, a reason. I needed life.

But this. Here we were, standing on a dirty side street in the Lower East Side, dressed like a rich man’s blow up doll.

“I don’t…” I said.

“Do you trust me?”

Verily’s green eyes, illuminated by the weak golden light, seemed to shine. She stopped my fidgeting hands by pulling them closer to her.

“Yes,” I answered. Of course. She was the one thing that kept me in the present.

“Good. So trust that this will be fine. And God forbid, that maybe you’ll have fun.”

Grumbling, I said, “Yesterday you were all over me about professional responsibility, and now here we are…”

Instead of responding, she propelled me forward with another mutant-strength twist of her toothpick arms. Verily opened the front door and I toddled after her, mumbling threats involving her hair bleach.

She halted at a second door, arching a brow at me. “Just be thankful I’m not inducting you on lingerie night,” she said, and hip-bumped it open.

After one last pull, I stumbled into my new society of smoke, money and men.

2

THIS AIN'T MONOPOLY

Not one person gave a crap about our entrance.