Chapter 7

My tears dripped onto Anton’s toilet seat; I didn’t even have the will to lift my cheek off it. “Please.” I bit my lip. My body ached. “I don’t want this. Please, somebody… take this away…”

“Hey! Dee, you in there?” Ade again.

This time I answered, “I’m fine! I’m just cleaning myself up,” like I’d meant to before. “These sure are some awful bruises I got myself here,” I added, and almost immediately grimaced. I was aiming for “Banged up but Still Cheerful and Thus OK,” but somehow gave her “Little House on the Goddamn Prairie” instead.

“You sure you’re OK?” Ade asked before someone slammed into the door. It was the shock I needed to snap out of my stupor. My heart leapt into my throat. I could hear the gasps of the scandalized rich from here.

“You think you can do whatever you fucking want?” Anton. “Huh? Like you can take everything, like none it of fucking matters?”

My guess was that Hyde’s body was the one currently twitching in pain against the door. One more hit like that and it would bust open.

And then they’d find me.

Quickly but silently, I boosted myself off the toilet and tucked my cape of feathers into my underwear. They tickled my skin.

“Anton stop!” someone cried. I heard yelling, swearing, grunts of pain. Anton and Hyde were really fighting. I had to get out of there soon.

The feathers made my skirt bulge in the back. If I walked out of here right now, would they notice? Would feathers fall out? Would they see them? Take them? And then would they own me?

My stomach clenched. I could be owned.

I placed a hand against my chest to stop it from heaving, tried to shut the tears in and scoured the floor for feathers, scooping up every one I found and flushing them down the toilet.

My phone! I rushed to my purse on the sink counter and rummaged through it for my cell phone. If the world were fair, I’d be able to sneak out of the bathroom while everyone was distracted and get away cleanly. But the world wasn’t fair. I needed an escape route, and out of everyone in Anton’s penthouse there was only one person I could trust.

I started hitting the keypad.

I Need U!! PlZ get me long jacket. Dusnt Matter Whose. Tell me when u have it! Plz!

I sent the text to Ade and prayed. Two minutes later, my phone vibrated.

I’ll open the dor. Come in quick.

Hyde and Anton’s fight had moved further down the hallway. Their voices sounded more distant, and the door wasn’t rattling anymore. Sucking in a breath, I opened the door just a crack. Ade came in fast and locked the door after her. A feather fluttered out from my skirt. The look on her face said it all, but I just didn’t have time for words. I grabbed the feminine, asymmetrical trench coat from her hands.

“I need to get out of here,” I said, my eyes bulging and wet. “Please, let’s get out of here!”

Ade didn’t ask any questions. Picking up the feather, she shoved it into the jacket’s inner pocket after I threw it on. I clamped my arms around myself.

“Ready?” she whispered. It was the most solemn I’d ever seen her since Mom’s death.

She opened the door and we barged out. I made sure to pull on the hem so that the jacket pressed against my thighs, just in case any feathers leaked out. Hyde was nowhere to be found. Whether he’d been drawn and quartered, or just escorted out, I really couldn’t care right now. We headed to the elevator–

I’d made a wrong turn around a fashion photographer and bumped into Anton, his face bruised and cut courtesy of Hyde. My fingers lost their grip around the fabric, and I felt something slide down my thigh, but I couldn’t think about it. I just had to go.

“Oh, it’s you. Hyde’s bitch, right?” My blood ran cold as Anton slithered next to me. Every muscle in my body tensed. “You find assholes hot, huh? Then how about–”

Ade kicked him in the shins with her two inch heel. He stumbled back. “Your party sucked ass,” she said and shoved me into the elevator. Once the doors closed, I clung to my trench coat, closed my eyes and buried my face in Ade’s shoulder.

We were silent the entire ride back to Brooklyn. Ade looked as if she was expending the last of her willpower trying to keep herself from breaking. I, on the other hand, was already in pieces on the dirty cab floor.

We stopped in front of our dilapidated, narrow yellow house, a couple of narrow yellow houses down from a Chinese restaurant. I scooped up the pieces of myself and trudged out the door, waiting while Ade paid the driver.

I could see her out of the corner of my eyes. Her gaze travelled from my bloody face, down my water-logged hair to the stolen trench she knew hid the feathers pressed against my back. I looked like a mess and felt like one too.

“Dee,” she started, her voice shaking.

I shut the door behind me. “Just don’t.”

“Seriously, don’t say anything. Please.” Tightening the jacket around myself, I forced my drying throat to swallow.

Dad was sleeping on the couch. An empty bottle rested on the floor beside him while his hand dangled over the armrest. I could have laughed.

“Deanna, what are you doing?” Ade followed me into the kitchen.

“I’ll take care of it,” I muttered. Scissors could do it. Or a knife – that big one I always used to slice through chicken bone.

She watched me, wide-eyed, as I rummaged through the drawers for a sharp enough blade. As soon as I grabbed a butcher knife Ade’s hand wrapped around my wrist. “What the hell are you thinking?”

I shoved her off. “I said I’ll take care of it!”

When she wrestled it out of my grip, all the heat rushed to my head and I lunged at her. She threw the knife in the sink and held me back.

“Stop it!” I struggled against her, my eyes burning. “Please, Ade! Please! I have to get rid of them!”

It was the first time in a long time I’d seen my sister cry. It was wrong, unnatural. She pulled me into a desperate hug, gripping me as though I’d dissolve into nothing if she didn’t. I did anyway.

“Please,” I coughed out, because I was choking on my own tears. “I need a knife. I need to get rid of them.” I longed for the kiss of a sharp edge, needing it so desperately that I knew I’d die without it. But who was I kidding? My life was already over.

“They go back in.” Ade’s breath brushed against my neck. “I heard they go back in on their own. Just… just…” She shook her head. Then, pulling away from me, she gave me a smile that nearly made me forget she was hurting almost as much as I was. “It’ll be OK. First we’ll get you cleaned up. There are bandages and Band-Aids in the pantry. After that, just go to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning. OK?” It was like she was trying to convince herself. But all I wanted was to cut the awfulness away.

“But I need a knife… just give me…”

Ade hugged me again and I fell silent. They go back in on their own. I had to believe it. I had to. I pressed my lips into a thin line, forcing myself to stay on my feet.