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CHAPTER 32

Simon

The room smells like crayons before I see it. Melted wax and the vanilla shit Jamie carries around with him follow us through the doorway.

The dollhouse takes up half the far wall, furniture arranged inside like somebody expects the tiny fuckers living there to complain if a chair gets moved. The front hangs open. Three of the rooms are occupied.

I know which one is supposed to be mine.

Heather walks past me and drops into the middle of an enormous beanbag. Jamie’s settled against her side before she finishes getting comfortable. She puts one hand on his thigh.

He looks at me.

I’ve seen that look from cooks when somebody new gets dropped onto the line halfway through service. He already knows where everything is, which orders matter, and how badly the new guy is about to fuck up.

Oliver takes the other edge of the beanbag. He doesn’t say anything when Heather puts a plastic box in his lap. Something inside shifts with a dry little rattle.

Heather spreads her knees and points to the carpet between them. “Simon.”

My ribs still hurt where she worked me over last night, and getting down there is going to hurt like lifting a full stockpot.

Jamie keeps watching me. Fuck him.

I lower myself to the carpet and lean back against the beanbag. Heather’s knees settle on either side of my shoulders.

Jamie looks away first.

Heather reaches around me and takes my right wrist.

I expect her to turn my palm up. The ruler is still in her pocket, and the skin there remembers breakfast well enough to know what comes next. Instead, she pulls my hand back over her thigh and studies my fingernails.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

She ignores me and opens a small plastic case beside her hip. A nail brush, an emery board and a few other little tools sit inside like she packed for a sleepover instead of a kidnapping. She picks up the brush and starts working the black shit out from beneath my thumbnail.

I try to pull my hand away. Her fingers tighten around my wrist enough to stop me. Jamie shifts against her side without taking his eyes off what she’s doing.

“I washed my hands.”

Heather turns my index finger toward the light. “Badly.”

She scrubs beneath the nail again.

I know exactly how much pressure she could use if she wanted to make a point. She proved that last night with the baton, and this morning with the ruler. Instead, she works carefully, dragging the brush along the edge of each nail until the last traces of the kitchen disappear.

Heather adjusts her grip and keeps going, filing the rough edge of one nail smooth before moving to the next. Her wrist turns as she works. An ugly bracelet slides down her arm. Orange, pink, purple and two shades of green fight each other around cheap plastic beads.

Jamie’s mouth twitches before he drops his attention to Heather’s hand on my fingers.

Across from us, Oliver opens the box in his lap. Beads fill the compartments in rows, sorted by color and size. Heather reaches past my shoulder and selects three containers without pausing in her work.

Red. Black. Silver.

She sets them beside Oliver’s knee, then takes my other hand. “Your turn.” Heather finishes smoothing the edge of my thumbnail and lets my hand rest against her leg.

Oliver has the cord stretched between both hands. The colored beads fill about half of the cord. The open box sits beside him. He looks at the box for a long second before lifting his eyes to Heather. “Which name?”

She stops filing.