Chapter 8

Run,little rabbit.

The bad feeling didn’t fade away with breakfast, or lunch, or even while breathing in fresh, rose-scented air from my window as I looked out at the ocean and the sky. It was angry today. More grey than blue, and the ocean mirrored it, too. They both matched my mood.

I knew Hannah was full of shit. Whatever the reason why she’d cornered me like that and had basically threatened me, she was full of it. She was just trying to scare me, that’s all.

So, why did my instincts insist that she was telling the truth?

Why would someone like her threaten me?

And what the hell was up with that bite mark?!

Questions filled my head. I wanted to go talk to Mama Si, but I didn’t dare. I wanted to ask Marissa, too, but somehow, I was sure she wouldn’t know what to tell me.

Nightfall found me as indecisive as ever, lost in thought still, so when someone slammed their fists on the door, I screamed.

It was almost ten p.m., and Marissa had already brought me dinner. She said she was off for the night, too, so unless it was Mama Si coming to demand why I hadn’t left the room all day, it was Hannah. She’d come back to try to scare me again.

What the hell was wrong with that woman? Had she nothing better to do than follow me in the dark and slam me against walls and threaten me like that?

I stood up from the floor, feeling the blood rushing down my numb legs, when…

“Oh, Faaaallll! Wakey, wakey!” someone sang right outside the door, before slamming his fists on it once more.

Adam. It was Adam.

“You’ve got three minutes, sweet-cakes,” he said when I opened the door, raising three fingers at my face.

“What?” What the hell was he talking about?

And why did he look runway worthy at this hour, with his satin black shirt and dark wash jeans on, his makeup flawless, his hair combed back?

“We’re going shopping, baby girl!”

I blinked. “It’s ten p.m., Adam,” I informed him because, apparently, he didn’t own a clock.

The next second, doors down the hallway opened and closed, and sounds of women cheering and giggling filled my ears.

“Yes, well, Mama Si can’t shut down the mall during the day, only after ten, so our shopping hours are different from everyone else’s,” he said, looking down at my robe. “Go on, get dressed. Put on whatever you have. By tomorrow, your closet will be half full.”

I shook my head, sure this was a dream. Sure I was hearing him wrong.

Meanwhile the girls, Mia and Amber and Melahni and another blonde girl I hadn’t met yet were already rushing down the hallway, laughing and jumping in the air, clearly over the moon.

“I don’t…what…what the hell are you talking about, Adam?!”

“Baby girl, the chopper leaves without us if we’re not up there in time. I get that you have questions, but ask them when we get there, okay?”

My lips opened and closed. I wasn’t able to produce sound at all.

Adam grinned. “That’s a good girl. Now, come on. I’ll lend you my jacket until you buy your own. Let’s go!”

Realization hit me like a brick in the face. If I was understanding correctly, I was going to get on a fucking helicopter, right now, at ten p.m. to go shopping in a closed mall.

I flewfor thirty minutes on a helicopter with six other girls, headphones on my ears, and my heart about to beat right out of me. We landed on top of the mall building, and all the stores were open—only for us.

For the next three hours, we were to just grab whatever we liked and leave without paying for a single thing.

It was all so very overwhelming to begin with and then the girls began to thank me. I turned to Adam, who refused to leave my side, the question in my eyes.

“Mama Si has already taken the girls shopping for this month, but she’s taking them again because you need clothes and she wants you to have the whole shopping experience,” Adam explained. “Hence why she invited these little brats again.”

He pulled me down corridors and exit doors, and then we passed the food and drinks area, which was full of people who took pictures while the girls posed for them and blew them kisses—marketing, Adam said. They didn’t shut down this area, only the stores, Adam said.

And then we were a floor below, and I had yet to make sense of this whole thing.

“All right, dolls! You know the rules! Don’t get greedy, don’t overspend, and most importantly—have fun!” Adam said.

The girls cheered. Before the minute was over, they were all running toward the stores—open, all of them. Open and empty, save for the security guards at the corners, watching the girls in awe.

Adam turned to me.

“What are you waiting for, baby girl?”

I shrugged. “I…I don’t know.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned down until his face was all I could see. “You’re in an empty mall with everything inside those stores at your disposal. We’re going to go in these shops as fast as we can, and we’re going to take everything you like and need and want—do you understand?”

“I do, I do,” I said, nodding until I got dizzy. “I just…I’m just not used to this.”

Adam chuckled. “Nobody is, sweet-cakes! But you’re Mama Si’s doll now. Your life is a fairytale.” He gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Take advantage of it. Now.”

He turned around and slipped into a lingerie shop together with a bunch of other girls, leaving me to pick my jaw up from the floor and get my shit together so I could follow.

“There she is!”

I smiled and it was big and it was genuine. Authentic. I felt so fucking good in my skin it was almost funny.

“Good morning, dolls,” I said, cheeks flushed and eyes low as Marissa held the chair ready for me to sit down at the long table, half of it outside in the backyard. The dining room here was in one of those half-open rooms, in a different part of the mansion.

Yes, I’d come out of the room to eat with the girls.

And did I mention that I had clothes now?

So many freaking clothes. Almost seventy percent of the giant closet was already full. Designer brands, soft fabrics and sparkly jewelry, high end bras and panties and nightgowns to die for. I had yoga pants and running shoes and twenty different sandals, and fancy lotions for my face and body and six different perfumes for every mood, according to Adam.

I don’t know what it was about having all those things that had put a smile on my face the second I’d woken up. I couldn’t fucking help it—and so what if it made me vain?

Turns out, I liked to be spoiled. Turns out, when I told Brandon I didn’t give a shit about things, that I could do with a pair of pants and two shirts forever, I was lying through my fucking teeth. Turns out, I liked having lotions with shimmer in them—I wanted all of it, in all scents.

And Mama Si had gotten it for me.

“Last night was the best sleep I’ve gotten in weeks, as is the case every shopping night,” Coco informed us.

“And it’s not just the exhaustion,” said Mia, nodding in approval. “It’s the feeling.”

“It’s the privilege,” Melahni said, munching on her croissant.

“It’s knowing that we’re surrounded only by the best of the best, as we deserve,” said a girl I’d only met last night—Peanut was her name. She assured me she’d picked it herself—and that she tasted just as good.

“What about you?” Amber asked me, and I stopped with my eggs halfway to my mouth, straightening my shoulders again.

“Uh…I don’t know,” I said, but they were all looking at me still, all waiting for my answer. “I guess for me it’s the pleasure of owning a lot of things I probably will never use, but still…you know. I have them.”

They all burst out laughing like I’d said the funniest thing they’d ever heard. I was giggling, too. A little bit.

The help was there to fill up their plates and their glasses and they all acted like they didn’t even notice, like this was every day. And later, when they invited me to the HeartPool for mimosas and a day out in the sun, I put on a yellow bikini, and I went. I sat with them on a lounger and listened to them talking about everything and anything, and I was able to ignore Hannah’s sneaky stares just fine, like I had the night before at the mall.

I wouldn’t let her get to me. She wouldn’t scare me away from these girls. Just to watch them talking and moving and laughing was enough.

This was their life. They focused on enjoying their time, taking care of themselves, and looking pretty.

And somehow, in some mad fucking way, this was my life now, too.