CHAPTER 2
My phone buzzes at 7:14 AM. An unknown number. The screen illuminates my dark bedroom like an accusation.
I should ignore it. Should roll over and try to salvage the three hours of sleep I might get before my morning lab. But my fingers have their own agenda, swiping across the screen before my brain can intervene.
One new message. A video attachment.
My thumb hovers over it, trembling. I already know what it is. I can feel it in the hollow pit that's replaced my stomach.
I press play.
The footage is grainy but clear enough. Me on stage. Rose in her element, body wrapped around the pole, back arched in a move that took months to perfect. The red lights cast shadows that make my face harder to recognize, but anyone looking would know. Would see Claire Young beneath the makeup and glitter.
The ten-second clip ends. Another message appears immediately.
Meet me at the campus coffee shop. 9 AM.
Come alone or this goes to the Dean of Admissions.
And everyone else.
I drop the phone like it's burning my skin. It bounces on my comforter, screen still glowing with Theo's threat.
"Fuck." The word escapes on a breath that sounds more like a sob. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I curl into myself, knees to chest, forehead pressed against them. The position I've assumed during every crisis since childhood. Like making myself smaller will somehow make the danger pass over me.
It never works.
My mind races through options, each one worse than the last. Go to the meeting. Let him blackmail me into whatever he wants. My body. My dignity. My future.
Don't go.Call his bluff. Watch my medical school dreams evaporate when the video circulates.
Tell someone. But who? My boss? The police who would give him a slap on the wrist and a warning because of his connections? The university that would expel me for my conduct faster than they'd punish Theo for blackmail?
There are no real choices.
I force myself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The panic technique they taught us in that mandatory wellness seminar last semester. The one where they talked about stress management without acknowledging that most of us are one financial emergency away from dropping out.
The irony isn't lost on me.
When my hands stop shaking enough to function, I pick up the phone again. Stare at the message. At the video that's frozen on a frame of me mid-spin, face turned toward the camera like I knew it was there. Like I was performing for it specifically.
I wasn't. I never am. The men blur together after a while. Just wallets with eyes.
I text back a single word:Fine.
The shower doesn't wash away the feeling of being watched, but it helps with the club smell—smoke and perfume and desperation. I scrub until my skin is pink, until the water runs cold, until I can pretend I'm just Claire again. Pre-med student. Scholarship recipient. A good girl.
The lie sits uneasily on my skin as I dress in jeans and a loose sweater despite the summer heat. Armor of a different kind than what Rose wears, but armor nonetheless.
The campus coffee shop is crowded at 8:55 AM. Students hunched over laptops, professors grading papers, the constant hiss of the espresso machine providing white noise that makes private conversations possible. I scan the room, heart hammering against my ribs hard enough to bruise.
Theo isn't here yet.
I choose a table in the corner, back to the wall, facing the door. The position of prey that's been hunted before. My coffee sits untouched in front of me, growing cold as the minutes tick by.
9:00 AM.
