chapter 11: against the wall

The hand stayed digging into the back of her upper arm, leading her throughout the enormous hotel.

Every light was turned on in the large room which August assumed to be some sort of lobby even though it was the very middle of the night.

"Most of my men's partying usually ends somewhere around this time," Willow stated, her shoulder brushing against August's. "They are probably all asleep or fucking women in their room right now." By "men," she meant both the men and women under her leadership in the Blue Porcelain gang.

August's jaw tightened. She couldn't stand the way the woman kept grabbing her and pushing her around in such a demanding, authoritative way. She wanted to rebel against her, to yank her arm away and tell her to stop leading her around like she was her child or pet that she had to keep a leash on. The only thing stopping her was the gun in the woman's belt.

"I bet you wish you were fucking that waitress in your room right now," August stated, trying to get some sort of conversation from the woman. She remembered the night on the roof with her in October and how it wasn't hard to spark a convo with her. She also had noticed they had a common interest in sarcasm and cynics. She figured that if she could get on a conversational level with the woman, she might be able to earn her trust and find a way to escape, because at that moment, she knew that there was no chance of her ever leaving that hotel if the woman was going to be clinging onto her like that all the time.

"Damn right," Willow muttered, walking straight through the quiet lobby, their steps echoing all the way to the tall chandelier hanging over their heads. They stopped in front of an elevator that opened right after her finger pressed the button.

Pulling the girl inside, causing her to almost trip and stumble, Willow pressed the number 4 on the keypad, leaning her other shoulder against the wall and never removing her firm hand from August's upper arm.

Right as the elevators began to close, a dark-haired man suddenly appeared and slipped in, his bloodshot eyes landing on Willow and his feet stopping right in the doorway of the elevator. "Miss," he greeted her, bowing his head downwards for a moment.

Willow gracefully nodded her head downwards as if silently granting him permission to enter the elevator. He walked in, pressing the number 7 on the keypad before standing right beside August as the three stared at their reflections in the closing silver elevator doors.

August looked to her right at the woman who stood perfectly still, her expression neutral as she stared straight ahead. It was then that August really took in how Willow had the dignified stance of a graceful leader. It surprised her how everyone they had come across treated Willow with respect, although she did have to admit that she always picked up an undertone of fear in their voices.

She then slowly glanced to her left and was met with the man's dark eyes. His thin lips spread into a crooked smile, showing his even more crooked teeth. August held her breath, distrustful of the odor that was probably emanating from those chiclets. Discomfort made all her muscles tense as the man leaned closer to her, the tattoos covering his neck becoming clearer.

Her breath hitched in her throat when he raised a chubby finger to her hair, twirling one of her soft brown curls. His finger smelled of sweat and beer. "Fresh meat?" he growled, glancing up at Willow.

Willow's sharp green eyes sliced through the air to meet the man's. August gasped from surprised when she felt Willow's hand unexpectedly tug her body closer to hers, feeling the woman's coat scratch against her shoulders. "No," was all Willow said to the man, and it was all she had to say. He slightly nodded and immediately turned back to face the elevator doors, standing up straighter than he had before.

They reached the fourth floor, and the elevator doors slid open with a ding. "Goodnight, Miss," the man spoke with another small bow as Willow led the girl out of the elevator, ignoring the man's respects as the elevator closed again.

August let out a sigh of relief from finally escaping the confinement with the creepy man. Willow heard this, causing her lips to break their impenetrable stillness to tug upwards slightly, only to fall back down again soon before they reached two tall wooden doors similar to the front doors.

Willow opened the door, revealing a large room that held a black sectional couch, a matching black recliner, a white table with several black chairs around it all neatly pushed in, and a very wide flatscreen TV. There was a wall on the other side of the room with a large, open doorway revealing a huge king-sized bed with a black duvet and white sheets, nightstands on either side of it with lamps set atop it.

August's jaw nearly dropped at the extravagance of the hotel room, at the minimalistic yet lavish style of the place. It was very aesthetic, keeping a black and white pattern except for the two wooden front doors.

Closing the door, Willow kept her hand on August, using her other to lock six different locks on the doors, which was quite a chore and a little excessive in the girl's eyes. August watched as the raven-haired woman finished locking all the locks before turning to her and finally letting go of her arm, brushing past her and making her way to the table.

Placing her own gentle hand against the place where Willow's own surprisingly strong hand had been gripping her, August watched the tall woman from behind as she slipped off her black coat, laying it down on the white table. Blush rose to the girl's cheeks as the woman began to pull her black sweater over her head, but fortunately she was wearing a white t-shirt underneath.

Seeing the woman's slender but extremely toned arms for the first time, August's lips parted as her eyes scanned the tattoos scattered across those muscular, attenuated arms. The woman didn't have sleeves of tattoos to the point where there was no skin left showing on her arms, but there were still too many to count. From what August could see, most of them were words or symbols, except for a wide array of uncolored flowers covering the span of the woman's left shoulder, peeking out below her short sleeves.

"Stop staring," Willow said, snapping August out of her trance and causing her cheeks to burn hotter. She didn't even have to look to feel August's eyes searing into her back. She turned her head over her shoulder to look at the girl through strands of her black hair while she reached into her pants to get the gun and take it out, placing it on the table beside her coat and sweater.

August swallowed as she stared at the gun sitting on the white table. She was finally one step closer to freedom, with the woman now being unarmed.

Willow reached behind her head, her outspread arms revealing even more tattoos to August who simply watched the tall woman's movements, seeing her strip down from all her protections. With the pull of her hand, her long, raven hair fell, cascading down the woman's slim shoulders and stopping right above the curve of her back. Her hair had grown since she had last seen her in October.

A knock at the door interrupted the silent moment of the girl staring at the woman who simply allowed it as she took off all her equipment and let it lay spread out across the table.

Threatening green eyes stared right into August's. "Stay," Willow growled, pointing a finger at the girl as if she were a dog.

August obeyed, staying still as the woman neared the door. This pleased Willow. Rare were the moments, she had gathered from the past few hours, that the young girl was found obedient. "Good girl," she smirked, secretly relishing in the redness that appeared on the girl's rosy cheeks. In that moment, her eyes caught how the girl's cheeks complemented her perfectly pink lips, which complemented her dark blue eyes that stared at her in an observant manner, a manner that grabbed a harder hold of her than anyone else's fearful stare. Eyes were on her a lot—this was something she'd grown accustomed to, being the leader of a gang and the central figure of the ally of gangs that were all staying at that hotel. But this young girl's innocent eyes bore through her careless and cold facade, seemingly prying their nails under the edges of Willow's composure and lifting.

The knock came again from the door, snapping Willow out of her momentary stare on the girl. She turned around, unlocking the six locks tiresomely before opening the door a tad, seeing Jerry standing outside with his snowy white hair and beaming red face, carrying the three bags from Willow's trunk with a little too automatic of a smile.

She opened the door wider, making sure to keep an eye on August who stood a few feet away, and let the man walk through the doorway over to the couch where he placed the three bags down.

"Thank you, my sir," Willow's voice bellowed throughout the echoey room. August watched as the tall woman walked over to the man who stood beside the couch, not thinking twice about how she left the door wide open.

Fainthearted eyes flickered between the open door, the gun laying on the table across the room, and the woman who was reaching into her pocket to find a wad of cash to give the butler. The rabbit in her chest thumped his foot against her ribs, rattling her bones as she silently took a deep breath. She had to escape. She had no idea who this woman was or what she could possibly do to her. She had to get back to her dad and her sister. She couldn't just disappear from their lives. She had to do it.

It was almost like everything happened in slow motion as she lunged towards the open door, finally without someone hovering in front of it or grabbing the back of her arm. Freedom was right there in front of her eyes, and glee filled her heart as she stared at it, her feet taking the last step she would have to make before reaching the door...

Slam.

Lightning wouldn't have been able to keep up with the speed of the woman as her palm reached for the door and slammed it shut before August could even place her fingers on that liberating wood—fingers were replaced by her whole body as the sound of August's small frame thwacked against the wooden door, the smack of the hard surface not nearly as painful as the disappointment in her heart as her body slid down the door and crumpled to the floor.

There was a pause of silence as August lay bent-up on the floor, tears forming in her eyes. She had been so close. Now she was trapped inside that hotel room again, and the image of the rat in a cage came into her mind again. She was a rat, whiskers twitching, as the nefarious cat pounced.

The room was then filled with many different sounds. There was the sound of Willow's boots scuffing against the floor as she lunged towards the small, crumpled figure on the floor. There was the sound of five twenty-dollar bills being crunched by the wrinkled hands who squeezed them, the butler Jerry watching in terror at the scene he already knew would play out before him, and also watching in sympathy for the girl laying on the floor as the tall woman approached her with a violence that he and everyone else affiliated with her were all too familiar with. He was watching as Willow did what she always did—snap.

August felt two hands grab both of her arms, easily lifting her up and throwing her against the wall beside the door. Her head hit the hard surface first, a yelp of pain escaping her lips. She let the yelp drag on and morph into a scream of spiritual agony rather than physical, not knowing what good it would even do besides the release the pure, utter fear and pain she was feeling. Maybe the screams would rattle the earth so hard it would turn back around to a few months before, to the moment right before she peeked around that alleyway corner in downtown Ithaca, so she could change her mind and turn around and go back to that party house even if it meant a forced conversation with that boy with a vape.

The memory of the purple trees and the golden light of the streetlights above them reflecting on their dark leaves popped into her mind as she felt the woman take her away from the wall and then slam her back against it again, her head coming into contact with it even harder than before. Through the ringing that filled her ears, August thought of how the cold air had nipped her nose as she walked down that street that night, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets. She thought of how her and Peyton had made fun of Emilia for wearing her hair in two buns, and how they couldn't remember which movie's character she resembled. All these memories from that night flooded her mind as the woman held her up against the wall by her arms, her feet dangling off the ground as she used them to helplessly kick against the woman's long legs.

The ringing in her ears turned into the sound of chairs dragging against wooden floors as she was thrown all the way from the wall to the table, luckily missing the sharp corner of the table but instead falling into the chairs and tumbling straight to the ground.

Laying on the ground and holding herself as she relished in the feeling of finally being still, she sobbed, inwardly begging for the woman to stop. Her whole body was hurting, and every emotion she had felt since that night in downtown Ithaca which had been building up inside her like water in a dam, filled to her breaking point. The dam broke.

Willow's chest heaved up and down as she stared at the girl who laid folded up on the ground like a used napkin. The anger was pulsing through her veins, causing her hands to shake. Breathing through gritted teeth, Willow finally started to release from the blacked-out state she had been suspended in as the loud sobs of the girl laying on the floor filled her eardrums.

Cold guilt suddenly flooded her bloodstream. The girl was laying on her side away from her and curled up like a fetus on the floor next to all the disrupted chairs. She swallowed hard and turned to Jerry who tried to cover up the fear in his eyes but failed epically, his own hands shaking as he still held the wad of cash.

"Thank you for bringing the bags, Jerry," her voice broke as she brought a hand up to wipe her mouth, the muscles in her neck clenching. "Have a good night."

Although he felt frozen in his tracks, he spoke a shaky, "Goodnight, Miss," and scurried out through the door.

Turning away from the sobbing girl, Willow locked the six locks before placing her forehead against the cold wooden surface, her inner self scolding her for both being so rough with the girl and, conversely, for feeling any guilt about it.

When the girl's sobs momentarily faltered as her voice became too dry to support her cries, the woman's mouth also went dry. Guilt wrapped its hands around her throat, the icy feeling numbing her whole body.

She turned around and stared at the girl whose innocence shined through like light through a shattered window as she laid there, looking so helpless and so broken. The icy guilt only squeezed the woman's tensed throat even harder in its clutch.