Pacifier

// Isabelle \\

It was getting stranger and stranger, the way I felt about Van. The way I felt about the bottlemen. 

Stranger and stranger and more uncomfortable every day.

Ever since he'd sat me in his lap, looked me so fiercly in the eyes, I'd been unable to think of anything else.
I couldn't get my head around everyones contradicting opinions. All i knew was that I needed to. I needed to fast.

The Balcony was tense. Not tense as in quiet, but tense as in every single person who stepped through the door raised someones suspicions. Whether it was one of the girls who stood from her seat, wandered over so silky and smooth, sat down one leg crossed over the other, as close to the stranger as they could. Leaning in, playing with their fingers. Talking in hushed, seductive tones. Whether it was my brother, pulling me into his lap at the sight of some sulky looking adolescent male strutting in like he owned the place, only to lock eyes with someone else he seemed to know before leaving again.
Whether it was Blakes or Dylan or Jake escorting some drunk and disorderly off the premises or whether it was Camille hovering around her brother a little more than usual when her eyes met someone else's in the doorway and sparked with recognition. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen, but no one seemed to know what.

I didnt know that we'd burnt down Billy Reids. Killed most everyone who was inside the building that night. I didn't know that that was why Blakes had had to collect the girls, get them out of there before he started the blaze. I didn't know that that was why Van wanted Billy Reid out here and on his own.
So that he'd be forced to return to the cinders of his biggest income source, to the ashes of business. So that he'd know he needed us, not the other way around.

Nobody told me any of that until Megan did. Until she'd found me with Blakes, just sitting at a booth in the Balcony. I was still being passed around see, from Johnny, to Van to Blakes at all hours of the night. Between Van and my brother I never slept alone anymore, and i was beginning to wonder whether I'd ever see privacy again.

But Megan had found me with Blakes, told him she'd keep an eye on me for awhile, come to rescue me and for that I was relieved. Despite everything Van had said.
About how I ought not to listen to her. About how I wasnt like her.

I didnt need reminding that I wasn't like her, because Megan was everything I admired and wanted so desperately to be.

She knew herself, she had that sleek sort of confidence, that glamorous edge, never seen not adorned in glitter and fur. She glistened, sultry, sexy. Desirable. She was everything I longed to be one day and I didnt need Van to remind me that I wasn't that sort of girl.

That I was young and naive, still scrawny, skinny limbs, lacking that womanly softeness in my face and in my thighs. There was nothing about my ragged plaits and my childish pout that spelt desire. Nothing sparkling in my eyes to let you know that I knew more than I let on.

But Megan made me feel like it was possible. Like I was getting there. Like if i listened very carefully and did as i was told i could be just like her.

And so i did.

We snook off to my bedroom, her fingers linked with mine and I listened to her when we sat crossed legs and opposites on the bed.

"They burnt it down," she shrugged, "I don't know if that was the plan really but they did, Blakes killed a lot of people trying to get us out of there, now we're gonna have to find a new place..."

"Oh," i breathed, "Did you like working for Billy Reid?" i asked chewing my cheek, still so confused as to why they'd want to help someone like him. Megan just bit back a laugh, ran her hands through her hair.