𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋! | harry styles

𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈

JACK.

I roll his name around in my head.

Harry thinks this guy is the key to everything, the key to my freedom from this place.

Three days seems like three years when you're waiting for salvation. But if meeting Jack is the first step on a new path, then three days is nothing. A heartbeat.

Dread fills my veins as I look up at the neon sign.

The only reason I'm here, the only reason I dragged myself away from the safety of my apartment was to keep from arousing any suspicion. Who knows how long it will be until I can pull myself free? The only thing I can do right now is keep my head down and my eyes open.

Once I step into a pair of thigh-high stockings, it doesn't take long for the veneer to slip effortlessly into place, for Rose open her eyes once more.

She belongs in a place like this, under hazy stage lights and the veil of anonymity.

I don't.

And tonight, beneath a painted face, it's like a layer of skin has been peeled back, and beneath it I'm goddamn brand new.

I finally see that even though I love to dance, to feel wanted and desired, that Blush is no longer the glamorous, razzle-dazzle utopia I once thought it was. I see it now for what it really is: filled to the brim with this city's filth-the men who think they run this town like it's a toy to be played with. A den fuelled by power and blood money, a place where a fistful of hundreds can buy you anything you desire.

Tia smiles at me as I step off stage. "Got the whole place eating outta your palm."

I am the queen of this filthy place.

The music continues to thump around us, the air filled with the smell of seduction and money, greed and power. "Well, as long as they put the bills in my hand, I don't care what they do," I admit with a forced smile.

Tia gives me a look that says tell me about it. "Right? Like, if you could stop telling me how pretty I am and tip me, that would be great. Some of these guys are all talk and no action."

I nod, wishing myself back to the time when I was as clueless as Tia is.

"Oh, I almost forgot, you have Tyler in three," she yells over the noise around us. "Hey, did you hear about Tania?"

Tania's name snaps me out of my morose inner monologue. The last I saw of her she was watching as a handsome banker slipped one hand into my bra as the other stuffed a hundred dollar bill into my underwear.

Just her name makes my blood simmer.

"What about her?"

Tia's hands dance in the air between us. "She's disappeared."

"What? Since when?"

"A few of the guys said no one's seen her for a few days now. Not since Thursday or something."

Thursday. The same night I saw her.

"You think she left?" I ask, popping a piece of gum into my mouth.

Tia shrugs, adjusting her corset top. Her breasts bounce and jiggle. "Maybe."