Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) by Hilarey Johnson Page A

hands rest on her spine and then I respond to her pull by squeezing
back. Cori has also met fear. We’ve both shaken that irrational hand. And just like
that, the words begin to flow between Cori—my new sister—and me.
    I tell her how amazing her performance was. She
invites me to spend the week with her—since even though tonight, Monday, was
opening night—The TorchLight isn’t open to the public until Friday.
    “We’ll visit clubs all week, party, and work on
your act.”
    I pinch my lips, trying not to give away what this
means to me. Instead, I just nod lamely.
    There is a thump at the door where Cherry, one of Talia’s
girls, stumbles. She regains her balance just inside.
    “I thought you were leaving,” Cori asks.
    “I’m waiting for Carlos to walk me out.” Cherry
whips out a tube of sparkle gloss and puts it on her lips so erotically I have
to look away. I ignore the conversation, which turns to how hot, Carlos, the
bouncer is.
    “You didn’t hear about the stalker in the parking
lot?” Cherry shrieks with enthusiasm. “He can’t be too bright, sitting in a fifties-style
Chevy truck with a custom paint job. Purple, no less.”
    I jump to my feet.
    Cori and Cherrie both look at me as though I have burst
out in song—in Dutch.
    “Is it a tan, blond guy?” I knock over a chair on
my way to the door. Who else could it be but Hayden?
    I don’t know if either girl answers me because I
leave the dressing room, my heart drumming in my stomach. I press the metal bar
down and use my hip to budge the heavy back door open. The employee parking lot
behind the TorchLight awaits me. A whiff of the dumpster makes me gasp a little
with my mouth instead of my nose. The door latches behind me.
    “Are you wearing that home too?” Brody’s voice
grumbles from the shadows. He stands like a panther, lithe, leaning. Only a
trace of his form is visible in the moonlight. “Should I count the spoons tonight,
Baby?”
    Carlos’ face illuminates next to Brody as he
flicks a lighter and inhales from a cigarette. The cigarette hangs from his lip
when he finishes. He steps forward with arms crossed over his chest. This seems
a feat with the short length of them versus the massive muscles. He’s probably
an inch shorter than me, but I feel like I’m always looking up at him.
    “He won’t come back.” Carlos takes three long
drags from his cigarette before he flicks it into the rock landscaping. He
presses the key pad next to the door, and a tiny light shines green before the
door latch sounds and he disappears inside.
    I crane my neck one last time around the parking
lot.
    “Expecting someone?”
    An April chill freezes the sweat droplets on my
back. “Did you see who—”
    “Nope, and you shouldn’t be so excited to run out
here and find out what kind of person waits in strip club parking lot.”
    Doesn’t he mean “burlesque?”
    Brody walks toward the door, and the force of his
presence corrals me toward it. “I don’t need my girls running around like this.”
He pulls at the corner of my top and the night air takes a peak. “For free.”
    Brody keeps his left hand on my back and presses 5-9-7…
None of us girls has a number. We press the buzzer, look in the security
camera, and then someone buzzes us in. I quickly look down as his head turns.
When he punches the last number, I angle my chin to see.
    Three. I mentally repeat the whole thing: 5-9-7-3.
    “Remember this, Baby. Someone who hides in a
parking lot—has something to hide.”
    I resist the urge to comment on his eloquence.
    He stops in the hallway and turns. His soft hands
thaw the arctic skin on my shoulders. He looks down at me, those mossy pools
glimmering. “I’m not going to let anything happen to one of my girls again.”
His right hand leaves my shoulder, but the warmth lingers. He gives me a little
push with his left hand and walks behind me until I reach the dressing room. Then
he is gone.
    I misjudged Brody the night he took me