Zoe leads me into a room, and then scurries off excitedly, like she's just thought of the perfect dress. I don't bother to wait for her, undressing and kicking off my boots, pants, and jacket. I stand there for a moment in the lingerie Vic gave me, my eyes narrowed on my own reflection.
Tattoos trace over my right hip and down my thigh. Both arms are coated in ink, and I’ve got pink demon wings across my chest. My pink-tipped white-blonde hair hangs just past my breasts, and the rings in my belly button glint in the fancy studio lighting of the fitting room. Every inch of me is marked in invisible scars, wounds that bisect my soul but not necessarily my body.
There’s a light knock on the door.
“Come in,” I say, glancing over my shoulder as Zoe slips in the door with a dress draped over her arm. Her pale blue eyes sparkle as she hangs it on a hook and unzips the opaque white garment bag.
“I think I’ve found the perfect dress for you,” she says, beaming at me as she reveals the glittering black fabric. It looks like the sky on a velvety country night, when the Milky Way is a splash of stars against the cosmos. “This is a Lazaro gown,” Zoe continues as she takes the dress from the bag and holds it up. “Strapless sweetheart neckline with a lovely pleated skirt. There’s an optional feathered piece that goes around the neck as well. We can try it with and without.”
Zoe brings the dress toward me, and as she walks, it shimmers and glitters, like the designer reached up and cut the fabric from the stars.
I know as soon as I see it that I’ve found the right dress.
You’re seventeen, Bernadette, and this whole marriage is a sham. You haven’t found shit.
I tell myself that this is a business transaction, and that it’ll all be worth it when Havoc neutralizes the Thing, when Heather is safe. And yet, I’m not really suffering much, am I?
Zoe helps me into the dress, using plastic clips to gather the excess fabric at my waist.
“Of course, we’d have it tailored to fit you properly,” she says as I stare at myself in the full gown, and find the breath knocked right out of me. All of a sudden, I’m swept away in a fantasy of Vic climbing on top of me in this dress, his hands gliding over the shimmering fabric, his lips kissing my bare shoulders.
Jesus Christ.
I’m really losing it, aren’t I?
As I’m standing there, shaking and falling to pieces on the inside, Zoe brings the feathered accent piece over and lays it around my neck. She hooks it together in the back and steps away so I can see myself in the three giant mirrors on the wall in front of me.
“How are we feeling?” she asks after what must be several moments. “Any thoughts? We could even try this same dress in ivory or champagne.” When I don’t respond, Zoe steps up on the dais next to me and places gentle fingers on my arm. “Do you think your mother might want to come and see you in the dress?”
“My mother’s dead,” I lie, and Zoe blinks her big, blue eyes at me.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” I say, turning to look at her and lifting my fingers to the feathers that lie across my inked chest. “I like it. I’d like to see what my friend thinks first. He’s actually a very well-known drag queen in the Portland area, so he knows his designer gowns.”
“Oh, yes, of course …” Zoe trails off and nods. I bet she’s wondering how old I am, if I can actually afford this dress, if I’m going to try to steal it. But she dutifully leaves the dais and opens the door for Oscar to come in. “I’ll be right outside when you’re ready. Just let me know what you need.”
Oscar’s gray eyes home in on my reflection in the mirror, narrowing to stormy slits as Zoe pulls the door closed softly behind him.
“Well, you got one thing right: I do know my designer gowns.” He moves toward me, up the steps of the dais, until he’s standing directly behind me. His inked form in that stupid suit of his looks pretty much perfect against my own tattooed body. “This is perfection.” Oscar hovers his hands over the black feathers on my shoulders, making the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. “Victor will be pleased.”
“Victor …” I start and then scoff, trying to turn around. But Oscar grabs hold of my shoulders and keeps me in place, those intense eyes of his framed by the thick, dark rectangles of his glasses. They should make him look nerdy or businesslike, but with the ink crawling up his neck and flowing over his hands, they don’t. Paired with the darkness simmering in his gaze, they just make him look villainous. “Do you suck Vic’s dick for fun? What do you really think of the dress?”
I try hard not to think about Oscar Montauk in elementary school, or how he once helped me make a dress out of construction paper. I got in trouble for wearing it to recess without anything underneath. Seems fitting that he’d be standing here with me, although I’m pretty sure he hates me now.
“What do I think of the dress?” he asks, skimming his hands down my bare arms. I close my eyes and wet my lower lip. When I open them, he’s frowning at me. “I think it needs to serve one purpose: getting you down the aisle to marry Vic.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I snarl, wrenching from his grip and turning to face him, my heart thundering in my chest. Oscar looks down at me with absolutely zero emotion in his expression. But his pants … I can see the hard shape beneath his slacks. Lifting my eyes back to his, I put a challenge into my gaze. “If you care so little about it, why are you hard for me?”
“I can’t control my body,” he says, leaning toward me and putting his mouth right up against my ear. His hands skim my waist. He’s touching me while I wear a wedding dress meant for another man. Is that wrong? Is this akin to cheating? But I’m supposed to be Havoc’s girl, right? I’m supposed to screw all five of them. Isn’t that the point? “What’s your problem? How can you fuck a man who treated you so poorly? Vic annihilated you during sophomore year, and yet you’re panting after him like a bitch in heat.”
I draw back and slap Oscar as hard as I can. The crack of flesh on flesh echoes around the quiet room as he snatches my wrist in an iron-clad grip and pulls my hand away. There’s a smile on his face now that wasn’t there before.
“Everything okay?” Zoe asks, peeping in the door with a nervous look on her pretty face.
“It’s fine,” I say, staring back at Oscar, refusing to drop his gaze. “We’ll take the damn dress.”
It isn’t until Wednesday that my mom finally checks her messages and finds out about the suspension. I wake up to her call, lying in Aaron’s bed with Heather beside me. Staying here, I find that I sleep like the dead. It’s nearly noon. I can’t remember the last time I slept in this late.
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I answer it.
“Hello?”
“What the hell did you do now?!” Pamela shouts, and I can hear in her voice that she actually cares. Not about me, obviously, but about the stain on her reputation that I might cause by being suspended. Springfield isn’t a small town per se, but people do talk. And Mom, I think she’d sacrifice me to a sea of vengeful gods if it would grant her the money and status she had back when my dad was still alive. “Why am I getting calls from the school telling me your ex-boyfriend stabbed somebody and that you were involved?”