Currency in Flesh

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

M y body sagged over the center console. The SUV hit another bump, and I felt the vehicle hydroplane as Sean overcompensated. “Fuck!” His voice was like a pickaxe to my skull and I winced, pain making me nauseous as my vision swam red. His fingers tangled in my thick, dark hair, jerking my head up roughly to face him. “You stupid, worthless bitch,” he sneered. He slammed my head back down, and I whimpered, curling in on myself protectively. “Today’s my lucky fucking day. You’ll be somebody else’s problem now.” I didn’t respond, didn’t open my swollen eyes, just made myself as small as possible in the smooth leather seats of the Range Rover. Maybe, I thought, I would make it out of this alive.

Or maybe I wouldn’t.

The bar sat just on the outskirts of town. Pluto. Its purple neon lights flashed in the darkness, casting a violet haze over the parking lot. My husband of nine years whipped into a spot haphazardly, the tires squealing in protest. I tasted copper and could feel, with the tip of my tongue, the split in my lower lip from where his knuckles had struck my mouth. The same hands that had held mine, caressed each and every inch of my skin, slid a wedding band onto my third finger. They so easily moved to cause me harm.

Somehow, I was only surprised it had taken nine whole years for him to be through with me.

When we met, I had been fresh out of college and Sean was a svelte businessman with more charm and swagger than I knew what to do with. He owned an emerging consulting firm, and I was immediately swept up in his sense of effortless luxury and sumptuous passion. I had come to apply for an executive assistant position, but after the interview, Sean had asked if I would like to join him for dinner, and I knew then that I wouldn’t just be getting a job—I’d be getting an opportunity.

I’d always had a keen sense for seeing what men wanted, and Sean wanted money and me, though I never could tell which he desired more.

We dined on fancy Japanese steaks and sipped glasses of cabernet, and I hoped he hadn’t noticed the polyester of my pencil skirt, or how my handbag was a poorly-made pleather dupe. His humor came easily and my laughter was genuine. I hadn’t balked when he bent to kiss me, his lips warm and insistent as my keys jingled uselessly in my fingers, or when his soft, office-job fingers had slid up the back of my blouse. He tried to come inside that shitty, small apartment on Monroe, but I knew powerful men well enough—knew if you left them wanting, they would chase.

I knew how to play the game, and I intended to win.

Now, that tightly-buttoned man was a distant memory. The person whose bruising, violent hands dragged me through the doors of the bar was a stranger, his gaze filled with malice and malcontent. My shoe caught on the lip of the doorframe and I stumbled. One knee grazed the sticky linoleum floor, and I felt my black nylons rip. Sean righted me quickly, yanking me upright with a fistful of hair, and despite my shrill cry of pain, no one intervened.

The bar didn’t seem like a place where people interfered in the business of others.

I didn’t struggle or fight back as he pulled me towards a line of occupied barstools, and when he shouted, “Move!” I silently prayed the bar patrons would follow my example.

A man with a scraggly gray beard and scowl lines cut deeply into his sun-baked cheeks eyed Sean from over the foamy top of a cheap draft beer. Without breaking his stare, he took a long, slow drink—draining half the glass before setting it down with measured intention. I felt Sean’s focus snap to the next barstool, knew how pissed he was that the man hadn’t immediately complied. Sean wasn’t used to people telling him no.

The woman looked out of place. Her hair was long and straight, falling down her back in a silken, gold cascade. Her clothes were too clean, too expensive—black cigarette pants and red-bottomed stilettos, with a simple, understated white blouse. I knew the price of those shoes, recognized the shirt from this month’s Vogue . She was tall and willowy and I imagined she’d look more at home on a runway than in this dingy bar. Even in the dim purple light of the place, her eyes were a shocking green, and something about her expression sent a new tendril of icy fear curling down my spine. The tiny hairs on my forearms stood on end.

“Here,” she said, sliding from the worn plastic-wrapped barstool. “You look like you could use a seat.” Her eyes were trained on mine, and I felt my legs begin to tremble in preparation for whatever Sean was about to do. Whether she knew it or not, this woman had put me in even more danger than I already was. There was nothing on Earth that Sean hated more than being ignored or put down, and with a single sentence this stranger had both disregarded him entirely, and clearly acknowledged me. I remained frozen, not daring to reply or to move toward the now-empty seat.

Sean snorted loudly, dredging up a wad of thick phlegm from his sinuses, and spat toward the woman’s stilettos before shoving me forward. His deliberately positioned leg swept my feet out from beneath me and I fell, my face landing in the warm, wet puddle of mucus—my barely-open eyes staring at the red bottoms of the woman’s shoes. I gagged, and felt hot tears of shame and sorrow escape the cage of my lashes and roll down my knuckle-marked cheek.

“Oh, Sean,” I heard her say from what felt like a mile above me. “That was foolish.”

He kicked me, hard, the toe of his leather oxford slamming into the base of my spine and wrenching an agonized sound from deep within my chest. “Fuck you,” he snarled, words dripping with venom. “How the fuck do you know my name?”

She laughed, and the sound was light and unbothered. I heard a glass slide over the bar top. “Have a drink, Sean.”

“ Fuck you ,” he said, voice low and brimming with unspoken threat. I heard someone stand, followed by Sean’s outraged, gravelly bellow. I’d heard that sound many times—preceding slammed phone receivers and office supplies hitting the wall. But this time nothing came after but the dull, muted click of heels on linoleum.

The woman reached down and offered me her hand. I hesitated, staring at the long, black nails that tipped her thin fingers. They came to a severe point, and for a moment, I envisioned them tearing into flesh. The deeply primal instinct that had failed to warn me of Sean woke and screamed from the recesses of my mind.

“It’s alright, Grace,” she said in a quiet, soothing voice. I had no idea how she knew my name either, but I took her hand, my icy fingers shaking in hers as she helped me up just enough to sit. The bearded man stood behind Sean, his veiny biceps flexed as he held my husband’s arms twisted up against his own back. Sean was incensed, trying and failing to break the man’s hold. But at the sight of my face, his rage shifted, washing toward me in blistering waves. I cowered beneath its heat, my shoulders dropping as if in supplication—begging for mercy without words.

The woman stepped over me, reaching for a glass atop the bar. “Open up,” she said, taking another step towards Sean.

He spat in her face, and she slapped him hard enough to knock his head to the side. In an unnaturally quick movement, her arm darted out and gripped his cheeks, pinching them together tightly. Her nails dug into the flesh of his jaw, tiny pinpricks of blood welling up beneath them, and his mouth opened slightly. “Good boy,” she intoned as she pressed the glass to his lips and tipped it back. His eyes went wide, the whites showing all the way around the muddy hazel of his irises. He tried not to swallow, tongue thrusting and pushing the fluid from his mouth, but she wrenched his head back and he sputtered and choked as he was forced to gulp down the dark liquid.

She set down the empty glass, and the bartender slid her another, a cube of ice catching the purple light and reflecting off the facets of the lowball. She lifted it gracefully and knelt beside me. I stared at the bend of her wrist, the way her delicate fingers wrapped around the rim. Her deep crimson lips tilted up in a slight smile and she offered it to me. “Here,” she offered in a low, even tone. “You look like you’ve had quite a night.”

My gaze darted around the bar, finding it entirely empty. “What…” I breathed, confused.

The cool glass pressed against my split lip, and I winced. “Don’t worry, Grace,” she said, eyes trained on mine. “It’s easier if you drink it yourself. You will drink either way.”

So I did, and the world faded to black.