Teo gives me another firm shove of “encouragement” and I respond. The girls’ house is a large, two-storey Spanish-style building wrapped in a veranda. It looks pleasant, the sort of place a large family would vacation perhaps. Certainly nothing about it screams den of iniquity, that’s for sure. From the desert flowers and succulents growing in blue pots scattered all over the place, to the beautifully clean and tidy entrance porch, it’s clear this place is maintained by a woman’s hand.

The ground floor is lit up, blaring soft light out into the darkness. Inside the chatter and laughter of female voices can be heard. I hesitate. What the hell am I doing? My legs seize, locking straight in their joints. I can’t…I can’t go in there. What if she’s sick or something? What if they’ve beaten her? What if they’ve given them all drugs to keep them compliant and my sister’s now a rail-thin junkie with track marks up her arms? I’ve seen it all before at the hospital, so the imagining of it comes way too easy. God, I can’t go in there. I—

“I got food waiting for me back indoors, bitch. You done staring at the front door or what?” Teo spits on the ground, jerking his head toward the building.

Indecision tears at me. But I know it’s not really indecision. It’s cowardice—I’m afraid of the condition I’m going to find Alexis in. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to fix whatever they’ve done to her. She’s alive, though. I need to hold onto that. Whatever else happens, she’s still drawing breath and she needs me. I can’t let her down any more than I already have.

“Alright, alright. I’m going.”

And I walk inside.

******

“Who wants tequila, bitches?”

Since Alaska invited me to this thing, I’ve been imagining sorrowful young girls being primped and preened like sad geishas, reluctantly being made beautiful so that a hoard of disgusting men can take their fill of them. The scene that greets me inside the girls’ building is about as far from that as you can get. It looks like a fucking frat party.

“Shots! Shots! Shots!” A group of girls are gathered around a marble island in a very expensive-looking kitchen, clapping like idiots as a brunette girl with her hair in rollers free pours patron into shot glasses like her other job is bartender at Coyote fucking Ugly.

“Who’s got the lime?” she calls, casting heavily mascaraed eyes around the group. She looks like she could take off under the lift her false eyelashes would give her. She sees me—I know she does—but her gaze passes straight over me as though I don’t even exist. “C’mon, girls. Line ’em up! Line ’em up!”

The girls—there are seven of them—lick salt from their wrists, down the shots, pinch wedges of lime into the mouths and then start giggling again.

“I see you decided to grace us with your presence after all, then?” The cool voice comes from behind me: Alaska. She stalks into the room with a glass of red wine in her hand, held with an artful arrangement of fingers and angled wrist that looks graceful and precarious to say the least. She’s wearing more clothes than the other girls—a tight black dress that barely covers her ass and shows off an awful lot of cleavage. The other women are all in booty shorts and tanks, like they’re having a freaking sleep over. So far, none of them have turned out to be my sister.

“Yeah, well, you said to come, right?” I feel so out of place right now, I consider turning on my heel and bolting. The girl who poured the shots may have ignored me just now, but it seems Alaska’s presence has electrified the group and they’re all decidedly interested in the interloper who’s invaded their living space.

Alaska sniffs, looking down her nose at my jeans and T-shirt, and takes a delicate sip of her wine. “I did. But then again, I also thought you’d be too busy with Zee to gift us with your presence.”

Seven pairs of ears perk up at this comment. One girl, a short blonde with innocent blue eyes—and not so innocent fake tits—opens her mouth wide. She practically runs to Alaska, clasping her hands together and jiggling on the balls of her feet. “Did you just say Zee? Like, as in Zeth?”

She looks star struck. Like the grumpy bastard who stormed out on me earlier is some kind of rock legend who she will do anything, anything to meet. Alaska raises narrow eyebrows in a tired, slightly bored fashion. Another sip of her red. “Yes. Like, as in Zeth.” She mimics the girls broad Cali accent, but the blonde’s squealing too loud to notice.

Alaska spat the confirmation as though the words were poison. Conversely, a series of positively excited glances are exchanged between the other girls. One of them even grabs hold of another’s arm, apparently too excited to contain herself.

What. The. Hell?

I suddenly feel very sick. A cold realization washes through me, leaving me chilled to the bone. He’s been here before. He and Julio know each other well. I showed up midway through one of Zeth’s very own ‘events.’ How did I not consider this? How did I not consider that he might have slept with some of the girls here? Hell, he could have slept with all of them.

As reactions go, my body’s response to this thought is pretty over the top. Once the dizziness and the mouth sweats calm down and I know I’m not going to throw up, I manage a weak smile at the blonde girl who’s just asked me a question.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if he’s coming here tonight? I want to get a look at him. Georgia says he’s fucking massive!”