chapter 10: hideout

Willow reached across the girl's body, her face dangerously close to her slightly contorted one.

"The rope fit before." She was trying to wrap the rope twice around her waist and shoulders so she could handcuff her again. "You didn't gain ten pounds by that damn chicken."

"Maybe I did! You don't know my fucking metabolic rate!" August screeched, the woman hurting her arm as she kept trying to squeeze the rope around it. Her elbow was painfully twisted, causing her to cry out. "Why can't you just not tie or cuff me?! My wrists are already almost bleeding."

Leaning away from the girl with an agitated sigh, Willow glanced at the girl's wrists. She had to admit that they did look pretty bad. She almost felt sorry for the girl, but at the same time she knew that if she weren't careful, her hostage could get some idea of bold insolence and try to escape free.

Movement from the diner caught Willow's attention. She looked through the car window past August's glare to see the old man leaving the diner, stopping right outside the door to stare at the black Mustang. It was almost as if his eyes had met hers, and his stare did not falter. She could see his eyebrows raise in confusion at the bustle going on inside the car.

Willow slowly leaned away further, starting the car without bothering to tie August up. "If you try to jump out, I will simply turn you into roadkill," she decided, locking the car doors just in case.

August had almost gotten used to Willow's threats at this point, simply covering herself with her arms and shivering from the cold as the woman pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, speeding away. "Where are we going?"

"Disneyworld," she bluntly replied, keeping her stare fixed on the road. She didn't want August getting too comfortable. Comfort was where problems started, she reminded herself.

"Where are we going?" August asked again, adamant that she would keep asking the question until the woman gave her an answer.

"Hell." Two could play at that game, Willow thought.

"Where are we going?"

"McDonald's."

"Where are we going?"

"SeaWorld. I heard Shamu learned to do a new flip."

"Where are we going?"

"Walmart. I need a new bra."

"Where are we going?"

"Your mom's house."

"My mom is dead."

Willow had no response to that. Her eyes widened for a moment, her lips parting in shock, before she let out an airy chuckle. "Okay, you win that game. I'll give you at least one thing to be happy about since I could murder you at any second."

"She really is dead," August thoughtlessly said, thinking about the last time she had seen her mom alive. She had been lying on the hospital bed, about to give birth to Daisy, when the doctors suddenly rushed August out of the room as a bunch of beeps and frantic voices of nurses filled the hospital room. Saying it out loud didn't hurt her anymore. It was the truth, after all—a truth she had to force herself to come to terms with at a young age.

"Oh," Willow breathed, glancing over at the girl who blankly stared out the window. Her face wasn't sad, nor happy. It was just neutral. She resumed her careless persona. "Well, that got depressing."

"Where are we going?" August prompted, determined to get something out of the woman. She simply stared out at the snow-covered ground that was darkened by the night and waited for the woman to give her answers.

Willow had to sarcastically laugh to release the annoyance that grew within her. "You are so incredibly fucking frustrating sometimes," she said in a fake cheery voice, placing a hand over her forehead as if it would calm the anger bubbling inside of her. She took slow breaths, knowing that if she snapped, the girl was the only one around that she would be able to take it out on.

"Where are we going?" August still pressed in a monotone voice.

Sighing and squeezing her eyes shut for a second, Willow momentarily weighed her options. The girl would find out where they were going in less than an hour, anyways. "Escalante, Utah."

The girl's head whipped around to face her. "Where's that?"

"America," Willow sarcastically replied, reaching her arm out and turning the heat down since she was breaking out in a sweat.

August quickly undid her actions, turning it up even more. "Some people aren't as heavily clothed as you." She inwardly scolded herself for making the snippy comment. She was becoming too brave.

Willow's eyes became cold and serious, staring at the girl for only a few seconds that felt like a million years to August who was terrified that she was poking the beast and would soon get herself hurt.

"Escalante is a little town in Utah where me and my gang's hideout is. I'm taking you there for your...safety." She hesitated with the word, not wanting the girl to think she was her protector or anything like that. She hated the girl who had made herself a burden to the woman because she just couldn't help but peek around that alleyway corner months ago.

"My safety?" August inquired, her eyebrows crinkling. She didn't understand this, as the woman had done absolutely nothing besides put her life in danger multiple times. In fact, there wasn't a single time she was ever with Willow that she didn't threaten to physically assault her.

"Yes," she spoke through her teeth, irritated at having to explain everything. She wished the girl would just cooperate with her and do what she was told instead of being unrelentingly disobedient and asking so many questions. "The guy we killed's gang is doing a city-wide search of the people who killed him. Meaning they will be communicating to every other gang in Ithaca, and one guy who was with us that night isn't in our gang. He came along to help on some sort of personal vendetta against the dude. But he recently said some things that brought our attention, making us realize we can't trust him. So we had to delete all of our traces—that includes you." She turned to look at August, her face serious as she searched for the girl's reaction.

"When you say 'gang'...you mean..." August began but didn't finish. She felt so stupid for just now realizing that the mess she was in was more than just a few people murdering somebody. When the woman had previously mentioned the word "gang," she simply assumed she meant her posse of people.

"Mafia," Willow finished August's sentence, pressing a little harder on the gas pedal as her sharp jaw clenched. "You are currently tangled in the spiderweb of New York gangs."

August was silent, trying to understand what all of this meant.

"That's why I had to have you watched for so long. I couldn't risk you saying anything to anybody about what you saw, because if you did, me and my men would get killed." Her words were cold like marble stone.

"But I hadn't been watched anymore," August pointed out. "I figured things calmed down."

Running a stressful hand through her black hair, Willow responded, "They did. Until the guy who was with us started saying things that made Rick curious."

"Rick?"

"The leader of the gang of the guy we killed." Willow turned the heat down again, her face having become shiny with sweat. This time, August didn't have the bravery to turn the heat back up, no matter how cold she was. "The bottom line is that me and my gang have to go into hiding for a while and eliminate all our steps and traces to prevent Rick from finding out it was us. If the guy who was with us snitches, we will be all the way in Utah with our ally gangs, so we will have protection and not such an obvious location. Then later we will slaughter the guy, whether he snitches or not." She shrugged her slender shoulders without care, strands of her dark hair falling in front of her face.

"W-Who's the leader of the gang you're in?" August inquired. She was brought into a whole new world and had no idea where to begin to start understanding it.

A smirk grew across Willow's lips, her eyes oozing mischief as she brazenly answered, "Me."

"Oh." Her stomach felt as if it were crawling up her throat. She had watched movies and read books about gangs, and all she ever concluded from them was that everyone who was involved in the spiderweb that Willow was talking about, whether they were innocent or guilty, usually ended up dead.

♠

The next hour of the car ride was quiet except for the sound of Willow drinking two more cherry Colas and listening to "Wild Thing" on repeat. August wanted to grab Willow's gun and shoot herself in the head if she was to listen to that song again.

Luckily for her, right as the song began to start again, Willow turned it off before she took a left down a dirt road where trees crowded around and darkened the inside of their car. Not even the moonlight could break through the thickness of the forest. It was odd to see a forest in the middle of the red, snow-covered desert that they had been driving through.

"This is creepy as shit," August mumbled, chills running up her spine as the woman took the car at least two miles down the dirt road. Fear boiled inside her. That would have been the perfect place for Willow to dump her dead body...

She felt slight relief as a large gate with lights surrounding it came into view. Willow pulled the car up to the gate, her headlights reflecting off the black metal poles. August jumped as she heard a beep come from the speaker she hadn't noticed Willow talking into.

"Willow. The owl turned his head, and the birds flew," she spoke quietly into the speaker, so quiet that August could hardly hear her, making her question if she had heard her wrong. It must have been some sort of code, the girl assumed.

After Willow let go of the red button she had been pressing, and another beep came from the speaker, the black gates began to slowly open, their screeching disrupting all the animals in the forest that August heard scuffling around in the trees.

Willow turned her head towards the girl and watched as she watched the gates open, fear written across her face. "Scared?" her smooth voice sounded out, causing the girl to jump. Many people feared the woman, but she had never met someone so timid, so easily shakable as the girl. Yet she wasn't sure if she had met someone so bravely obstinate, either.

August just stared at the woman, not responding to her taunt.

Letting a devious smirk fall over her lips, Willow turned her eyes back to the road and drove through the gates, the sound of metal slamming shut coming not long afterwards.

After another mile, August could finally see some lights come into view. Eventually, she could make out the big building that loomed over her. It wasn't just a mansion—it was a super-mansion.

"I present to you...the Blue Porcelain Hotel!" Willow exclaimed, pulling into the driveway of the building.

"First of all, it's not blue nor porcelain, and second of all, it's a hotel?" August inquired, staring at the building with two tall, wooden doors.

"Sort of. It was made for the Blue Porcelains." Willow took the keys out of the ignition, the lights on the car dash disappearing and the air immediately becoming cold to August's bare arms.

"Can you please explain to me what the hell Blue Porcelain is?" August inquired, covering her arms for warmth.

"It's the name of my gang, Curious George," Willow taunted, stepping out of her car.

"I'm not a fucking monkey," August mumbled as she watched the woman walk around the front of the car, headlights reflecting off her knee-high leather boots. The girl knew better than to try to step out of the car herself.

Willow opened the door for her, and when August stepped out, she was met with a rough hand grabbing her arm and pulling her so hard she involuntarily squeaked as she stumbled against the woman's front.

"Don't fucking try anything. The men here will kill you without even thinking twice," a husky voice growled against her ear, pursed lips pressing against her brown hair and causing her to become hot all over. She trembled as her cheeks grew fiery red. She wished the woman would move away from her and let go of her painful grip on her arm.

Still standing so close to the quivering girl in an intimidating manner that left no room between them, Willow darted her eyes upwards to see the butler walking out of the house.

"Hello, Miss Willow!" he exclaimed, not at all affected by the way she was standing over the girl in such a manner.

"Jerry!" Willow greeted him back with a smile, releasing her grip on August's arm. The feeling of her fingers digging into her skin still pulsed throughout her arm as she feared the way Willow's moods changed as fast as lightning.

"Bags are in the trunk, I assume, Miss Willow?" Jerry asked, walking over to the trunk where she stood. August leaned against the closed passenger door, staring at the man who acted as if she wasn't even there. He looked at Willow with utter respect. She had probably threatened his life before, too, August thought to herself.

"Yes, of course. Please take them to my room. There's only a few." Willow stuck her hand in her pocket, her eyes cautiously darting over to August to make sure the girl was behaving, almost how a mom does when watching over her mischievous child. August wanted to just wither away whenever those chilling green eyes met hers. She didn't like how someone's irises could cause her such an unsettling feeling.

Finally retrieving a wad of cash from her pocket as the butler patiently waited, Willow handed it to the man and grabbed his hand, pulling him closer in a friendly way. "That's for being up at 4 A.M., my good sir." She laughed, releasing the man and patting his shoulder; the man copied her laugh, nodding his head and thanking her.

August peered up at the night sky, staring at the moon who seemed to stare right back at her with sympathy. Her eyes wanted to close from exhaustion—exhaustion from lack of sleep and from the tiring situation she found herself in. Anxiety again began to creep in her stomach as she realized she was not where she wanted to be, that she been plucked from her little dorm life and taken to this mansion/hotel in the middle-of-nowhere Utah.

A hand grabbing her elbow jerked her out of her thoughts, and before she knew it, she was scuffling towards the front doors of the hotel, trying to keep up with Willow's long legs. The rabbit in her chest made his grand reappearance as the woman looked down at her, the night casting shadows along her chiseled jaw and sharp cheekbones. Her eyes were deathly, staring at the girl with a coldness that made the rabbit thump his foot harder than he ever had.

What was this woman going to do to her behind those closed doors?