Hansel 1-4: The Complete Series Read Free Page B

hand slips into mine, and Lana turns all the way around to look at me. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes rush over me, wide and alarmed.
    Do you want to go?
    I shake my head and manage a weak smile. “It’s a great layout,” I say.
    Laura squeezes my hand, and I feel a flash of rage for what she did to me.
    Mother.
    That bitch wasn’t a mother at all. She didn’t have a single biological child, and she damn sure wasn’t a mother to any of us.
    “Come on in. This is where you’ll watch the show,” the club guy says. Through the doors. Into an amphitheater. Several levels, each one deep enough for couches and recliners.
    My legs move mechanically. My hand in Laura’s feels so cold.
    I don’t even notice the couch until the backs of my knees are touching the edge of its cushions.
    “Enjoy the show,” the guy says with a wink.
    All around us, other people find their seats, but I can’t really look around, because as soon as club guy leaves, Lana and Laura are on me like a couple of...well, concerned sisters, I guess.
    “Are you sure this is okay?” Laura asks, at the same time Lana says, “I think maybe we should go.”
    I shake my head. “That’s crazy,” I say in a voice that’s an octave higher than my norm. I swallow hard and try to sound a little less unhinged. “Just because it’s a forest theme?”
    “It’s called The House,” Laura murmurs. “We’re in the witch’s cottage.” She shoots a look at Lana, as if to ask her how she missed this fact.
    Lana’s red lips press together and her eyes go soft. “I’m so sorry, Leah. I heard from a friend this Edgar thing is like some special once or twice a year event. Sexy guy, crazy sex show. I don’t know… It sounded fun.” She rubs her forehead, looking rueful. “I didn’t read enough about it.”
    “No one did anything wrong. Let’s just stop talking about it,” I say in a lowered voice, “before everyone in here notices.”
    Mother Goose’s House of horrors became front-page news after Hansel killed her and all the so-called fairy tale children were freed. Odds are, everyone around is too busy staring at the empty stage below to be paying us any attention, but it never hurts to be cautious.
    I’m on the left end of our little black couch, but Lana gets up, sits between me and the armrest, and uses her hip to bump me into the middle. When we’re all cozy, I sit up a little straighter and try my best to seem unaffected.
    Lana produces a program that seems to have come from thin air, and starts to tell us about the “performers” tonight: Edgar, this club’s owner, who apparently hardly ever performs anymore, but who made his name doing sex shows as a dominant.
    “He’s got two partners tonight,” she says, wiggling her brows.
    “A porn star and some rich heiress from Hollywood.”
    “I’m surprised an ‘heiress’ would do something like this,” I say woodenly.
    “Well, it’s Edgar.”
    “So?”
    “He’s a famous dominant, Leah. Remember, I was just talking about that?”
    I don’t, but I’ve been distracted since we’ve been here.
    “What should we expect?” Laura asks. “I mean, in terms of…acts.”
    Lana shrugs. “All I know is I can’t wait to see. I want to experience the carnal act as an outsider, something outside what I have with Roberto, just one final time. This is going to be perfect. I can tell.”
    I look down at the stage, only just noticing that it’s divided from the audience by a very clear plate of glass.
    “For privacy,” Laura says to me as a curtain inches shut in front of it.
    “I thought the curtain should be opening now, not closing,” Lana muses.
    I lick my lips and try to breathe past the pounding in my head. What will Cynthia say when I tell her about how weird this experience was? Will she want to do a drug test?
    The next second, the lights in the ceiling and on the floor go dim. The curtain opens and my stomach clenches so hard at first I think I’m going to be