Chapter 1: Crossing the Line
My feet toe the line between a high-price-tag heaven and the hell I’ve called home. Stepping over would be easy—no immediate punishment—but a risk all the same. As I raise the ripped white lace skirt over my knee, I note every brand, every scar, every attempt someone has made to claim me.
The girls in the Core aren’t marked like this. The dolls perched in the high-rise across the street, with their sheets and their own version of a dream house, wouldn’t tolerate these marks. Scars are stories we can’t shake.
Scars are like the eye-twitching, unsteady buzz of the neon lights—always there, nearly forgettable until the buzzing is gone, leaving you to wonder why you lived like that for so long. Why you miss the headache. Do others notice you gazing at old fluorescents or new lighting with wonder?
My foot pauses right before the large crack—the dividing line—marked on our side, the Fringe side, with various graffiti. Graffiti is like scars, too. It only exists in the fringes, only where people want to mark something to own it, where it’s necessary to make a name, something temporary that can be changed at any time, matter.
Names are carved into me too. I was raised in alleyways like a feral cat, left to hunt my own food while dodging gangs, dogs, anyone bigger and more lethal than me until someone started leaving out an easy meal—someone who scared away the other pests and beasts that roam in the shadows.
A few pats on the head, the promise of more than a growling stomach and a semi-dry place to sleep, brought me closer to the door and encouraged me to allow and accept more from a man who was too clean.
Back then, his cleanliness made him glow, made him look like he was made from gold or crystal. But many men can use such godliness to appear innocent, to appear welcoming and warm. The shine of gold is kinder and more alluring than the bite of a belt and sharp teeth.
But a gilded snake is still a snake, and a snake has venom, fangs that sink deep and corrupt more than the streets of Danger City ever could.
Chapter 2: The Fringe Side
“Doll!” Someone accuses.
Putting my foot down firmly on the Fringe side, I lift my chin as if the word will roll down my spine and fall harmlessly to the ground. Being outed on the streets has consequences that make scurrying under a dumpster and being warmed by arson appealing.
Tossing my golden, tangled hair over my shoulder, I slip into the shadows, using the eyes my snake and pseudo-father paid for to easily navigate the unlit alleyways until I see the black lights that show the door to the club where I choose to work.
“Choice is for people, not for dolls. And you – you are meant to be a doll, Naomi. Naomi Nameless, useless unless money can fall from your pretty gold hair or ivory skin,” the snake had purred when he introduced me to my first client.
I was sixteen, and the boy in front of me was eighteen, determined to know a woman even though I didn’t know myself. I trembled under the hungry gaze in front of me but feared the coiled, clean snake behind just as much.
He tugged a lock of my hair so I had to look at the man who I knew would strip me, take me, and use me. The snake hissed, “And since I can’t poach you, since I can’t turn your ringlets into coins or your skin into art, we have to work with what we have.”
I scoff at the memory now. He tried to sell what wasn’t his. My body had always and would always belong to me. I understood a twisted version of her warning, even though I saw my captor, my snake, nod in agreement—as if I would be safer once I’d been fucked.
No, I understood what I’ve found to be true—tried and tested by my first kill and every one after. Innocence is a mask that lures people in, sets them at ease, as long as that innocence is in the shape of a woman with a heart-shaped face, too many scars she couldn’t have earned, and a throat that doesn’t have a voice.
Chapter 3: A Moth to the Flame
That pitiful eighteen-year-old had slipped in from the Core, not wanting to admit he couldn’t get any high-class woman to fuck him and thought a virgin would be a safe bet. He took my fear as weakness, assumed that my running for a lamp meant I was a moth chasing a flame to hide from the darkness of his desire.
He was wrong.
I proved that when I cracked the lamp against his skull, wrapped the old, frayed cord around his neck, and listened to his heartbeat race, slow, then stop. I hadn’t blinked more than twice. I hadn’t thought about anything other than my own luck that my coiled master enjoyed antiques that required plastic wire to run electricity.
The snake had bitten me for the last time that night, opening my back with the metal side of his belt, promising to wear my blood as a new accessory as he showed me off to others. But it was me who ended him—the princess turned dragon who ripped the king apart in his sleep.
Rage is a drug or a weapon, depending on how it’s used, and I mask my own with soft doe eyes, innocent fear and concern, a petite body with little curves, and a practiced kitten face that inspires compassion in those who have the ability to feel it and desire in the sociopathic.
Chapter 4: The Doll in the Shadows
“Naomi,” the bouncer greets, looking over my gauzy, lacy white dress as it catches in the blacklight.
Blood catches as well, making the entrance light up with splatters of old murders. It’s what’s expected in the Fringe. No one in this club has clean hands, no matter how they wash them.
I incline my head and step forward. Bruce the bouncer looks me over, motions for me to raise my arms, and I obey before turning like a ballerina. He chuckles slightly. “No blood or new marks. You still belong to the club, baby doll?”
Dropping my arms while facing away, I let my face fall. My lips press into a firm line as I grind my teeth. I close my eyes, feeling my enhanced lashes fall over my cheek as I inhale and calm myself.
Turning, I tap the tech on my wrist—a gift from a client who wanted to hear me scream. I don’t know how it works. I know it required surgery, one I wasn’t prepared for, just tossed into unwillingly, but it says what I want it to… usually… when I allow it to be turned on. I’d rather use sign language, but I only half understand it, and it limits my clients.
A voice that’s half metal and half feminine leaves the watch-like gadget, giving an approximation of what I want to say. “I belong to who I choose for an hour or two, Bruce… do you want to be that person tonight?”
He laughs and lifts my chin, his big meaty hand nearly covering my lips. “I’d break you, baby doll. You’re too sweet and soft for me. The fact there’s no blood on you proves it.”
Chapter 5: The Club of Dark Desires
With that, he allows me inside. The club pulses with moans and music that doesn’t hide the sounds escaping from the curtained rooms. Dolls who aren’t owned by Mistresses or Masters come here to sell themselves. It’s a better deal. We pay for a bed for the night and keep everything else.
The varying lights across the club light my U.V. tattoos. I chose to enhance my scars, to turn myself into a broken doll, fixed with lace and love—all the things I’ll never have for long. If I can’t give myself luxury in this world, I’ll have it sewn into my skin and hidden so others won’t have any reason to steal it. If they see it, they’ll want me more.
One walk through the club to the bar earns me looks for one of two reasons: someone wants to fuck me or they’re questioning how I got in. Despite being in my twenties, I know that I have a soft face, big eyes, am petite and short, so people question my age.
It means I only get the most questionable clients—those with a savior complex or a proclivity for the young—but I’m also able to charge more for my services, whatever they may be on a given night.
Chapter 6: Absinthe Dreams
After buying a bottle of absinthe (holes in my memory are more welcome than half the nights I do remember), I walk over to a white gossamer curtain, push it to the side, and stare at the glitching hologram that pops up, requesting the normal fee for the night. I pay it, then use the tech provided to send a memo to all my regular clients so they know where to find me if they’re not too busy satisfying their cravings with bloodshed and crime rather than sex.
I toss my dress to the side, leaving me in a shorter, less innocent white dress. It shows everything, including the pale pink thong that’s only two shades off from my skin. I lay back, my head pillowed on my hair.
Taking a long drink of absinthe numbs my mind so I don’t worry about who had this bed last, whether they were murdered or fucked here, and what part of them remains on the bare mattress. Sheets are a luxury that aren’t provided when privacy—or the illusion of it—is more desired.
It takes less than ten minutes for a client to come over, which means my head is swimming in the green liquor. My sweet smile feels easier, as does my almost-giggle when I see my favorite client. He’s dressed in a black tank top that’s torn and jeans splattered with blood. The tattoos that crawl across his skin are dotted with his body modifications.
A man made in Shadow Haven, but meant for the deepest and darkest areas in the Fringe. If Leo had any ability to obey or accept authority, the Watchdogs would have claimed him long ago, but he’d rather be paid properly for his services, by those in the Core or by those here. And when he isn’t paid, he still has to feed his constant hunger for blood, the need for violence that’s so laced into his DNA that he wouldn’t be himself without it.
His red eyes focus on my body as I stand, stroking over his sides.
Chapter 7: The Lion
“How is my silent little doll?” he asks, his hand gentle as it sweeps through my hair, tainting me with the blood of an unknown man.
I welcome the corruption. It’s a reminder that no matter how I dress myself in white and sell my innocence, I am and will always be a creature of asphalt, fire, and death—a vulture with a sharper bite and needle-like talons.
When my tech starts to answer, he grabs my wrist and bites the band, his teeth hitting the button that silences it. He shakes his head. “This is the next man on my list. Putting you under, forcing a voice on you just to feed his fragile ego.”
I raise my hands so I can sign to him. “I have a name, but I assume you like the challenge.“
“I like it,” he says, his voice dropping before his grip in my hair tightens. “Almost as much as I like hearing you pant and the almost-moans you give me.”
My lion, I mouth.
He crushes my mouth under his, kissing me roughly, ferally. He accepts my bite, my sharpness, doesn’t expect or want me to be gentle or pretend. Leo knows I’m a doll, he knows how I manage to survive every sunrise and sunset, by selling the body that I hardly believe belongs to me anymore, but he doesn’t care.
Because only he gets me like this. Our fucking is more like a fight. We’re violent in our affection, calling biting, the use of knives, and the marks we leave on one another after ‘euphoria.’ He says I’m better than drugs, and I always tell him I’ll kill him next time if he doesn’t perform better. It’s better than the death sentence that is ‘goodbye,’ because ‘goodbye’ means never seeing each other again. And ‘goodbye’ will only happen when one of us kills the other.
Chapter 8: The Price of Watching
It’s how anything close to love plays out on the streets of the Fringe. Betrayal and affection are so intertwined, and when Leo and I consider choking and pain, the ultimate act of pleasure, we’re constantly playing hopscotch with our own doom.
As he strips himself, someone else pulls back the curtain to watch us. Leo snarls low in his throat and takes care of brokering a deal. It’s a high price to watch a doll like me—so innocent, so pretty, so ‘sweet’—fuck a man like Leo, and he knows it. We’ll both profit.
Leo flips me over, and his hand collars my throat, squeezing until the dizziness of the high sets in for me. I swallow against his hand and roll my hips back, telling him I want this, that we’re good, that I’m ready.
That’s all it takes before my face is pushed down into the pillow, and he fills me. It’s a battle like always. We fight for dominance in every position, playing up the power struggle until I come apart, my face hidden in Leo’s neck.
His one rule—if I come for him, he’s the only one who gets to see my face.
He pulls out of me a moment later and finishes on my belly, flicking on the U.V. light so all the other men can see. Once the moans and praise around me ebb, Leo jerks the curtain shut and shows me some powder.
Chapter 9: The Lion’s Temptation
I wipe my body down, pull my skimpy dress back on, and look at it. He snorts it off his hand and shakes his head.
I thought I was better than drugs, I sign angrily.
He offers me what’s left on his hand. “Lick it up. This is a new mix. It will keep you awake all night, but might tempt you to do more than fuck, Naomi.”
I blink at it. The last thing I need is to allow my urges to spiral and take me back to puddles of blood crawling up my legs, tracing my veins, and… I shake my head. One bad trip was enough to prove that drugs—for me, at least—are a waste of money when I could be providing myself with food that fills my belly, clothing that keeps the prying claws of shadowy corners away.
Leo shakes out his hand, then turns my chin to face him. He studies my gaze, reading me like few people can. “I’ll pay for a whole night.”
I roll my eyes.
“I will. I’ll compensate you for the fee you paid for the bed too. I want to take you somewhere, show you something,” he offers.
Narrowing my eyes, I put my hand on his arm, digging my sharp nails in. My pinky nail is tipped with a short, yet impossibly sharp blade, one I know that Leo feels since the blood trickles from my grip.
“Now, now, put those claws away, hellcat.”
Chapter 10: The Hunter and the Hellcat
I don’t soften my gaze. Trust is worse than innocence. True innocence never survives, but if a person starts trusting someone, anyone, they’re already digging their grave—and that’s not an easy feat in Danger City when it’s paved with traps and malicious compliance to long-dead rules.
“You don’t have to trust me, but believe me,” Leo insists. “If you want to watch this man…” he taps my speaking device, “…have his vocal cords cut.”
Again, I hold firm. Don’t trust, don’t accept gifts because they’re always bribes, and don’t let yourself owe anyone. People can fall from the Core and land uncomfortably in the Fringes. They can survive that, but if someone falls in the Fringe, the hell that awaits them, the gangs they’ll need, the drugs they’ll crave, the stack of favors on their shoulders will bury them alive.
“You killed the man who tried to enslave me, to collar me into the Watchdogs because of past crimes. You let me watch,” Leo reminds me, watching with pride and something that borders on manic love. “Allow me to do the same. I can’t promise I’ll be good with a scalpel, and you’ve saved some lives, haven’t you?”
Of course, I have. Dolls are beaten for sport, split open, hunted on these streets. Being unowned means there’s an opportunity, and having a doll on your arm, under your thumb, obedient to you alone means more than having sex. It means having a woman who can slip unnoticed into most places. It means claiming the secrets the soft dolls are told; it gives an owner everything to crush opponents, enemies, and to move up in the world—all while having a more comfortable pillow to sleep on.
When I discovered that saving dolls was more of a risk than murder, I chased it, became decent enough at providing salvation, which is why plenty of the street dolls call me “Mercy” or “Misery.” They want to kiss Death or punch him in the face, and either way, I stand between them when I have the chance.
Chapter 11: The Night of the Hunt
“So let’s hunt together, Naomi. Be more than a doll tonight. Be the hellcat you were born to be. The ruthless, sexy, blood-soaked hellcat that fucks me and takes what she wants rather than giving,” Leo purrs. “If you don’t flex your claws every now and again, you might forget how to use them.”
I lick over my bottom lip and release him, grabbing my top dress and pulling it on. I toss my hair, and Leo stands behind me, stroking up my sides to cup my breasts. “There’s the woman I can’t get enough of.”
Woman… doll… hellcat… they’re just pointless words. Everyone in Danger City is one thing and one thing only—dying. Some try to stop it with surgeons. Some try to hide it with cosmetics. Some embrace it and deliver others to death first. Some ignore it with drugs. Some commit themselves to art so their name lives on.
But we’re all dying, all stepping closer and closer to the inevitable end… Why not enjoy the path and take down anyone who would threaten to cut my lifeline short? When I look up at Leo, his smile turns feral. “That’s the look I like.”
I lick the blood off his arm—the closest we’ll get to a blood pact—and ditch my role of ‘doll’ for a more important title tonight: survivor.
