The Blue Room Vol. 2: The Blue Room Series Read Online Free

My own voice, judgmental and disapproving, echoes through my brain. What
are you setting yourself up for? I could end up shot in an alley somewhere,
like Roz. Or I could end up like Rita: completely vanished, with no trace of me
anywhere in the world.
                And
still I want the gig. Still I'm willing to do it: if doing it is what it takes.
Right now, I can't think about my own life, my own safety, whether or not it'll
be my body some other girl finds in a hotel room someday next week. I can't
think about Terrence Blue and his beautiful, brilliant blue eyes and those
hands that make me scream in ecstasy, those hands that could have been
responsible for so many murders. I can't even think about Roz or Rita, really,
right now. What I want is something purer, something simpler, and something
more straightforward than a person or a place. What I want is the truth. The
truth, I feel, will set me free. If I could only know who killed Rita, who
killed Roz, whether it was the same person or somebody different, whether
Terrence Blue was responsible for both, my work here will be done. I'll stop
feeling this ache in my heart, this emptiness, this feeling that something is
missing. The truth, I tell myself, will fill that gap. It will make me whole
again.
                At
the same time, though, I can't help but regret the money I'm giving up. Virgins
fetch a high price on the open market – that much I know. I could have paid off
a heck of a lot of family bills with the money I'm giving up. But there's a part
of me that relishes that element of the truth. I'm not taking any money to have
sex with Mr. X. I'm not taking his dirty money. What I'm doing gets paid in
facts, and facts only.
                My
body is coiled tight from stress, from trauma, and from – I suspect – a certain
degree of sexual frustration. After all, I've gotten used to Terrence Blue's
touch, to the way he can make my back arch and my toes curl. Going cold turkey
is like quitting smack. My whole body's still craving him. It's a hunger I
cannot feed, an itch I cannot scratch.
                I
pick up the phone and briefly consider calling the Never Knights. After all,
Steve and Luc's cards still lie on my dressing table: the hope they offer
glimmering before me. How easy it would be, I think, to just dial, to record a
demo, to get into singing and get out of hooking – all before I'd even started.
It would be like none of this ever happened.
                But
something has happened. One person is definitely dead, a second almost
certainly. And there will be no rest for me, no peace, until I know.
                I
need to get out my tension somehow.
                Head
to the gym, I tell myself. Sweat it out . It'll have the added
benefit of ensuring I'm extra buff when it comes to impressing the mysterious
Mr. X. soon. I want a killer body – I'm hoping I don't mean in more ways than
one. So I change into my lycra yoga pants and a tight-fitting white top and tie
up my hair into a ponytail and head for the treadmill.
                When
I'm running, everything feels better, more intense. My sweat is pouring out of
me, staining my white top so that my bra is visible beneath its contours; I
can't even bring myself to care. All I want to do is run – run faster,
run harder, run with more conviction, as if somehow running on this treadmill
with enough effort will bring me where I want to go.
                I'm
in so much pain I don't even notice the numbers on the speedometer go up. I
tell myself that pain is normal, to be expected, that I'm casting out pain,
that I'm casting out darkness, that I'm casting out the worst parts of myself.
I want to cast something else out, too – the part of me I don't want to face.
The prostitute. The detective. The girl who can't stop thinking about what
Terrence Blue can do. I want to cast out all those selves and be me