Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (2 page)

I groaned and forced myself out from under the
warm covers. Twenty-one. A major milestone in the lives of Americans
everywhere, but I wasn’t any more excited about this birthday
than any of the twenty that had come before. Not that I could
remember every single one, but you get the point.

I had already been drinking with a fake ID for the
past two years, so the idea of going out to a bar didn’t excite
me. And the idea of being one year older was more terrifying than
anything else. One year older meant one year closer to graduating and
having to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life.

But the smell of pancakes and coffee cheered me
up.

Katy had set up our breakfast for two on the small
bar that separated our tiny living room from our even tinier kitchen.
Beside my plate, there was also a long silver box with a dark red
card on top.

“What’s this?” I asked, eyeing
her. We never exchanged gifts. Mostly because I could never afford it
and she lived in constant guilt about being rich. “Katy, what
did you do?”

She shook her head and sat down, taking a bite of
pancake. “It wasn’t me, I swear. Someone delivered them
while I was out getting the coffee. They were waiting by the door
when I got home,” she said. “Have you been seeing someone
new?”

This was such a ridiculous question that I didn’t
even justify it with an answer. She should have known better.

I was never seeing anyone new. Or old for that
matter. I didn’t believe in relationships and no matter how
many times Katy tried to set me up, nothing ever stuck.

I stared at the box as I took my first bites of
birthday pancakes. I couldn’t even think of one person who
would have sent me flowers. I had no family. No close friends outside
of Katy. I had never been in a serious relationship.

And nothing good could come of birthday flowers
from a stranger.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”
she asked.

I eyed the silver box, a strange feeling
fluttering in my stomach. “Eventually,” I mumbled, mouth
half full. “Maybe.”

She grabbed the card off the top and waved it in
my face. “Just see who it’s from. Maybe you have a secret
admirer.”

I set my fork down and swallowed, hesitating. Part
of me wanted to dump them, unopened, into the trash.

But my curiosity got the better of me. I lifted
the silver lid off the box. Inside, nestled in black tissue paper,
were the strangest, most beautiful black roses. I'd never seen
anything like them, but they were exactly my taste. Rare and dark.

I bit my lip and shifted in my chair.

My hand trembled as I took the red envelope from
Katy and tore it open. The paper was heavy. Expensive and smooth to
the touch.

Inside, there was a short note written in large,
swoopy black letters.

Happy
Birthday, Little Bird

Don't you
think it's time you learned to spread your wings?

VENOM,
Hubbard Street, Chicago

My stomach twisted at those two handwritten words
near the top of the card.

Little Bird.

It was what my mother had always called me.

I couldn't get my mind off those black roses. I
walked around the whole day with the strangest feeling that someone
was watching my every move.

I had become so paranoid that I nearly made some
freshman piss his pants in the hallway of the student center. I
thought he was following me. Apparently, he was just lost.

I didn't like the thought of someone sending me
flowers and knowing my birthday and my mother's pet name for me. It
had completely unnerved me, which I also hated because I figured that
was probably the point of someone sending me black roses in the first
place. By the time I met Katy for coffee after our last class of the
day, I was a complete mess.

“I know you don't want to hear this, but
what if the roses are from your mom?” Her forehead wrinkled as
she said it, as if she half expected me to haul off and punch her in
the face for even suggesting it.

The truth was, I had already considered that
myself. Considered it and dismissed it. “She would never send
me something so expensive,” I said. I pulled the note out of my
backpack where I had stuck it inside my Economics book. “Black
roses can't be cheap and did you feel this paper? No, someone spent
some money on this. Definitely not my mother.”

“What does this bottom part mean?” she
asked. “What's Venom?”

“I'm not sure, but Hubbard is just south of
here. I think this is close to the House of Blues,” I said.
“There are a lot of clubs and bars down there. Maybe Venom is a
bar.”

She started to speak, but I held my hand up,
knowing what she was about to suggest.

“Not a chance,” I said.

“But—”

“No.” I slid the card back inside my
book and pulled out a copy of today's newspaper. “I've actually
been thinking maybe I'll stay in tonight. I don't really have the
money to go out, anyway. I need to find a new job. Do you want to
order pizza or something instead?”

I opened the paper and skimmed the help-wanted ads
looking for something close to campus. I'd been working at a
twenty-four hour diner a couple of blocks north of our dorm for the
past six months, but I'd had the privilege of being fired two days
earlier.

It wasn't even my fault. One of my labs ran long
and there was no way to sneak out without getting slammed with
another absence. As much as I couldn't afford to lose my job, I
definitely couldn't afford another absence in that class.

I was barely hanging onto my grades as it was. I
had to maintain at least a B average to keep my financial aid and
just one month into the first semester of my Senior year, I was
already at risk of getting a C in two classes.

Of course, with my life, it was always a Catch-22.
I was behind on my grades because I had to work nearly full-time to
afford tuition and basics like, you know, food. But I was late for
work because of class. Keeping things balanced was a nightmare and
some days I felt more like a professional juggler than a college
student. I resented people like Katy who didn't have to work at all.
But I'd been making this work. Three long years of busting my ass to
put myself through school all on my own. I wasn't about to watch it
all go down the drain with less than a year left.

I needed to find another job.

“Pizza, are you kidding me?” she
asked. “Seriously, what do you want to do? I told Jennifer and
Ash I'd text them as soon as I knew where we were meeting up.”

“I'm not going out,” I said, burying
my head deeper in the paper. Usually I was the first one up for a
good time, but those roses had left me with a churning stomach.
Besides, I was on the cusp of poverty.

Katy slammed her hand down on my newspaper and
stared at me until I lifted my eyes to hers. “You can look for
a job tomorrow,” she said. When I reached for the paper, she
pulled it farther out of my reach and stuffed it in her purse.
“Please. Just for one night, let's go out and have some fun,
okay? I need this.”

I leaned back against my chair. “Well, as
long as it's all about you,” I said. “That really takes
the pressure off.”

She rolled her eyes and downed the rest of her
coffee. “You know what I meant,” she said. “We've
all been looking forward to taking you out tonight. It's going to be
fun, I promise. Just give me one night. Let's let go of the stress of
jobs and school and guys and all that bullshit and just have fun,
okay? You deserve it. You've been working so hard lately. It'll be
good for you.”

I sucked a deep breath in through my nose. I knew
she was right. I really did need this. I was no fun when I was
stressed and ever since the semester started, I'd been a big old ball
of stress twenty-four-seven. Being without money and having no one to
rely on sucked.

“I don't have any money,” I said.

“It's your birthday. We'll take care of
everything. All you need to bring is you. Besides, you'll get a job.
You always do.”

I could see the sympathy in her eyes, but I also
knew she didn't truly understand what I was going through. She'd
never had to work a day in her life, and if she ever needed money,
all she had to do was call her mom. She had no idea how lucky she
really was.

“Come out with us,” she said, taking
my hands in hers. “I'm begging you. We don't have to go to that
Venom place if you don't want to. We'll go to Smart Bar or something.
I promise, we'll make it a night you'll never forget.”

I finally gave in and agreed to go out, not
knowing at the time just how much that night would live up to her
promise.

Four hours later, I had managed to squeeze myself
into my tightest pair of jeans and a plain white tank top. I couldn’t
afford fancy clothes, so instead I went with tight and sexy.

I was relatively tall at five foot eight, but I
still loved to wear super high heels. The higher the better. I’d
managed to snag a pair of used white Christian Louboutin knock-offs
at a thrift shop downtown a few weeks ago and I proudly pulled them
on tonight, instantly growing three inches taller. The black rose
lace overlay on the shoes gave me chills. It was almost as if I could
feel fate tapping on my shoulder.

“Wow, you look hot,” Katy said when I
walked out. She had already started drinking and her face was
flushed.

I twirled, my long black hair flying up around my
face. “Better than my diner uniform, eh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Anything is better
than that hideous thing,” she said. “Plus, no hat. Win,
win.”

“You ready to go?” I asked.

She wore a skimpy black dress that showed off her
curves. Unlike me, she was petite at five-foot-four.

“Yes. I just need to grab my ID.”

“Okay, me too,” I said. I walked back
in my room to grab my license and the last of my cash, just in case.
As I pulled them out of my top drawer, a tattered picture fluttered
to the floor and my heart sank.

I should have just left it where it was, but what
can I say? Sometimes I can be a real glutton for punishment.

I squatted down to pick up the folded picture. It
was worn thin from folding and unfolding and being carried in pockets
and wallets for years, but the smiles on our faces were still visible
despite the creases.

This was one of the only pictures I had of my mom
and me. I had a clearer, less messed up version on my computer, but
in a rare not-drunk-or-messed-up moment, my mom had been sweet enough
to actually have this one printed out for me. As much as I wanted to
hate her for all she’d done to me, looking at this picture of
us together still brought a smile to my face.

And tears to my eyes.

God, I missed her so much.

Three years ago today she had vanished from my
life without a word. No note or text. No phone call. Nothing. She
just packed up all her stuff and took off, as if she’d been
counting the days until my eighteenth birthday so she could abandon
me without taking any grief for it from child services.

She’d broken my heart more times than I
could count, but none of it compared to the brutal beating my heart
took when she left.

At first, I’d told myself she was coming
back. She’d just gone on a bender somewhere, too drunk to come
home or too high to remember her own address. It wouldn’t be
the first time she’d done something like that, right?

But after a month had gone by, the truth had
started to sink in. I tried calling the police but they weren’t
interested in tracking down a woman like my mother. She was a grown
woman, free to come and go as she pleased. There was no sign of a
struggle or hints of foul play, so what could they do?

They told me they’d look into it, but that
was the last I ever heard from them.

It was as if she’d simply disappeared into
thin air.

Some birthday present.

“You coming?” Katy yelled from the
other room.

I took a deep breath and stuffed my sorrow back
down in my gut where it belonged.

She isn’t worth my tears.

It was a lie I’d told myself a thousand
times, but sometimes lying to myself was the only thing that allowed
me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

“Yep, be there in a second,” I said.

I refolded the picture and stuffed it back into
the drawer, then headed out to celebrate.

Tear-free.

“Here’s to twenty-one effing years,”
Katy shouted. She lifted two shots off the top of the bar and handed
one to me, then raised her hand high into the air with a whoop.

I bit back a smile as she downed the shot like a
pro.

Jennifer and Ashley were more tentative, almost
sipping their shots, then both scrunching up their noses at the
taste.

“What is this?” Ashley asked,
coughing.

“Franki’s choice,” Katy said
with a laugh. “Don’t look at me.”

“Scotch,” I said, raising my full shot
glass up in a slight salute before throwing it back and downing it in
a single gulp. It burned all the way down my throat.

“It’s disgusting,” Jennifer
said, setting her empty glass down on the table.

I winked at her. “Don’t be such a
wimp.”

“Want another?” Katy asked.

I bit my lip. I was tempted.

Hell, who was I kidding? I wanted it like a dying
man in the desert wants water. The growing warmth in my stomach and
the loosening of the tension in my shoulders felt amazing. I’d
been wound so freaking tight lately. Katy was right. I really had
needed this.

But at the same time, I didn’t usually let
myself drink too much. I’d seen where that could lead, and I
knew from watching my mother’s addiction grow out of control
over the years that I needed to be careful.

But it was my twenty-first birthday and I wasn’t
in the mood to be responsible.