“Brandon.” Katie frowned. “I want to go now.”

“Katie, I’m sorry,” Brandon sighed.

“We’re not going to talk about this here.” Katie gave me one last glance. “Is there anything I can do to convince you to leave?”

I shook my head wordlessly.

“Please don’t let sex make you think he likes you, Meg. Sex is nothing for men like him.”

I stared at her and felt tears pricking my eyes as she spoke. I knew she was right, of course. But that didn’t stop me from hoping that something else would happen.

I stood there wondering why I didn’t run out as fast as I could. And then it struck me. I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t let me leave. A part of me started to understand why women stayed with men they knew were inherently bad. When you were bitten by the love bug, it was hard to do anything but hope and pray that somehow it could work out.

There was silence in the room as we all stood there. Finally, Katie shook her head and walked through the door, Brandon following behind her. He stopped at the door and turned back to face us before looking at Greyson one last time.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Greyson. You don’t have to be this way.”

“It always had to be this way.” Greyson’s voice was bleak.

“This isn’t over, Greyson. We’re not in college any more.”

“Just leave, Brandon. Go explain to your woman why you’re not the spawn of the devil before it’s too late.”

“Call us, Meg. If anything happens, call us.” Brandon glanced at me and left the room.

I stood there staring at the ground, feeling confused and worried.

Greyson finally spoke up. “I don’t know why you didn’t leave with your friends.”

“I want to know what happened to Nancy.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe, Meg. You should have listened to your friend. What we had was about nothing more than sex.”

“I don’t care.” I bit my lip as I lied. His words had cut me to the core. I’d really thought we were beyond that stage.

“If you’re staying, you better get back outside. The tests will be starting soon.”

“Okay.” I nodded and glanced at him. He was surveying me with an odd light in his eyes.

He sighed. “You shouldn’t have stayed, Meg.”

“I couldn’t leave,” I whispered, and he nodded back at me.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

***

I didn’t go back outside right away. I couldn’t face the others and the questions in their eyes. I needed to compose myself, and I wanted to check to see if Nancy was back in the room. Part of me knew that she wouldn’t be there, but I was hoping beyond hope that she would have shown back up.

I quickly walked into our room and looked around. I stopped as I looked at my bed and the messy sheets. I was pretty confident that I had made my bed in the morning, like I always did. My breathing slowed as I looked around the room again to see if anything else looked askew. Nothing else seemed off, so I walked over to the bed and pulled off the duvet and the sheets to see if someone had left a note for me, but there was nothing there.

I threw the bedding back onto the bed and was about to walk back out of the room when I saw something shiny glittering underneath Nancy’s bed. I ran back and quickly pulled it out, and I was surprised to see a diary. I opened it slowly, feeling bad for invading Nancy’s privacy, but I needed to see what she had written in case there were any clues inside.

The diary appeared to have been started a long time ago, as the first entries were about some guy named Hunter who she appeared to have been in love with while in school. There was a lot of angst and emotion, and it seemed like Nancy had really had the bug for him. I flicked through the pages quickly, not wanting to read about her obviously unrequited and painful school crush. I flipped back a few pages, when I realized that my eyes had flickered over an entry about Maria.

“Maria is bringing her new boyfriend home this weekend. Mom and Dad are excited that she’s coming home, but that’s because they don’t know the truth. I can’t believe that Maria is stripping now. I hope Ryan doesn’t find out she’s coming home. He’s going to flip a switch. It’s so unfair that Maria has two guys and I have none. I wish that Hunter would notice me...”

I stopped reading then, as it seemed that the writing had changed pretty quickly back to her crush on Hunter. I sat on her bed and thought for a moment about what I had just read. I assumed that Maria’s boyfriend was Brandon. But what did she mean about the stripping? Had Maria been a stripper? And if so, did that mean that the club really was a strip joint? But who was Ryan? And why had Nancy been worried that he would find out about her new boyfriend? I flipped through again, more carefully this time, to see what else I could find. I paused on the next page as I saw another entry.

“Maria’s boyfriend Brandon is gorgeous. One of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen. He makes Hunter look like a little boy. Maria told me that he’s the best sex she’s ever had. I tried not to show her how uneasy she made me feel as she went into detail. I don’t think she knows I’m still a virgin. I don’t...”

I sat up straight as something hit me. Nancy was eighteen. And supposedly, Maria had dated Brandon ten years ago, Nancy would have been eight when all of this had gone down. Why would she have been writing about a boy she had a crush on at eight? And the sex thing? It didn’t make sense. There was no way that an eight-year-old had written this diary.

So that meant one of two things: this was someone else’s diary or this was written at a later date. Either way, this diary had been left here for a purpose. This wasn’t a case of Nancy accidentally leaving her diary in the room. Whoever had left the diary in the room wanted me to see it.

I wanted to feel like Nancy had left this for me to see, but I didn’t understand why she would have written so much about her high school crush Hunter if she’d wanted to give me clues about Maria. Who cared how she’f felt about Hunter? That wasn’t going to help me now. I closed my eyes and tried to think carefully. Maybe there were clues in what she had written about Hunter? Maybe the whole diary was a clue.

My eyes popped open as I heard a noise outside the door. I stood up slowly and walked to the spot behind the door. I held my breath as the door slowly opened with me behind it. I clutched the diary to me in fear. Who was about to walk through the door?

I felt and heard two footsteps, but whoever was there didn’t bother coming all the way into the room and the door closed again within seconds. I stayed where I was for about another minute, trying to control my breathing.

I looked at the time and realized that I needed to get back outside if I wanted to continue on at the club. Part of me didn’t really understand why Greyson was letting me stay. He had to know that I was going to continue to investigate while I was here. His secret was nearly out. He had to know that I would expose his sex trafficking to the world.

I didn’t understand why he hadn’t made me leave with Brandon and Katie. He probably wanted a few more nights with me before he got rid of me. I was angry at myself for how excited I felt about spending more nights with Greyson. It wasn’t even about the sex, though that was mind-numbingly brilliant. It was about just being with him and getting to know him, snippet by snippet.

I walked out of the room and to the bathroom quickly. As I entered, I grabbed a plastic bag I saw on the ground and walked into one of the restrooms. I placed the diary into the plastic bag and tied it carefully and tightly, making sure that there were no small holes at the top of the bag. I opened the top of the toilet and peered inside; the water made me pause, but I knew there was nowhere else I could hide the diary. I dropped it in and moved the top back in place before slowly opening the door and walking out of the bathroom again.

“There you are, Meg.” Patsy nodded at me as I walked back into the courtyard. “Decided to rejoin us?”

“Sorry, I, uh, wanted to check on Nancy.”

“She’s gone.” Her eyes expressed concern as she spoke.

“I guess so.”

“Is everyone ready for their tests today?” she continued, and I stood to the side.

I could see both David and Elizabeth trying to make eye contact with me. I looked around the group of girls and I realized that at least five of the girls were gone.

“Yes, Meg?” Patsy looked at me.

“Did some of the girls drop out? I see some are missing.”

“No, they’ve been moved.” Her eyes flashed at me.

“Can I ask where they’ve been moved to?”

“No.” Her voice was harsh. “I wouldn’t push it if I were you, Meg.”

David gave me a look then. I could tell from his eyes that he was worried. I bit my lip as I stood there. David didn’t know what had happened to Nancy. That meant that Nancy hadn’t told him she was leaving or she hadn’t left because she’d wanted to. I shivered even though it wasn’t very cold.

I needed to go back and read more of the diary. I needed to know what else Nancy was trying to tell me. Or at least what someone else wanted me to think she was trying to tell me.

Patsy silently escorted me to my first room. I wanted to ask her if she knew what was really going on at the club, but I knew she wouldn’t answer me. She was loyal to a fault.

“Are you coming in with me?” I turned towards Patsy as we arrived at the door.

“No.” She stood there and pursed her lips. “I just wanted to make sure you made it here and didn’t get lost.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wouldn’t make a habit of wandering around the club. You may find that you get lost, and you know what happens to people when they get lost once too often.”

“No…”

“Sometimes they’re never found.” Her eyes pierced into mine and she opened the door. “I think you’ll find that your test is about to start.”

I walked into the room without answering her. Was she threatening me? Was there no one I could trust? I wished that Katie had stayed behind with me. Though I wasn’t sure how I could have asked her. If I’d told her everything I knew and suspected, she never would have let me stay.

The door closed behind me with a slam, and I sighed before looking around to see what my first task was going to be. I frowned as I observed the scene in front of me. This was a different kind of room. There was a long wooden table directly across from the door. On the table, there were about twenty different bottles of liquor with chasers. To the right of the table, I noticed some small packets. I swallowed hard as I walked closer to inspect the bags. My eyes widened as I realized that I was staring at bags of drugs. From what I could tell, I could see a bag of weed and a bag of co**ine, and there were pills in the other bags. I heard a thud and took a step back to look around. I could feel the warmth in my cheeks as I stood there. This wasn’t what I had expected at all. Was Greyson a drug dealer? I stared at the table again, trying to figure out what my test was, as I couldn’t see any pieces of paper. I stared at the table again to see if there was some sort of clue on the table, but if there was, I couldn’t figure it out.

“Enjoy yourself,” a smooth voice suddenly spoke into the room, and the lights dimmed.

I froze as I waited for Greyson to come into the room. I turned around and stared at the door, anticipating his entrance.

“Relax,” the voice said again, and it was then that I noticed the glittering lights in the corner.

I walked over to see what was flashing and realized that it was a sound system. I pressed play and pulsing trance music blasted out of the speakers. I quickly turned it off and walked back to the table to see if there was anything I had missed.

I must have stood in the room doing nothing for about twenty minutes before the lights came back on and the voice said, “Testing done.” I opened the door, feeling slightly disappointed that Greyson hadn’t come to visit me. I’d been hoping that he would come and see me, that he would show me that he was thinking of me, despite what he had said.

I exited the room, but there was no Greyson and no Patsy waiting for me. I ran to the bathroom then so that I could read some more of Nancy’s journal before my next testing. I let out a sigh of relief as I walked in and saw that the bathroom was empty. I entered the stall and pulled back the top of the toilet. Then I took the plastic bag out eagerly and quickly removed the diary, flicking through it until I reached the last entry I had read.

“I heard Maria crying last night. She was sobbing and I didn’t know what to say to her. I’ve never seen her like that before. Not even when she broke up with Ryan. She was banging the walls hard with her fist. I was scared she was going to punch a hole in the walls. I went to her room to say something, but I saw her boyfriend in there with her. He was just staring at her, not doing anything. I know he saw me because he frowned as he made eye contact with me. I was scared when he looked at me. But then he turned away and walked over to Maria. All he kept saying was “I’m sorry, but this was a mistake, I don’t love you.” That only made it worse. Maria grabbed a lamp and tried to hit him. I saw him get angry. I should have done something. I wish I’d done something now. If I had done something, maybe she wouldn’t have died. But today she was all smiles to the parents. And so was he.”

I stilled as I read the passage. Something was off, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. I reread it again and tried to figure it out and then I realized it was the tense. I reread the sentence “If I had done something, maybe she wouldn’t have died” again. From all accounts, Maria was still alive the day after Nancy had seen her crying. So if this had been a true entry or recounting from the past, that would never have been written. She wouldn’t have known that Maria was going to die.