ALEKS

******* PAST ********

The dream started at the time I’d entered Samuel Lambert’s office, my hands drenched in Target B43T’s blood, adrenaline borne from taking the life of a miserable wench like her flooding and warming my body. The white shorts I’d borrowed from Leticia were useless then and I’d made a mental note to buy her new ones. The top would have to be burnt as well. Samuel had gasped dramatically and clutched his chest as I’d jumped in through the window.

“Jesus…. Ice, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he’d asked, looking around his fancy office frantically as if someone would jump out from underneath his desk and surprise him. I’d rolled my eyes at the moniker ‘Ice’, from my unofficial title, The Ice Princess, a title which was not helped by the unusual whiteness of my hair alongside the supposed coldness of my heart. I strolled casually towards his door and looked around the empty corridor and locked it as I headed towards his office bathroom and began to undress, chucking my clothes in a bin.

“You called me here.” I responded, entering the shower and sighing as hot water swashed the crimson blood of a psychopath off my body and down the drain.

“Yes but I didn’t mean come looking like Jeepers Creepers. What if someone sees you?” he fussed, his voice rising a few octaves higher.

“It’s eight pm Samuel, calm down.” I responded, massaging my hair with his pine scented shampoo.

“It…you know what…. No. I won’t do this with you now. You need to get clean and come with me for the shoot.” I ignored him for a while as I enjoyed my shower, the hot water loosening up my bones.

“What shoot?” I finally asked absently as I dried my body in a big, white fluffy towel.

“The photoshoot. I sent you an email.” He said.

“Only old people read their emails.”

He continued as if I’d never spoken. “…. You can’t keep coming in and out of here for your snooping without an alibi. Gordo was starting to get suspicious so I told him you were one of the new models. You’ll be able to come and go as you please then. He immediately placed you in the new magazine slots. You’ll be shooting all week.”

I thought about it and it actually wasn’t that bad of an idea. I wasn’t shy about getting naked and everyone but Gordo knew that this fashion company his father had given him was nothing more than a cover for a human trafficking ring. I was there to dismantle it and by the time I was done with it, the company would be toast. One week was plenty and I’d have the rest of the year off.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Gordo was just a rich boy who would be excited about this new business which Sam was running for him for only a while and would move on from it soon. It also meant I would have little exposure from the modeling I would do and soon the company would be forgotten along with whatever shoots I did. Besides, as per my new deal with my father joining the Agency would be my last act on his behalf. I’d be free after a year then. Completely free for the first time in my life.

“Hmm. Not a bad Idea.” I mused throwing some lighter fluid in the bin with the soiled clothes in before lighting it up. I grabbed a gown from a hanger and went out to find Sam smoking, the stench of tobacco making me wrinkle my nose.

“Great. Let’s go get you ready.” he said, taking my hand and dragging me with him.

“Wait…now? At eight pm?”

“What? Is it too unethical to make you work at this hour?” he scowled.

“Well…Yes”

“Shut up assassin.” He responded rudely.

***

I should have seen the cringe designs and the inappropriateness coming from a mile away. It was a 9pm shoot being directed by an eighteen-year-old rich stoner who had dropped out of pre-school. He’d also ‘designed’ the most… crude… women’s ‘lingerie’ I had ever seen in my life. I was well aware that his perverted, human trafficker dad had raised a little chauvinist pig but clearly his son was not too far from following his footsteps. No sane woman would ever buy the tasteless scraps of lacy fabric with dicks printed all over them. The ‘bra’ with cut off nipples and more dick printings would surely never be a hit either.

“Wow Sam, I have no inhibitions whatsoever but I’m blushing as I look at this. Are these even legal? Who printed them? Who actually stitched them so neatly?”

Sam blushed as he looked at the set I was holding out.” Well now…Gordo just tried to express himself through his designs. He worked very hard on them.” He coughed a little at the end.

“You dirty old man! You actually like this perverted kid!” I exclaimed, laughing as Sam blushed harder.

“Shut up, Ice. Are you modeling or not?” he asked already pushing me towards the changing room. He knew as well as I did how many things depended on that mission, and that I would do just about anything to complete it. I gave him an intense look as I closed myself into the room and changed into my ‘lingerie’.

My makeup was done and the cameras were set as I laid in the huge bed with satin sheets and waited for my modeling partner. Gordo was just about panting as he looked at me and he was complimenting me while cursing about late comers and how he was running a business. I’d scoffed once and he had frowned at me before being sidetracked by my hanging nipple and smiling at me brightly. Sam and everyone else in the room where blushing on his and my behalf. I was tired and bored.

I noticed the elegant stroll and the golden hair and the phantom sound of panties dropping before I actually saw Leukas. My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach when I saw the guy I had avoided for the rest of my year in Stanford for the sake of my sanity. I looked at the guy I had pinned after, dreamt about and yearned for a whole year. I had thought since I’d left Stanford our paths would not cross again. Before that, I had planned our meet-cute to the tee. I would spill some coffee on him and he would smile at me as I futilely tried to scrap it off with a napkin; maybe I’d bump into him and he would catch me before I fell. Maybe he would find me sitting on his spot in the library and we would have a laugh about it later on when we chatted quietly. I had not foreseen seeing him while looking like a Grade A slut wearing dick-panties. At that moment I had thought, FUCK MY LIFE. Of course the other model, for no reason whatsoever, was Leukas Hyades.