They called me Knave. For the record, I’m rolling my eyes right now. No, I didn’t argue. What the fuck do I care what they call me? Ha!

  This pce isn’t what they think it is, you know. It’s not… I don’t know, some kind of retarded utopia. Everything in this world still works the same. There’s no such thing as a free meal.

  I’m like the others, I guess. I’m here for the same reason they are: nowhere else to go. But uhem, I had things good. I had it ght up until the moment I didn’t. You know a good thing disappear just like that? Like the snap of your fingers. I lived with this boy, Eric— I know, I know, no hat’s what they told me. You think Eric is his real name? Pfft. I wasn’t borerday, dummy.

  Things were great with Eric. I didn’t love him, and he didn’t love me. The sex was amazing, though. We grifted together— you know, grifting. We were artists, genius. We pulled trick after trick, and we always got away with it. Until one day, y’know, we didn’t. Local scumlord, some petty drug dealer, es looking for his shit, and he finds us.

  Eric ratted me out to him and the cops, and then— what then? The cops I could run from, but running when the whole city’s underbelly is on your ass? Please. So I came here. It was something to do, which was better than sitting still waiting to bite it. I’d heard their weird street preachers talking about it, so I came looking.

  A true believer? Are you fug kidding me, do I look like a true believer?

  The ceremony is none of your business. I said what I had to say. It was good enough for Lune, wasn’t it?

  I go now?

  ——

  That interview was terrible. Kook her feet off the table and scooted her chair back with more force than actually necessary. The chair—ugly pstic e thing, the sort of chair they used in sade a grinding, scraping noise as it dragged across the floor. The interviewer (milquetoast, b-looking motherfucker) winced behind his gsses.

  She let the door sm on her way out.

  She would kill for a cigarette, but no one seemed to have any cigarettes around here. That interview was fug weird. She didn’t know who those people were. Lune had asked her to talk to them, and Knave wasn’t stupid. She khat ask wasn’t really an ask; it was just dressed up as oo make it go down easier.

  She didn’t actually like Lune. She didn’t like anyone here, but she knew where her bread was buttered. She wasn’t about to mess up a good thing, so she talked to the men who came, as requested.

  That was weird to begin with. Knave had been uhe impression that men weren’t allowed at the ranch house at all. She hadn’t even seen one sihey’d arrived two months ago. Wolf had asked Lune who the interviewers were, and Knave had been listening in while pretending to be distracted by her iPod. Lune hadn’t said, of course, close-lipped as ever.

  This pce was weird. The Persephone Girls and their secrets made her skin crawl. But Lune’s silence was answer enough, in its way. It told Khat like all her other questions, this one wouldn’t be answered. So she didn’t bother asking about the men after hearing Wolf get shut dower to save her questions anyway. It wouldn’t do to look too nosy. The others might buy the kumbaya crap, but Knave didn’t. No such thing as a free lunch, and nobody liked nosy motherfuckers.

  So Lune wouldn’t tell them who the interviewers were, but Knave wasn’t stupid. They were gover suits, she knew what those looked like. They had the college boy stink still ging to them, so fresh out the academy, then.

  She went to the spot on the grounds that she’d taken a liking to, a secluded patch of grass a little ways into the forest. There were little white flowers in the ground here. It retty enough, if you went in for that sort of thing. Knave didn’t care. The only thing she wanted was to get away from everyo was cloying, living on top of one another like that. They all got their own rooms, sure, but the rooms were small and cramped, and everyone was always up in your shit.

  The sun was starting to sink in the west. It was still light out, and the afternoon was warm enough. The tall trees filtered out the worst of the gre. The sunrays fell in dappled streaks, making the clearing look idylli a way that even she couldn’t deny. Knave looked around, cheg for any of those weirdos.

  No one was here. The forest was quiet save for birds chirping and the sound of cicadas. She settled bad closed her eyes, letting her hair fall into a careless halo of ink around her head. She wasn’t oo meditate— that was hokey and weird. She’d had a friend that tried to get her into it, but Knave had just rolled her eyes and smacked her with the magazine she’d been reading.

  So no, she didn’t meditate, but Knave could get into the idea of just… breathing for a little while. It was o just feel at peace. If asked, she would say she didn’t feel safe anywhere. She’d say that she kept her guard up at all times… but that didn’t stop her from drifting into a light and dreamless sleep.