The Dollhouse by Stacia Stone

her, thankful that the breathing machine was actually doing her some good.
    Her respirations remained steady and even. I breathed a sigh of relief.
    A breath which I promptly exhaled sharply when I entered the kitchen and found my brother waiting for me.
    “Jesus,” I said, gasping. “You scared the shit out of me.”
    Luis stood, his skinny arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Where have you been?”
    “Out.” I tried to sweep past him but he blocked my path.
    “With who?”
    “None of your business. Get out of the way, Luis.”
    “My boy Niko saw you get in the back of some car with blacked up windows and drive away. That was like four hours ago.”
    Heat suffused my cheeks as I stared into his belligerent face. Of all the people to see me get into that black sedan, why did it have to be someone who knew my brother.
    “So what?”
    “So what have you been doing?” He glared at me. “Where did the money for Mom’s meds and her new breathing machine come from? What have you been doing?”
    I didn’t know what to tell him, there was no excuse I could give that would make any sense. I thought that I had been so careful, but it just seemed stupid in hindsight. Of course he would have questions when money just appeared out of nowhere.
    “I told you the insurance money came in. That’s it.”
    “You’re a fucking liar.”
    He grabbed for the small purse that was slung over my shoulder, too quick for me to stop him. I tried to grab the strap before it slipped off but he was too fast.
    “Stop it!”
    Luis was already rifling through the bag, spilling its contents onto the floor. He immediately found the wad of cash at the bottom and held it up accusingly.
    “What the fuck, Dalea?”
    “Leave me alone.” I snatched the money back from him, balling it in my fist. “We needed money and I got it. How I did it doesn’t matter.”
    “It does matter.” He watched me drop to the floor so I could pick up the spilled contents of my purse. “You don’t need to get it from strange men.”
    A strange man, I almost corrected him. “We need it.”
    “Not like this.” Luis’s face was more earnest than I’d ever seen it and I felt a stab of emotion. It had been so rare lately to get any sign that he cared about anyone but himself. “I’ll start washing dishes at the diner, if I have to. You can’t do this anymore.
    “Luis…”
    “Promise.” He stared down at me, eyes round and sincere. “Promise me that you won’t do this anymore.”
    I could suddenly see him as a baby, when Momma made me promise that I would always take care of him. My family had been all I had for as long as I could remember. They had always been the most important thing in my life.
    But then I thought of my patron — Julian — the outlet for the dark desires that I never knew that I even had.
    “I promise.” My heart wrenched painfully in my chest. “No more.”
    Luis’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Okay. We’ll find money some other way.”
    I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the money that a waitress and a dishwasher could make wasn’t going to stretch very far. Or that there might not be a way to make it work.
    Perhaps it was better this way. Julian was like a fire in my blood and it threatened to consume me. The Dollhouse asked too much of me — my time, my pride and, perhaps, my soul. A clean break might be just the thing that I needed.
    But if it was, why did the thought fill me with me so much regret?

5
    “ I t came !”
    Luis burst into the kitchen. I was sitting at the table surrounded by last month’s unpaid bills with a calculator in my hand. Of course, no matter how many times that I added the numbers together, it still came up to more money than we had available.
    “What came?” I ground the palms of my hands into my eyes in the hopes that would kill my splitting headache.
    He held an envelope in his hand and waved it in front of my face. “I think it’s the check, from the disability