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“I don’t know,” she said at the end. “It all feels just a little bit off, you know what I mean?”

“Mmm,” Alli said thoughtfully.

Bea, who hadn’t realized how heavily all this was weighing on her until now, stroked Alli’s arm. “Not that you need to defend my honor or anything.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Alli said.

“You wouldn’t?” Bea felt oddly hurt at this.

“Nope, your honor is yours to defend, just like mine is mine,” Alli said. “If you want to get paid more then you can stand up for yourself, it’s not my job to do that for you.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Bea pulled her back down.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t look into the other stuff, though,” Alli said.

“Hmm. That might mean sticking around,” said Bea, her voice muffled by Alli’s hair. “And if we don’t get some sleep we’ll collapse tomorrow.”

Alli slid her hand comfortingly between Bea’s legs. “How about we let tomorrow be tomorrow,” she said.

Chapter Twenty Five

Alli leaned back against the wall, waiting. Her legs were pleasantly achy. Her stomach muscles hurt from tensing up. And every time she closed her eyes, she could practically taste Bea on her tongue.

Not broken, she thought, as she waited. Nope. Definitely not at all broken. In fact, if anything, she was more working than she’d ever imagined. Who would have thought that number of orgasms possible in just one night?

There would be a second night. And a third. She carried the weight of that thought, the warmth of it, in her stomach. It made her feel… different. More relaxed. In a better mood, maybe. So much so that when Josh walked around the corner, she hooked her arm through his to pull him into the meditation room.

“What?” Josh asked, looking over both shoulders like this might be some kind of trick.

“I just wanted to ask you something,” Alli said. What Bea had told her was weighing on her mind. Maybe because she hated this place, maybe because she thought Bea deserved better. She didn’t know which, and she didn’t want to think about it too hard.

“Fire away,” said Josh, leaning against the windowsill.

“Yesterday, you said that everyone around here was broke.”

“Yeah.” He scratched his head. “Seems like we all are.”

“But surely there are like… minimum wages or something?” She was guessing there. Like she’d ever had a minimum wage job.

“Yeah,” he said again. “But by the time Luke’s taken out money for food and accommodation, that doesn’t add up to much.”

Huh. Same story as Bea then. She frowned. “Have you ever thought that there’s something odd going on around here?”

“Someone been telling ghost stories again?” Josh asked.

“Not that kind of odd. More… I don’t know, something weird about the participants, something like that?”

“You’re all mad as hatters,” he said. “And other than having to carry the odd crazy woman out of a yoga class, no, I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

“What about anything else?” she pressed.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what you want from me. I keep my head down and do my job, that’s it. I’m not going around looking for trouble.”

She held up both hands. “Okay, okay, just asking.” She paused, waiting for the familiar warmth of the anger to boil up in her stomach, waiting to move into professional mode, waiting to demand answers. But nothing.

Josh sniffed. “If anything, I’d say we all work hard and don’t get paid enough. Even Daria, before she, um, left.”

“Except Luke,” Alli said.