Free The Tidings - [Ghost Huntress 0.5 - A Christmas Novella] by Marley Gibson Page B

red neon sign overhead that reads “Live Nudes.”
    Live Nudes? Well, I certainly don’t want to see dead ones. For that matter, I don’t want to see nudes at all.
    “You’re taking me to a strip club?” I ask, disbelieving.
    “I don’t have a choice,” he tells me.
    My heart pounds inside my chest, throbbing with an ache of the unknown. Apparently in this future scenario, I’m not privy to my psychic abilities that can head off the mystery of this situation.
    We pass through the wall of the building and into the dingy red-lit hue of the night club’s interior. Patrons spread throughout the bar, dancing and drinking and smoking. I feel the need to choke and cough although the odor really has no effect on me. In the center of the room, there’s a large stage with a red curtain on the back. Three silver poles dot the left, middle, and right of the platform. A horseshoe-shaped bar juts out from the front of the area and it’s filled with the impatient audience members waiting for the next performer.
    Patrick motions me to the front where we take two cracked red-leather bar stools that have seen better days.
    “This is disgusting. Who could have ended up here?”
    I think of my friend, Becca Asiaf, who as a bit of a wild child in her Goth days when I first moved to Radisson. Since joining our ghost huntress group, though, she no longer dresses all in black and is really into her music. Surely this isn’t her future. Or is it?
    “Is Becca the DJ here?”
    Patrick shakes his head. “Not even close.”
    Celia Nichols would never darken the doors of a place like this. She’s going to MIT or Stanford or Georgia Tech to become a Ph.D. in some sort of engineering or similar. It can’t be Taylor Tillson, can it? Unquestionably, Taylor’s had a rough time with her parents’ divorce, her mother’s attempted suicide, and having to live a semester in Alaska. But she’s one tough cookie who has her shit together. There’s no way she’s going to come out from behind that red curtain.
    I think of some of my classmates who haven’t always been that nice to me, particularly Courtney Langdon. While I get a five-second fantasy laugh that maybe she’s the one working here, it’s quickly squashed with the desire to help her find her way, if that’s who it is. Stephanie Crawford is sort of stiff when she does her cheerleader routines, so I doubt swinging on a metal pole would be her style.
    Then who?
    “You’ll see,” Patrick informs me.
    As he speaks, the house lights dim, a spotlight shines on the middle of the stage, and the emcee’s voice crackles through the PA system. “And now, what you’ve been waiting for. Put your hands together for our very own Christmas treat, ready for the unwrapping.”
    “Eww… gross.”
    “Put your hands together for Mrs. Claus!”
    A gnarly techno beat grinds out and the crowd of unmentionables begins to come to life, fist pumping, waving cash overhead, and drunkenly swaying in time with the music.
    The red curtain parts and a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, steps out in a red-velvet bikini with white trimmed fur. She’s wearing a Santa hat, a pout, and not much else. I’m tempted to look away, but I know her. At least, that’s what Phantom Patrick says. Yet, this girl looks weathered and tired, abused and used. Her body is shapely and her face is attractive underneath all of that caked-on makeup. I can’t tell if the red hair is a wig or if it’s dyed that color.
    As she begins to do the bumps and grinds to the nasty beat, I feel as though my heart has been crushed in a fist of revulsion and disillusionment. Through the thick mascara and heavily lined lids, I see eyes that I’d know anywhere. The smile of a once-innocent girl who so looked up to me… until we grew apart.
    “Kaitlin,” I say in a choked whisper.
    Patrick props his elbows on the bar. “In the flesh.”
    I glare at him as hard as I’ve ever glared at anyone in my life. “That was