Rescued

Chapter Eleven

        The next morning, I dressed in my corset, pants, and boots while wrapping myself in a comfy black coat. I walked to the bar and was surprised to find it bare. Yesterday it was full even though it was only noon. I positioned myself behind the counter and hung my coat up in the back room.

        "Kai!" I heard Krissy's voice use my new name. I turned around and smiled at her and she smiled back, "are you ready to move in today?"

        "Definitely," I answered and then a thought came to mind about last night. "Do you bring your makeup here?" I asked.

        "Yes, because you never know when you're going to need to reapply," she said and smiled. "Why?"

        "I need your help with something," I stated and she drug me into the backroom.

        "What can I do for you?" she asked.

        "To be honest, I'm here to get away from some people and now they're here in town and I need you to make me look unrecognizable," I said, hoping she would help me and trusting that she would even though I hadn't known her long.

        She looked at me in shock for a few moments, "what do you mean? Did they hurt you?" she asked.

        I shook my head, "no, I just came here for a fresh start and to get away and I can't do that if they recognize me," I said and she nodded.

        "Alright, what have you done different so far?" she asked and I told her about my hair and the contacts. "Okay, so now we just have to make your face look different. I can do that. Just one thing, how different do you want to look?" she asked and after giving her free reign she went at it.

        Thirty minutes or so later she showed me my face. With the eye shadow, she made my green eyes pop and she'd contoured my face to make it look narrower and just to add something different she made me look like I had a mole above my lip. I turned back to her and I smiled. "Thank you so much!" I shouted.

        "No problem! And don't worry, that mole is waterproof," she said and laughed. I joined in until Michael showed up at the door.

        "Shouldn't you be working?" he asked sternly.

        "Yes! We were just‒ I was‒ Kai needed help," Krissy stuttered out.

        "What do you mean needed help?" he asked and then I revealed to him what I'd told Krissy.

        "Wow, I didn't know that. Anything else we should know?" he asked.

        "My real name is Arya Johnson and I'm sixteen almost seventeen," I said and Michael gave me a shocked look.

        "I employed a sixteen-year-old!" Michael exclaimed.

        "Yes, but I need this job to get by here," I said.

        Michael contemplated this, "Okay, but if anybody asks, I'm telling them you're eighteen," he said.

        I nodded, "That's okay because here my name is Kai Arden and I am eighteen, so if anybody asks, that's who I am to you," I said and Michael and Krissy both nodded.

        "If you don't mind me asking, why are you hiding from them?" Krissy asked. I looked down then and was silent for a few moments, wondering if I could tell them the truth.

        "I know you barely know us, but you can trust us," Michael said, as if reading my mind.

        I nodded before looking for a place to start. "My parents were murdered in front of me while I was hiding and then a stranger, to me, took me in who looked harmless to begin with, but on the ride to his house he told me that my life would be at risk if I told anybody about his existence and when I tried to escape from him he killed the two people I asked for help. He told me he's killed people and that he has a lot of enemies. I had no other choice than to stay with him, he was my only option then.