Read Online Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton - Free Book Online

poured out shirts and jeans. A three-inch-long translucent scorpion tumbled out.
    â€œA scorpion is loose!” I yelled, yanking pants on.
    â€œStop tripping out,” Zane said.
    â€œKiss this,” I said, pointing to my rear as I dressed it.
    â€œHe won’t hurt you,” Micky said. He bent down and offered the arachnid some nitrous. The balloon blasted the small monster to the edge of the tent. The scorpion froze in the corner, probably from shock. I walked over to it, imagining the pitch a scorpion’s voice would be high on nitrous, if it could speak—and noticed how the tip of its poison tail was shaped like a chive flower. Quite delicate, actually. Normally, if there’s a spider in my space I’ll scoop it up in a jar and set it free. But this was no
spider. I let the scorpion be. Carefully shaking out each clothing article, I pulled on more wearables and exited, heading back towards my not-so-secret spot near the lake. I needed to escape this evil den of wicked, ugly scorpion lovers.
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    Zane and I were freshmen at the community college, although we hardly ever made it to class. We spent mornings on the bleachers watching the sunrise, trying to sip apple juice since we were too sick with drugs to eat. He was a fifth year freshman. What are you doing with your life? I’d think, looking at him. He liked cooking, even though he hardly ate and was lanky like a preteen boy. He was a talented chef, and spent rare nights cooking steaks for us on his dorm room hot plate. On this camping trip, there was no food along, not even gas station snacks. We’d even blown off buying alcohol. Zane was channeling his maniac this time. Why bother drinking when you have crack, LSD, weed, nitrous oxide, psilocybin, and speed?
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    I forgot to mention that Zane had pressured me into dosing before my lake swim; I hadn’t wanted anything else in my system, but Zane called me a chicken so I set one small square on my tongue. The acid was kicking in along with the windstorm. Sand made gravelly grating sounds against the walls of the tent, which I watched bloat inward like sails on a ghost ship. Wooden poles barely holding the thing down rocked back and forth. There were no trees around, so I felt like we were all trapped in an hourglass. The sand gusts were noisy, like water torture. Soon I watched all the men filter out of the tent, covering their eyes with their arms and elbows to keep sand from stinging their faces. I sat on the lakeshore with a shirt around my head, watching them try to hold the tent poles in place. My pants and t-shirt were filling with sand; weighted, I was a human sandbag. I remained sitting, a hundred feet from the drama.
    â€œBeets, grab the stake!” Zane yelled. His aura turned into a
reverse shadow and glowed green as if his spirit would puke from getting nailed with sand pellets while being poisoned by Beets’ idiotic presence.
    Micky had both hands around one stake. Zane couldn’t keep hold of his because whirls of sand were whipping him. The sand was a demon unleashed by the Shakespearean carnival freaks. Everyone was getting what they deserved. The night’s catastrophe was falling into place. Lake water flamed up again. I stood up to get a better view, cupping my hands around my eyes like binoculars.
    Zane yelled for me to come help. The tent was collapsing. I jogged over and tapped a stake in half-heartedly. I didn’t want to interfere with the sand demon’s wrath. Micky crawled inside the tent, now a jumbled pile of fabric, and emerged with a ball-peen hammer.
    â€œBeets, hold that stake,” Micky yelled.
    â€œDon’t hammer,” I said. “It won’t work.” His hammer was ridiculous and so was he. Fate had the upper hand.
    As Beets held the stake, Micky hammered, crushing Beets’ finger to a bloody pulp. Beets was too loaded to pull his hand away after the first whack, and he got a good five more in before