"You live here?" I eye the neighbourhood as the taxi pulls up on the side of the road. I don't know where we are, but a swirling in my stomach tells me I've been here before. A long time ago, maybe?

The industrial buildings look stark against the night's full moon. Its silvery light bounces off dark landscape windows, and new corrugated roofs that are in sharp contrast with the old muted ochre bricks of the old factory buildings.

She slips out to the car, a silent siren, and I fire a quick message to Ma.

Anghad: Left Vipers club, Ma. Might hv met some1 😜. Don't wait 4 me. I'll hitch a ride/message u if I need u 2 come get me later. Luv u.'

Then I slip the phone back into my shallow pocket and step out after her. I'm not entirely sure when I decided to try to hook up tonight — if she's keen. But I better let Ma know I'm staying out tonight before she sends a search party far and wide for my ass.

"I didn't think this was a residential area," I say.

"It's fairly new." She points at a bright and colourful billboard that reads 'The Grounds by the Sea, your new home away from The Havens,' up ahead.

"Ah!" So it's a 'rich' neighbourhood, even though it looks like it should be where all of Sydney's homeless find refuge in dark, decrepit, abandoned buildings. There's an 'A' still clinging onto the building facade she's heading for, like it was someone's hopes and dreams a long time ago. Beneath it, a weird bird mural is partially visible under the whitewash, and beneath that, an outline of what looks like the word 'biscuits' sits, as faded as my jeans. "You live in a biscuit factory?"

For a moment she pauses in front of me and stares at the large, solid concrete wall as if she's noticing it for the first time. Then she shrugs, mumbles what I think was, "Whatever biscuits are," and swipes her wrist at the entrance scanner.

Weird. Who doesn't know what biscuits are? Maybe The Havens is too cool for biscuits?

I slip in after her, puffing out my chest in the white crisp foyer. If I play this right, maybe we can hook up—which is odd for me. "I normally don't do this," I say as she pushes the elevator button. I don't want her thinking I'm some sleazy guy who hops into bed with strangers the minute they meet—I'm not Andy!

"Don't do what?" She enters the gilded lift—yup, the opulence of it feels sickly in contrast with the exterior of this building. As the door closes, a beam scans her face where she stands and the lift automatically sets its course upwards, saying, "Welcome home, Miss Sapkota. I see you have a guest tonight. Shall I get a drink ready?"

Talk about fancy! Damn, this girl must be rolling in it. What the hell am I doing here? But I can't turn back now, can I? Within seconds, the door opens into a large loft.

"I don't normally—you know—go home with strangers I met at the clubs."

"This is not home." Her dark eyes rest on my face briefly before she sets out for the elevator.

What does that mean? This isn't home?

I have half a mind to remain in that elevator and go home. In the last half hour since we left the club, she's strangely strange, like this is the first time for many things for her. But something compels me to step into the apartment after her.

"Still. It's a nice place. You live here all alone?" I cast an eye across the vast space where shadows, short and tall, fall away as the overhead lights flicker on one by one till the home floor is lit up like an art gallery. There's a workbench on one side of the room, a clump of clay sits on a muddy turntable, and several tall statues are covered over with clay-crusted canvas the size of huge tents Dad used to pitch for our family holidays on old abandoned camping grounds. 'Best way to enjoy the good old-fashioned Aussie beaches without the crowd,' he used to say.

"Your favourite daiquiri, Ms Sapkota, and for your guest, a cocktail, often popular with the gentlemen..." the same AI voice that created us in the elevator speaks as soon as the door shuts behind us.

I look around, trying to figure out how it's incorporated into the loft. Is there a central hub where it's housed? I'd heard about these fancy gadgets the rich have, but to see one in action would be something quite different.

"Do not be alarmed." Meddy throws her handbag on the couch from where she is and heads for the kitchen. "It's the maid if one can even call whatever it is a maid."

"Cool." I try to sound at ease. Perhaps this is how rich people talk, 'cause let me tell you, Meddy is as rich as they come. Everything in her loft would cost an arm and a leg, as Ma likes to say. Maybe my arm and a leg.

"Drink." She holds out a milky drink in a whiskey tumbler as I approach the hidden figures beneath the canvas.

"Are you an artist?"

She shrugs a little.

An incredibly detailed shoe peeks out from beneath the canvas and I'm staring at it. When I was a kid, I fancied becoming an artist till mum made me see sense. 'Art doesn't get you anywhere these days, Anghad, not unless you learn fine arts and paint like Da Vinci or Monet... AI made sure of that.'

My fingers twitch to lift the canvas, so I'm not sure how much sense I saw. "Can I?"

She shrugs again. "As you wish, the boy who's always wanted me..."

Shit. Heat blooms on my cheeks. "I said that, didn't I?" I laugh, lifting a bit of the canvas to see four more pairs of incredibly realistic shoes.

One moment I'm crouched like that, the next, the canvas ripples off the statues. Meddy. She's pulled them off, and the sight makes me suck in a sharp breath. "Incredible." I reach a hand out to touch one statue whose hand is outstretched as if he is reaching for something for real. "They look so real. You make these?"

"I suppose I do." Meddy laughs a tinny laughter that makes goosebumps rise on my arm.

I'm touching my index to this statue's index finger when she stands right next to me and peers up at it too. "This one I met five months ago. He was—how does Keya's friend Stella put it?—handsy."

Meddy moves to the next statue in the line. "This one, four months, give or take. He said he couldn't wait to jump my bones. Whatever that means... I met them at the club."

I get an uneasiness in my stomach then and I'm not sure if it's the White Russian I don't fancy or where this is going. "So, they modeled for you?

"Modeled?" She glances at me curiously from in front of the third statue.

"As in they sat there and allowed you to carve a statue of them?" I can't help but stare at the stone faces. They look like any minute now, they will open their eyes and speak.

She sips her drink, eyeing me like I'm meat. "I suppose." Then she takes a step forward, close enough that I will touch her if I lift my glass to my lips.

"And these other three?"

She stares into my eyes as if she's trying to read my mind.

I pull at my collar. Geez, is it getting hot in here? "I..."

"Yes, boy who's always wanted to know me," she interrupts, her eyes boring into mine with such intensity the HausMaid AI dips the ambient light with a robotic chirp. 'Romantic mood detected, adjusting settings.'

I had read about how responsive those things can get at the top end, but this is incredible to witness. Not only do the stark lights dim and turn warm in hue, but music plays around us — oddly loud. I don't think Meddy or rather her house aid knows what romantic music is. This isn't it, but my heart hammers in my chest, regardless. Are we about to do it? Shit. That escalated fast, didn't it?

"Do you find me beautiful?" she asks, her voice a quiet hiss in the vast space.

"You're the prettiest thing I've ever seen," I blurt. Why so honestly, I'm not sure myself. It's something about her eyes. They're a little hypnotic.

She chuckles. "And?"

"And I..." I pause as she takes the drink from my hand and leads me towards the couch... I follow. "I think you're beautiful, and I wonder what it'd be like to take you to bed."

Fuck! Did I just say that? Why?

"Really?" She sits on the couch and folds one slim, gorgeous leg over the other. "Tell me, what is fuck? I hear it often"

I can't look away. Why can't I look away? "It means sex," we are yelling over the music and I'm surprised no one's pounding on her door to turn the music down. And why can't I spot talking like this? It means sex? Seriously? "Actually, it implies rough and passionate sex, like I can't get enough of you. Like I have to have you. I mean, these men..."

"And tell me"—she holds my gaze and pats the cushion beside her—"is that what you want to do to me? This rough, passionate sex?"

Fuck! I want to pull at my collar. I want to throw back the rest of my drink... I want to... "Yes," I blurt again. If you want to.

"Sit." She commands with an ethereal ease and my limbs follow, slipping on the couch next to her, my hand brushing against hers.

"That's what they all said," she leans in and hisses against my ears. "Most of these men behind you said the same thing, that they'd like to fuck me." She traces a finger on the side of my face, and though the touch is featherlight, I feel an odd pressure weigh down my bones. "I do not like this word."

"But... Tell me, how would you do it?" Something slithers against my cheek—perhaps it's her tongue? "How would you like to fuck me, Anghad?"

A put in my stomach opens up then. This is wrong. Something is wrong here, with her, and suddenly I realise I shouldn't have left the club with her.

"I..."

A loud banging sounds on her door. "It's two in the morning. Turn it down, asshole!"

"Yes?" She pulls my focus away.

"I..." I try again.

BANG. Bang. "Turn it down or I'm calling the police, again."

"Yes, I'm listening." She cooes. "Tell me what you'll do to me."

Is this a kink of hers?

"I..." but I can't seem to move a muscle anymore. What the fuck?

"Oie! Asshole. Turn down the music." The banging comes again.

Why can't I move?

WC: 20,574

A/N: It's 11 pm, and instead of sleeping I tried to finish this chapter. 

Any ideas on what has become of Reina's son? What did you think of the situation he's in? Deserving? No?

Next up: Reina.