We pass the Hollywood Wax Museum where there’s a creepy wax sculpture of an older Justin Bieber, of all people, in the window. There are other wax sculptures I don’t recognize, including an actress in a wheelchair. People in long coats stand on the side of the street and try to hand us things that look like little blue pills. Trent starts to take one until I give him a “don’t even think about it” look.
After a couple blocks, we move away from the tourist trap and the crowd thins out. The map says we’ve come to the place: a plain gray building with blacked-out windows and a dark-blue door. The neon sign above it says “Blue Moon” and has an image of a woman dancing on a pole with her ass sticking out. Classy.
“Is this the place?” Adam asks.
Zoe stares at the door with wide eyes. “The address is right, but…”
“I changed my mind. I want to go in now,” Trent says, grinning at the sign.
I roll my eyes. “Keep it in your pants, perv.”
“C’mon, can’t we all go in?”
“Shut up,” Chris says to Trent. He looks back and forth between me and Adam. “You two know what to do?”
“Yeah, we got it.” I take off my jacket and hand it to Zoe, leaving me in just a plain black shirt. Adam zips up his jacket. It’s the best we can do until we get some new clothes. We keep our backpacks—I don’t want the others peeking through mine and finding the gun.
While we were on the train, Chris and Adam set up our flexis so Adam and I can record everything we see and hear while streaming it to the others, so they can watch and even speak to us. From what Chris said, it will be like they’re looking through our eyes. Personally, I think it’s creepy as hell. I’d much rather be on the receiving end, but I’m stuck with the job. Zoe can’t go inside in case her sister recognizes her. Chris and Adam split up so we have a tech guy on both ends, and none of us trust Trent not to screw this up.
“I’m turning on the camera,” Adam says. “How’s it look?”
“Looks good,” Chris says. “We’ll hang out around back. C’mon.” He waves for Zoe and Trent to follow him.
Adam opens the door, and we walk into a dark room that reeks of beer and desperation. Loud music thumps in the background, and two older men sit at the bar. Above them, a dark-haired girl dances around a pole with only her underwear on. She twirls around and stares off into the distance, her movements mechanical. Another scantily clad girl walks around the room and stops to talk to a guy with a long beard at a table. Otherwise, the place is empty.
“Man, strip clubs are depressing this early in the morning,” Trent says, his voice loud in my head. I jump at the sound. It’s bad enough hearing him out loud.
“How many have you been to?” I ask.
“Um…none.”
Figures. I scan the room, feeling like a creeper every time I look at the women, and a little angry every time I see the men. But I’ve been in worse places than this, so I keep my cool.
“Are any of these your sister?” I ask quietly. I focus on the dark-haired girl, who looks like she could be Asian. “Her maybe?”
“I-I don’t know,” Zoe says. “I don’t think so. But I’m not sure what she looks like.”
“You don’t know what your sister looks like?”
“It’s been a while since I saw her.” She sighs, and I can hear the pain in her voice. “We were kids when we were split up and put into the foster care system.”
“That sucks.” No wonder she wants to see her sister so badly. There were many nights growing up in foster care when I wished I had a brother or sister, someone who would stick with me through everything, who’d understand what I’d been through like no one else could. But maybe that would have been worse—to be split up from the last person you called family.
“What do we do?” Adam asks. He’s been silent until now, taking it all in with a grim expression.
“No clue,” I say. “I’ve never been to a strip club.”
“Me neither.”
“Get a table or something,” Chris says.
We pick a spot across the room from the bearded guy. The table’s surface has bright blue bubbles floating all over it, and when I touch one, it pops. Adam slides his hand across the table and the bubbles move around him, blown away by his movements but never going too far from the surface.