Wolves In Silk

*Includes sexual violence and substance abuse*

I used to think being one of Bo Peep’s girls meant something. Safety, respect, maybe even a little glamour. But once you’re hers, you’re not a person anymore—you’re a sheep. Dumb, obedient, waiting to be led somewhere you can’t come back from.

I never wanted to kill someone, but life happens. I figured it was either him or me. Now, it’s neither. Bo’s sent her dogs, and here I am in the back seat of some PI’s beat-up sedan, pretending I’ve still got a choice.

“You’re quiet,” he said, glancing at me in the mirror.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I talked,” I said. But the words were already bubbling up, itching to ruin us both.

The detective shook his head, his voice laced with skepticism. “Do you expect me to believe you’re just some innocent girl? That you’ve done nothing wrong and the world is out to get you?”

His words hit hard. He was right. I wasn’t some innocent flower. I was a poisonous bloom, thorned and venomous. I’d taken advantage of every wolf that crossed my path—wolf being what the girls and I called men. I’d flirted, teased, and bared just enough to strip them clean, taking every dime, every favor, until there was nothing left to their name. Then I’d walk away without so much as a backward glance.

The thought made me sick now. I shook my head, disgusted with myself.

“No,” I said quietly. “I don’t expect you to believe I’m some innocent flower.”

He glanced at me in the rearview mirror, his expression unreadable. “Well, you made it pretty far from town before I caught up to you. It’s a long drive back. Feel free to share your story, if you’ve got one.”

I sat quietly, debating whether to say anything. Deep down, I already knew I would. The real debate was where to start.

“You know I’m only 28,” I said finally.

The detective glanced at me in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow arching skeptically. “You look older. Late thirties, maybe.”

“It’s the drugs,” I replied, smirking faintly. “That’s how Bo Peep keeps her sheep loyal. Keeps them coming back.”

“What kind of drugs?” he asked, his tone sharp.

“Every kind,” I said with a bitter laugh. “Bo Peep runs the biggest drug trafficking ring around. I don’t know all the details, but I know this much: every pretty new sheep that walks through her doors gets the royal treatment at first. Bo Peep takes them out, promises them the world, makes them feel invincible. And then she gets them hooked—painkillers, X, coke. Whatever ensures they’ll never leave.”

“And you?” he asked. “What was the drug that hooked you?”

“X,” I said, leaning back against the seat. “It heightened everything. I felt like a god when I worked. Lost all sense of reality. I was invincible. Every night I’d hit the floor, and Bo Peep made sure I had two or three pills waiting for me. Hell, when I started, I worked for almost a year straight just so I could get my fix.”

“You didn’t make enough to leave and buy it somewhere else?” His question was steady but probing.

“I made a fortune at first,” I admitted. “But I was young and stupid, pissing it all away on parties with Bo Peep. Besides, I didn’t want to leave. I was a god, remember? Who in their right mind would leave the heavens to be a mortal?”

“Fair point,” he said with a small nod.

The car fell silent, the hum of the road filling the space between us. Then his voice cut through the stillness.

“When did you realize you were trapped?” the detective asked.

“A few years ago, maybe when I was twenty-four or twenty-five. Hard to say, really. I was so fucked up most of the time it’s all a blur. But I noticed Bo Peep had new girls—new sheep—hanging off her arm. I was losing my status, and I didn’t like it.

“Customers would save their money and gifts for the new girls and brush me off like I was yesterday’s trash. Even my fix started to shrink. Three pills turned into two, then one. It was enough to get by, but I knew I was a sinking ship.”

The detective’s voice was even, almost clinical. “So, what did you do after you realized you were no longer a god?”

“What the fuck do you think I did?” I snapped. “I did what every girl does when she realizes she’s lost everything. I cried, threw a tantrum, then went on a bender, spending what little money I had left.”

The detective sighed, his patience thinning. “So you did nothing to help your situation?”

“Of course not!” I spat, my voice rising. “I was a fraud of a god. I wasn’t special. I’m not some main character in a children’s book who wakes up one day, has an epiphany, and magically changes their life for the better while a happy ending waits just around the corner.”

He nodded, unfazed. “Right. So, you threw a fit, went broke. What next?”

“I left the club,” I said. “Or tried to. I was gone for three days before I crawled back on my hands and knees, begging for a second chance.”

“And she took you back, clearly, since you were still working there up until last night.”

“Yeah, she took me back,” I said bitterly. “With a smile. Not a kind one, either—the smile of a wolf. I knew I’d regret it, but I couldn’t resist. She picked me up, gave me a bath, fed me, dressed me up in expensive lingerie, and handed me two X pills.

“They were strong, but they didn’t kick in right away. I thought I was going back to dance. Instead, she put a choker on me, clipped on a leash, and led me to a part of the club I’d never seen before. A back room.

“She tied the leash to a bedpost. I was cleaned up, wrapped like a gift for someone. The drugs were taking effect, but they didn’t block out what happened that night.”

The detective’s eyes flicked to mine in the mirror. “You were raped?”

I shrugged, trying to smother the mix of anger and shame rising in my chest. “Maybe. Maybe she told me what was going to happen, and I agreed to it because I wanted the drugs so bad. Or maybe not. Maybe she just saw me as an object she owned, something she could do with as she pleased.

“That’s what we do when we’re in power, right? It’s what I did when I was young and beautiful. I took men for everything they had. Now the table’s turned.”

The car rolled to a stop at a railroad crossing, the flashing red lights causing me to reflect. There was something symbolic about it—calm and quiet now, but in moments, the train would come roaring through, shattering the stillness.

It reminded me of the red light that had flashed across my face almost an hour ago, the detective’s siren cutting through the night. Now I was in that same calm before the storm, waiting to be handed over, knowing this brief peace would soon be obliterated.

“How many times?” the detective asked.

I stared into the flashing red light, wondering if he’d let the train deal with me if I asked nicely. It would be quicker, less painful. The outcome would be the same—that much I was sure of.

His question registered, and without thinking, without taking my eyes from the flashing red, I answered him honestly.

“More times than I could count.”

Then the train flew by, a roar of steel and speed, and my chance was gone. It could’ve all ended. I imagined standing there, my back to it, arms wide open, never seeing it coming. Like a sheep led to pasture—a dumb sheep that might’ve even licked the barrel before being put down.

The train rattled on, each car a piece of borrowed time ticking away, until it was over. The chime of the gate rising broke the silence.

“You could have left, but you didn’t,” the detective said, his voice tinged with disappointment, like a father scolding a wayward child.

I shook my head. “There was nowhere for me to go by then. I was paying for my drugs, paying for the room I was staying in. They weren’t free anymore. I was officially a sex slave at Bo Peep’s Peep Show.”

“And this is how you spent the next few years, until you killed the mayor and ran?”

I shrugged. “More or less. I thought about running again, once or twice. There was another girl in the back with me—a sheep, like me. Well, there were a few of us back there. Bo Peep had a system. Every dancer ended up in the back eventually.”

“What came after the back?” the detective pressed, impatient now.

“I’ll get to that,” I said, holding up a hand. “Anyway, this sheep… I hated her at first. She was one of the girls who replaced me at the top. But I was surprised how quickly she ended up in the back. Cocaine isn’t as forgiving as X, and it wasn’t kind to her.

“Eventually, we found ourselves leashed to the same bed more than once. There was a client who liked us together. That’s how we started talking, becoming… friends, sort of. Enough to dream about getting the hell out of Bo Peep’s den.”

The detective raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“I think someone overheard us,” I said, my voice low. “The next thing I knew, there was one less sheep in the back and one more unmarked grave in the field behind the club.”

“Someone killed her?” he asked.

“She overdosed,” I said flatly. “She was barely getting anything—just scraps to keep her hooked. Then, out of nowhere, Bo Peep decided to play her best friend, partying with her and giving her more cocaine than she could handle. She lay there, dead, for two days before they removed her. That’s just how it works—two days is the standard.”

“The standard?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” I said. “A sheep overdosing or a client getting too rough—it’s nothing out of the ordinary. That’s where sheep go from the back room. Unless, of course, a client takes a liking to you. Sometimes, they offer to buy you from Bo Peep.”

“Buy you?” His tone sharpened. “How can they buy you if you’re free?”

“No one is free,” I said bitterly. “Pay enough, and you can be bought. And then you’re corralled by crooked politicians, pulled even deeper into their world, until you realize death is the only way out.

“Even you, Detective,” I added, locking eyes with him in the mirror.

“Me?” He scoffed.

“Yes, you. If they wanted you, they’d have you. There’s nothing you could do about it.”

“I beg to differ,” he said, his confidence barely masking the edge in his voice.

“Oh?” I smirked. “And what makes you so sure they won’t take you?”

He raised his gun briefly for me to see before resting it on his lap. “Because I’ll make sure my friend here speaks on my behalf.”

I nodded, my smirk fading. “And after your friend has spoken? When the dust settles, and a few hours later you find yourself in the back of a detective’s car, being brought back to the people who took your freedom? Then what would you do?”

I felt a small, fleeting sense of triumph. It meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, but for now, it felt good. I leaned back, staring up—not at the car’s ceiling, but past it, beyond it. Talking felt good. Letting it out, even if it was too late, even if the detective didn’t care, was a relief.

“Don’t bother answering,” I said after the silence stretched for a full minute. I was eager to finish speaking my piece before the ride ended. “I’ll just keep going.”

The detective said nothing, and I continued.

“So, that’s what awaited the sheep after the back room. Every month, at least one girl died. Sometimes two. It wasn’t rare—we all knew it would be us eventually. But we lied to ourselves, thinking we were special, that we’d be exempt from Bo Peep’s fangs.

“Politicians, cops, judges—every powerful and influential person in the city was a client of hers. Even the women, the so-called powerful ones. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, all of them. Once you realized that, you knew just how fucked you were.

“After my only friend in the world was put down, Bo Peep started visiting me more. She brought me free drugs. I knew my time was up, and I thought I’d made peace with it, but I was wrong. I pretended to take the pills, discarding them when no one was looking.

“I tried talking myself up to clients, hoping one of them would take me permanently. But who wants a permanent whore when they can have a membership at Bo Peep’s and a new one every night?”

I smiled bitterly at my own foolishness before going on.

“Eventually, Bo Peep stopped trying to kill me with the drugs, but by then I’d already sobered up. I was so paranoid that the next pill would be my last that I forced myself clean.

“That’s when I decided it was time to leave. I wasn’t a slave, right? They told us that every day from the moment we walked through the doors—‘You can leave anytime you want.’ And I believed it. Right up until the moment I tried.”

“I didn’t understand. I mean, I did, but I didn’t. So many powerful people came in, talking openly, like the walls couldn’t hear them. Judges bragged about how high they’d driven up their bribes, and politicians gloated about the scams they were pulling on the public.

“These were secrets no one would ever want getting out, but who could I tell? The whole city was in bed together. I was harmless. Just another sheep in Bo Peep’s flock.”

I paused, sighed, and glanced at the detective. “You still listening?”

“What do you think?” he said flatly.

I noticed then that he’d been circling the same block for a while, just shy of the station. He wasn’t lost. He was stalling, waiting for me to finish.

I took a deep breath, knowing I had to get it all out.

“So, last night, Bo Peep dolled me up one more time. Her way of sending you into the next layer of hell. A final offering to the devil. She had me cleaned thoroughly, shaved everywhere but my brows and head. The finest lingerie I’d ever worn. Even jewelry—real diamonds. Earrings and a necklace.

“For the first time in ages, I felt sexy. But it felt bittersweet.”

“What did?” the detective asked.

“The feeling of looking so damn beautiful for death himself.”

I smiled at the thought of myself that night, dressed like a queen about to meet her executioner.

“They took me to the third floor. I’d never been up there before. The room was extravagant—silk-cushioned chairs, sheets so smooth they sent chills down my spine, and this sweet, savory smell that made my soul feel… at peace.

“That ended the second the mayor walked in. Naked as the day he was born. His egg-shaped body waddled toward me, that wicked smile plastered on his face. He knew he’d have his way with me. Then he’d take my life—or maybe the other way around.”

I paused, the memory settling over me like a heavy fog.

“I didn’t do anything at first,” I said quietly, my voice barely above a whisper. “I just… let it happen. And before I knew it, I was on my back, gasping for air, his hands tight around my throat. A smile on his face the whole time.”

“I tried to pry his hands off, but it was useless. Then I felt one of my earrings on the bed—it must’ve slipped off. I grabbed it without thinking and shoved it into his eye.

“It didn’t seem like it did much at first. But then there was blood. So much blood. He screamed, and I pushed him. Hard. He stumbled, clutching his face, and fell. Out the window.”

I took a shaky breath, the faintest trace of a smile pulling at my lips.

“Mayor Humpty was dead. And none of the king’s men could put his fat ass back together again. His skull split on the pavement below.”

The detective stayed silent, his face unreadable.

“So, I grabbed a sheet, climbed out the window, and ran. A few hours later, you found me at the bus station, trying to get as far away as I could.”

“We’re here,” was all the detective said as he stopped the car.

I looked out the window, and my heart sank. We weren’t outside the police station. We were outside Bo Peep’s.

The detective got out, came around, and opened my door. He uncuffed me and handed me a gun.

“That gun has one bullet in it,” he said. “Use it wisely.”

“You believe me?” I asked, staring at the weapon in disbelief.

“I had my partner on the line the entire time you spoke,” he explained. “She managed to confirm enough of your story to know who the true villain is. She’s already taken care of anyone who might stand in your way.”

I swallowed hard, adrenaline coursing through me as I realized this wasn’t over. “Who are you?” I asked, realizing I’d never gotten his name.

“Most people know me as Detective Wolf,” he said with a wry smile. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“And your partner?”

He smirked, glancing toward the building. “I just call her, Red”