Bite Me

“Goddamnit!”

That was the fourth audition this month and the fourth audition Roxie had managed to botch up. She cursed again, internally this time to save some grace in front of the beta pianist who’d been kind enough to play for her (without any added incentive either, imagine that!), and tried to draw them back.

It was too late. Without a glance back, the alphas had vanished out the double doors that led to the sleazy jazz club she’d managed to fuck the owner into letting her borrow. Roxie was a hair’s width from shrieking, not entirely listening as she thanked the pianist and hurried off the stage to gather her coat.

Four auditions in a month’s time and she was still no closer to getting off the streets. Roxie had been banking on the trial’s publicity to get her a foothold in her new career, but she was hardly the only killer in this world and there were newer and prettier faces to put on the newspapers anyways.

Roxie was all washed out. Amos’s face flashed into her head unbidden, and she shook her head of that nonsense. Amos was old news, even older than her. As easy as it would be to slink back into his bed and his favor, she still had a chance. Someone had to be looking for her. She’d make headlines soon enough.

America’s sweet-‘Hart’ omega, spiraling back into devilry!

Except soon had turned to months on end without any success to speak of and she wasn’t a Hart anymore, was she? It didn’t matter. Truly, someone just had to be looking for her. Someone out there was just waiting to catch her, to make her a star-

“You know, you’re really pretty good.”

Roxie’s gut plummeted but not in the way a gal with butterflies in her stomach does. Her head flicked back and there she was, Velma Kelly in all her grand and dark glory.

“Yeah.” Roxie replied, fixing her gaze on her cheap wool coat, embarrassment cutting into her voice, “What are you doing here?”

The alpha was leaning back on a banister, all long legs and sleek muscles as she pushed off and took a step forward, “I’ve been making around.”

Roxie bristled, a sudden flush of anger sweeping across her face and making her hands tremble around the thin lapels as she tied her coat shut roughly, “Well, if not fooled up by you, I'd be swinging right now.”

Months of solidarity (well as close as one could get in Chicago) had hardened Roxie a lot more than jail had. There was no Billy Flynn to keep her company and get her on the headlines, no Mama Morton to sweeten the deal, no reporters screaming her name, dying for a taste of what she had to say. She had been scraping by on good looks and running errands for busier and wealthier housewives. She wasn’t living, not yet, but she wasn’t dead either and she sure as hell made sure the alpha woman could see it on her face when she shot her a glare.

Velma smiled back in what she probably thought was a rendition of kindness but her teeth were sharp as knives as she bared them and Roxie knew better than to trust it.

“Come on, I was there to get you off. You should learn how to put things behind you.”

Roxie was never forward when it came to alphas. They were headstrong brutes with much more strength in one hand than she had in her entire scrawny self, but she found herself clicking across the floorboards and right in Velma Kelly’s face before she could remember better.

“Thank you.” She mocked, “I'll put that at the top of my list right after finding a job and an apartment with a John.” Which wasn’t going to happen anytime soon if she kept lousing around fighting a cockfight she’d never win.

Roxie turned on her heel and made to exit at the rear of the building (making sure to pass the owner’s office and blow him a kiss, just to ensure she’d be on good standing the next time she needed him) but a hand around her bicep tugged her back.

“Can you shut up and listen to me?”

The grip was hard and the memory of Fred Casely manhandling her made some gut reaction in her startle badly enough to lose her grip on the sheet music. The anger from before came licking back up the insides of her belly, burning hot through her veins until she felt like she could physically breathe fire out of her lungs.

“You really are something. Coming in here like some goddamn queen bee, full of advice for a poor slop like me. Let me tell you something, Miss Velma Kelly.” And when Roxie pointed a finger up into the alpha’s face, she suddenly remembered she was talking down a killer. It was good thing she had blood on her hands too then, “I got a new life now. And one of the best things about it, is it don't include 
you.”

“Fine,” Velma grit out, a minute later when she finished gawking down at Roxie, “I just thought we could help each other out.” Roxie sniffed back, bending down to get her papers and hurry on out before she became the third strike on Velma Kelly’s hit-list. She paused, startled, when Velma beat her to the floor, gathering up her papers with what looked to be a pout on her lips.

Sucking up hadn’t worked before and it wasn’t gonna work the second time, “Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you?” Roxie crossed her arms like it would act a physical barrier between her and the alpha.

“Listen to me. I talked to this guy in downtown. He says one chance hurts 
nothing these days, but two...” Velma looked up and there was an expression on her face that made Roxie feel awkward – ashamed almost, though she hadn’t a clue why. She flicked her eyes from the alpha’s face down to her hands before a flash of skin caught her eye. It was no secret that skin ship was the way to go if a woman wanted something, no matter the caste, but when Roxie’s gaze landed on the strip of Velma’s bare thigh she felt saddened instead of empowered.

For the longest time, Roxie had looked up to the Kelly sisters. They embodied the fame, the spirit and passion Chicago had to offer, and Roxie had spent every free moment trying to get connections to the two of them since she’d moved to the city. Now there was one at her feet, face pleading with ripped stockings and an offer. Things certainly changed quick.

“We can make a couple hundred a week. Think about it, Roxie. Faces back on the papers and names in the market. Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart.”

Think about it, Roxie. As if she hadn’t. A double act was big nowadays, and though she had never imagined doing it with a Kelly, she certainly had thought about it at least.

“Should it be alphabetical?” She asked, regretting it a moment later when Velma sprang to her feet, closer than she felt comfortable with.

“That could work.” The alpha said, eyes twinkling with hope and god, was this how Roxie looked when she asked for something? No wonder she couldn’t get a break – with a face as pathetic as that, no one would take her seriously.

“A couple hundred? Maybe we can ask for a thousand. We'll work it.” Roxie made her voice low and breathy, satisfaction curling darkly in her gut when the alpha leaned in, drawn by her honeyed works. Quick as a snake, her hand shot out and grabbed her sheet music from the taller woman’s hands, “Forget it, it'll never work.”

Velma’s crestfallen gaze was just as sweet as any rouge chocolate and she just needed a second or two savor it. Roxie walked off, rolling her eyes when the alpha called out for her, persistent as the thick early morning smog that hung around the city, “Why not?”

Roxie was tired. She needed to find a John to take her home and let her sleep in his bed. She wasn’t getting enough sleep anymore, now that her alarm had been reduced to waking up to a man practically bulldozing her out of the apartment before the wife got back.

Velma, as worse off as she was, wouldn’t understand. She was an alpha – men would be kicking their wives out of the house for a chance to bed her. Still, Roxie raised a hand back in a makeshift goodbye, not bothering to look back when she called out, “’Cause I hate you.”

She was almost to the threshold that would lead her down a hallway straight to the rear exit when Velma’s voice filtered in, softer than she’d ever heard it, “There’s only one business in the world were that’s no problem at all.”

Roxie paused - just doing that, she knew it was all over – and looked back at Velma. The alpha was no longer showing her teeth, just smiling like she had shared a secret that only she knew of.

God, Roxie just wanted to punch Velma’s teeth in. Or put a bullet in her. Whatever she could get away with, really. She’d take it.

-

Not even a week later, they were set. Velma’s hookup had, in a shocking turn of events, not turn out to be a bust, but rather a wealthy beta man with a peculiar taste of taking in ‘those who could bring in a killing’ as he put it – whatever that meant.

It didn’t matter. In the end, their boss had allowed them to set up shop in what could only be called the circus equivalent of vaudeville: an old-fashioned theatre that still held its own set of charms despite the age. Along with the job came a room for the two of them to share, which raised a few red alarms with Roxie but Velma (stubborn, stupid, knot-for-brains Velma) shut her up real quick with a steely grip on her forearm and a glower that could make a grown man whither.

“Make like a doll and stand there looking pretty, yeah? You opening your trap is gonna cost us this sweet deal.”

“Don’t you tell me t-“

“Zip it.” And there it was, that terrible horrible tone a voice. It was like the devil was inside her head, taking control so quickly Roxie didn’t even question the need to obey, jaw snapping shut with a sweet little click. If Velma noticed her easy obedience she made no mention of it, too busy plastering herself to their employer and yapping on about this and that.

Roxie trailed behind, fuming with arms crossed over her chest in defiance. The devil escaped as quickly as he came, in one ear and out the other, but Roxie didn’t test it. She felt shaken and unsteady, her limbs achy like they didn’t really belong to her. She didn’t get to talk to the employer and meddle with Velma’s suckering, didn’t once enter her opinion (even though she really felt it was her right to). Her jaw stayed closed the entire time, mind a mess but for those words.

Zip it.

Roxie curled her fingers against her forearms as she eyed the line of Velma’s spine, wondering just where’d be the best place to stick a blade into it.