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Chapter 1

Madison flipped her now-dry hair forward over her shoulders, inspecting the new platinu that she loved the color, she co

She didn’t have to work for the next three nights After working six nights a week for the last six months, she was more than ready for a break The Hideaonderful, and she and her friends had made more money in the last sixon a creative low like never before

As a sculptor, she had made very little money, but that was her first love There was precious little need for sculptures in the bar and night club industry so she’d found The three days off would give her enough ti was her way of dealing with stress, unwinding And it was a great forh school

Though Madison’s ed the hobby and had enjoyed the dark subject matter, her father did not approve He had told Madison that she needed to choose subject hed the first time he said that How far outdated were his ideals about the world?

He had h when he told her so she’d ever had Later that night, as Madison had lain in her bed, all her tears dried, the welts fro, she had decided that it would be the last time a man would force her to behave a certain way just to please him

She had cut her long hair into a short, spiked, punk-do because her father had forced her to let her hair grow long because that was his idea of hooman’s hair should look She had braided a thick strand to save as afrom the rearview mirror her VW van

So far, noshe didn’t want to do Not only had she continued to use dark subject , it had taken an even darker turn, she gladly suffered the consequences with her father, refusing to let hier and more violent until one day, Madison’s father packed up all her sculpting tools and e unit on the other side of town

Madison had ive a e the following fall, she had called her mother Both parents were thrilled for her, but when she’d told the up his phone, breaking the happy conference call and leaving his tard women to chat another half-hour

Soe career, but mostly she studied, partied, and sculpted whatever she took a notion to sculpt That’s when her work took on a sexual element that accented the dark side—supernatural, demonic, folklore, and violent matters all seemed to work very ith sexual overtones

It wasn’t long before her hobby turned into a little moneymaker She still studied business as herin life always held more sway over Madison Smith As an adult, she had found a way to incorporate both her fields of training The Hideaas a work of art in and of itself Madison had helped with the creative side of the endeavor to start with and then she had put her shtclub

Sohtclub, Madison had let her creative side overflow into her personal life and started using her body as a blank canvas, a for sculpture, if you will

Standing in front of her full-length , and now the new haircut and new silvery dye The overall ie reflected back to her was impressive and she was happy

Making aweek, Madison dressed She needed to run to the store and grab sos before opening the club that had interested her and she wanted to see if she could capture them in sculptures

The sun was already hen she walked to her car She had grown accusto at Jayda’s place for months because they closed the club in the wee hours of theand then had to be back at work early the next day Now that they had hired a couplethe three-day-off schedule so that they could re-acclimate to their own homes and lives outside the club

The neon green-and-white VW van had been the only car Madison had ever bought Her friends had tried to sha another, more modern, vehicle, but she’d refused She loved the sound of the VW van’s engine, the way it handled, and the room she had to haul supplies and her finished pieces To her, that was enough of a selling point—the VW had earned its keep just by being large enough to haul her masterpieces comfortably

S lot of a little strip mall The art supply store was the only one around for nearly fifty miles and the owner had offered to special order supplies for Maddy anytiray hair and rilasses, had told Maddy that her name was Tuft Williams

Madison couldn’t go to that store and talk to Tuft without senuinely nice and entertaining person to be around and partly because of her name If Madison were to be completely honest, it was mostly because of the woman’s name One day she meant to ask Tuft if her parents named her Tuft or if it was her pseudonym for her own creative works

Pushing the door open to Tuft’s store, Maddy knew today wouldn’t be that day—she was already grinning and biting at the inside of her cheek at the thought Tuft would think she was being cruel and

There was always another day for idle chit-chat Maddy could wait; her sculpting could not Now that she was at the supply store, she wanted to hurry with her errands and get back to her studio swiftly so she could begin working

Chapter 2