"Aria?"


    "Jasper!" Aria nearly shouted and hugged him. Then she greeted Daniel too. Her little daughter was in the room as well, but instead of staying with her, she was with Mia—the other daughter of Reed.


    "Mia?" Jasper was the first to point out the obvious.


    "Yes. My sister," Aria interjected. "Wade and Bart locked us in here."


    Jasper glanced at Daniel. Daniel knew what that look meant. Last time, Mia had turned out to be human. Actually, he couldn’t quite recall what she looked like or whether they’d replaced her with a prototype this time—or if she was still real.


    Jasper sat on the bed, and Aria sat beside him. Daniel found a spot in the room too. Besides the two of them and Beatrice, there was Clara, who now looked far less charming than the last time Violet had introduced her at the bar. Her curls and chestnut hair were still there, but her face was puffy from crying, and her eyes were red. No matter how hard he tried not to, Daniel kept noting every little detail about the robots. The last girl in the room was blonde, her hair tied in a ponytail. Daniel had seen her before at Violet’s bar. And it seemed the bar wouldn’t be called that much longer.


    "What happened downstairs?" Aria asked, sitting close to Jasper. He seemed almost cheerful.


    Beatrice started crying again and looked at Daniel. She couldn’t speak, and clearly didn’t want to. Daniel decided to step in:


    "They killed Violet."


    "Violet?" All the girls in the room reacted almost the same way, covering their mouths with their hands. "But how?"


    "Bart killed her," Daniel said, looking at Beatrice. She seemed to thank him with her eyes.


    "Jake’s dead too," Jasper added.


    "No," one of the girls gasped.


    "I’m afraid it’s true."


    "They want me to run the bar," Beatrice said, wiping her eyes. "They didn’t let me speak."


    "Beatrice isn’t to blame," Daniel defended her. "It wasn’t her choice. The two of them forced her."


    "And the little one? Troy?" Clara asked, still holding a hand over her mouth, her legs crossed tightly.


    "He’s downstairs too," Daniel said. "He nearly shot Beatrice and his dad. If someone doesn’t stop him, he’ll turn out worse than them."


    "Yes," Beatrice said slowly. "On the stairs, he said things I’ve only heard from the grown drunks at the bar. The kid, sadly… he’s still a child. How can he…"


    "Apparently, he can."


    "And what are they going to do with us?" the blonde girl asked. She seemed to be holding herself together the best. Daniel tried to recall if he’d seen her before. She felt more like a newcomer.


    "With you, probably nothing," Daniel said. "If Beatrice really takes over the bar, you’ll do what you did before. But from what I know of Bart and Wade," he looked at all of them, "you won’t see much of the money."


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    "Then we’ll leave. Like the other girls did," the blonde replied.


    "What happened to the others? There were a lot of you," Daniel asked.


    "Most of them left after Reed’s shootout," she said. "They got scared of the town, and one morning, they were just gone."


    Daniel knew what had happened. Back during the park’s preparation, he and Hugo had discussed how there were too many girls. The number they’d decided to keep was actually higher than what was here now. But they needed variety for all the men’s tastes. The bar downstairs would run normally, but upstairs, anyone who paid would experience pleasures unavailable in the real world. Or at least, that’s how they’d planned it.


    "What about Phil?" Clara spoke up again. "How’s he doing?"


    "The little bartender’s fine," Jasper said, sitting on the bed with Aria leaning on his shoulder. They looked as if they’d never been apart, despite their romance being short-lived. Jasper continued:


    "They even told him to work. Wade and Bart mentioned some guests. Do you know anything?"


    "Yes," Beatrice lifted her head. "Jake said the town got popular because of Violet’s bar. I don’t know if that was true—he loved her, after all. But he said soon a lot of people would be coming here. He heard it from the train conductor too."


    Daniel and Jasper knew what kind of people she meant, and their exchanged glance confirmed it. The guests were coming soon. And this place was still a mess. He wanted to talk to Jasper alone. But with Aria around, he seemed happier.


    Mia stood and went to the window. She faced away from them. It was odd that she wasn’t wearing her black gloves or any sign of her robot disguise. Daniel tried to remember if Phil had been wearing his. He couldn’t recall.


    "And why are you here?" Daniel asked, looking at her as he spoke. She turned around.


    "Us?"


    "Yes. You and Aria. You’re Reed’s daughters, right? And all Wade and Bart talk about is him. They worship him. Isn’t it strange they’d lock you up?"


    Mia glanced at her sister and began to speak.


    "For a few days, we lived without our father. Yan, the stable boy, had left too," she said, looking shyly aside before continuing. "We managed somehow. It was more important to deal with Taylor. The kid can be wild sometimes, and she’s still a child, after all. Until one day, another kid showed up at our door. He wanted to play with Taylor. It was Troy." Mia paused for a moment, then went on. "We didn’t know him then. We let them play in the garden. Taylor’s a few years younger than Troy, so we didn’t leave them alone. We stayed with them the whole time."


    "Then Bart showed up," Aria cut in.


    "Yes. Bart came down the road," Mia continued. "We didn’t know him until then. He seemed normal. He waved and smiled. We didn’t know who he was until he introduced himself as Troy’s father. We invited him in. We even offered him something to drink. He seemed really nice."


    "I never thought he was nice," Aria interrupted. Mia gave her a look and went on.


    "He was nice, at least to me. Until he pulled out a pistol and set it on the table, still smiling. That’s when I knew something was wrong."


    "And then?"


    "He said it was for our own good to come to the bar until our father got back."


    "That doesn’t make sense," Jasper said, raising his big hands. "If Reed—your father—finds out he threatened you with a gun…"


    "Well, I shot Reed. My father, I mean. You remember. But they knew that. Bart, specifically, knew it. I don’t know how, because they weren’t there then. But they knew. Bart brought us here. We came on our own, but under the threat of his gun."


    "And you’ve been here since?"


    "That happened yesterday. The two of them have only been at it for a short while. Before that, everything was fine. Well, almost fine. Without our father, it’s a bit harder."


    Shouts came from downstairs. Everyone fell silent and listened. Then something broke. There was a brief silence, followed by the creaking of floorboards in the hallway outside. A noise came from the lock. The door opened, and Wade stepped in. His eyes were furious, but he masked it with his dumb grin.


    "You and you," he said, pointing at Daniel and the blonde girl. "You’re officially invited to a dating downstairs."