Chapter 40 #3
“That depends. Are you a cop?” He side-eyed me, and we both laughed.
“I used to use it as an escape, but I lost interest in alcohol long before I was technically old enough to drink. I learned pretty quickly how dangerous it was to let my guard down. But it’s fun on a special occasion with the right people.
” Was I the ‘right people’? He was being so calm and unexpectedly docile.
Elio might be the only person I’d ever witnessed who somehow became less aggressive when he drank.
Which was probably what made me bold enough to ask the question that had been on my mind since the unfortunate beginning of our very strained relationship: “Why can’t you sleep in the same room as another person?”
We probably would have gotten off on a much better foot if I hadn’t been shoved into his space. It might be a stretch to say Elio was a good guy, but there was something there behind the fire and brimstone.
He leaned back against the wall and fixed his eyes on the ceiling.
There was no obvious emotion written on his face, but the way his Adam’s apple bobbed was telling all its own.
“Because sleeping in rooms with other people doesn’t end well.
” It was a vague yet very loud answer. “You only have to wake up underneath someone you thought you could trust once to learn that.” He rubbed his wrist absently.
“Then getting held down in a bed with people you never trusted cements the lesson.” He slid his hand down the length of his forearm, then he activated his CHRONO.
A few taps, and I watched with utter shock as the familiar energy wave of a deactivating Appearance Alteration Module rippled over him.
He removed his sport coat and rolled up his sleeves, revealing an intricate weaving of snakes and chains that twisted all the way down from his elbows to his knuckles.
The ink and artwork itself was beautiful to the point I couldn’t fathom hiding it, but if you looked a little closer, the texture of his skin told a very different story.
I traced the pattern with my fingers, feeling along the marred skin.
Burn scars perfectly in the pattern of… slave coils?
The twisting gauntlets were typically put on prisoners to force compliance through pain, heating the coils anytime the wearer acted outside the allowed programmed actions.
Typically the gauntlets had a limit to their temperature, so they would hurt without doing permanent damage, but I’d certainly heard of cases were that limit was overridden to control more extreme cases.
“Who did this to you?” Why would Elio have slave coil scars?
“No one who’s alive to tell the tale.” He didn’t pull away, even as my curious touch slid up to the crook of his elbow.
He just watched me as I examined him. “My real father wasn’t a great person, but my foster father was worse.
Don’t worry, I handled it a long time ago.
” He shook his head and smirked. “Were you going to go out and avenge me, Mishka?”
My lips parted, at a loss for words. “I just…” My embarrassment shone in my cheeks.
I guess he really did live in a nightmare while he was awake.
To say he handled it, when he still couldn’t sleep in the same dorm room with me as a trauma response, was tragic in its own way.
“I’m glad it doesn’t haunt you anymore,” I said, not sure what else I could say that wouldn’t make me look ridiculous. “I didn’t realize you had an A2.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I don’t,” I lied so blatantly, I almost impressed myself.
But he was right. It was odd to be surprised when most people used A2s every day for all sorts of cosmetic purposes.
The first A2 was invented purely to hide scars for various medical trauma victims, after all.
That he had one wasn’t unusual, especially in these violent times.
I just wouldn’t have expected someone like him, who was so rough and relentless and untouchable, would feel the need to hide behind an illusion.
“If only we could all be as honest and unashamed as you.” Elio’s words were softer than the weight they bore.
He pulled his sleeve down, but his inked knuckles were still visible.
“The tattoos were a gift to myself so I could hide the scars without needing an A2, since it’s not exactly easy to get work when you’ve got slave coil brands on your wrists.
But it turned out, knowing why the tattoos were there and what they represented, I hated looking at those, too.
Using a masking module made it a lot easier to forget about all of the things I’d rather not remember.
” He moistened his lips with his tongue, the small metal piercing catching a brief glint of the overhead light, drawing my eyes to what should have been a completely innocuous gesture.
“Women aren’t the only ones who get legally trafficked under the Mictlan flag.
You might be surprised what the highest bidder can pick up in the foster system. ” His gaze was dark and distant.
“Woman just get forced into dating and marriage. It’s not really…
” Yes it is. I knew it was, but the word felt so foreign when applied to me.
It was obligation and “for the greater good.” If you asked someone if they supported human trafficking, no one would respond saying it was “for the greater good,” but if you asked if they supported the matchmaking system, the auctions, the forced pregnancies, they would smile and tell you it was such a gift to be given a family. Such a miracle. So important.
I guess that was just because it was marketed better.
The word “trafficking” instead of “matchmaking” was the smallest way to change the entire perception of the same thing, so the general public wouldn’t judge someone who purchased a wife, and those who got off on the power that gave them never need fear being ostracized.
Because there were always buyers. Throughout history, there had always been buyers justifying and fighting for access to people as commodities, even if the presentation often changed shape.
“Just because there are no chains and whips and seedy drug dens, doesn’t mean it’s not trafficking.
” He scoffed. “You’re not going to tell me for one second that the women who end up on the auction block at twenty-fucking-two to get forcefully impregnated by some rich fuck are all eager volunteers.
Any program that forces someone to be in a relationship of any kind against their will is trafficking.
They’ll never openly call it that, but the most depraved policies are always the most subtle, otherwise no one would support them.
” The anger in his tone toward the whole thing was pronounced.
“Whether you’re selling a princess to another country’s king in exchange for their army, or selling a fourteen year old boy wrapped in slave coils for the night for a few coins, it’s still reducing a human to a bartering chip for someone else’s gain, no matter how pretty and sophisticated the wording is.
The moment you trade another person’s autonomy for your benefit, it’s trafficking. ”
Still, I stared at him with wide eyes. It was startling to hear such a heavy word, when for so much of my life the matching system was pushed as a privilege.
I wasn’t being bought and sold like a slave, they said.
I still had freedom, and I could still have a wonderful life and career, so long as I did that one, little thing they wanted me to do when they wanted me to do it.
I might even get to choose the man I’d be bearing children for, and if I didn’t, I would get to be chosen by someone who wanted a wife.
I could even rise in social status if I was slotted in with the right person, since the matching system didn’t discriminate by birthright.
It was a beneficial arrangement if I let it be.
I was being given an opportunity, helping the entire nation, and doing the work of heroes by using my body to create new life, whether I loved the man attached to it or not. I was protected and cherished, not a disposable body to be used and abused.
But “trafficked” was the real word that no one wanted to say. Because that was evil, while “matchmaking” was an idea that perpetuated family, love, and compassion. Freedom from choice was so much easier and more comfortable than freedom of choice, and that was the great gift they gave us.
Our packaging was pretty. Our words were perfume. Our lies were so deep, the truth had burned away in the fiery depths.
But his package hadn’t ever been tied in bows like mine was. I’d one day be forced to comply by wearing a sparkling wedding dress and holding a smile in a vice, while he was forced to comply with torture devices and pain. Though in both cases, we weren’t strong enough to stop it.
Maybe we’d both been too quick to make enemies of each other.
“Why did you join the military?” We both knew the words I didn’t say. The soft, and quiet ‘if you feel that way about your own nation, why would you want to fight for it?’
And that completely silent ‘why would you risk dying for it?’