15. Chapter 15
15
HER
“I told him what really happened. What Corey did. And I’ll tell him again. I’ll tell him until he listens. And everything I said the other day, about not giving up? It all still applies. Nothing’s changed. Whatever happens. We’ll figure it out. We always do.” I spewed my every thought toward the crack under the door, without even a word of greeting, which seemed ridiculous anyway.
But I got no response. There was nothing in there. No light, no words, no movement. “Hey,” I said, though cold dread had already gripped me, sending my heart rate into overdrive. “Are you there?” Surely he just had to be asleep. What if the housekeeper had been wrong? Had he been moved? Sent away? Surely he couldn’t have been sold this quickly, though I didn’t doubt Daddy had his channels. Or what if he was dead ? What if my fucking father had let him die down there in pain and despair and—
“Lou,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, God,” I said, exhaling, my forehead touching the door, my long hair swinging in front of my face. “I’m fine. I brought you some—for your shoulder—” I pulled out the pain pills and bandages and slid them underneath the door, followed by the energy bar courtesy of the housekeeper, shoving it up against the too-small opening. “Goddammit, it doesn’t fit.” I tried forcing it, holding back the urge to scream or cry. “And neither does water or antiseptic or—”
“Lou, I feel like I’ve been saying this to you a lot lately, but calm down. Breathe. I’m not going to starve to death in the next five minutes.” His words were normal for him, but his voice was not.
He’s in pain. I’d known he would be, hence the meds, but hearing it in his voice was altogether different.
“Fuck. You sound awful.”
“Thanks. You don’t even want to know how I look.”
“No, I mean, you need to see a doctor. And as much as I wish passing one semester of o-chem made me one, it doesn’t.”
“Not really a priority for your dad now, I wouldn’t think. Anyway, this wouldn’t exactly be the first time I should have seen a doctor but didn’t.”
Yes, and his body was a hastily rewritten palimpsest of scars and untreated wounds, but there was no time to point that out because I had just realized that it wasn’t my imagination that every time he moved, I heard an unmistakable and sickening rattling. And then I knew. “He chained you?”
“Why wouldn’t he, after that?”
He seemed surprised at my surprise, but—oh. Because he was a slave. And that’s what happened to slaves who fucked up. He didn’t have the liberty to ever forget that, but apparently, I, na?ve idiot that I still was, did.
“Is Corey …” he trailed off.
Did the mention of Corey have to contaminate even this conversation? But he should know, even if it didn’t make any difference now. “He’s in surgery. Nobody is telling me anything, but I think it could still go either way.”
Whatever happened, there would be no further involvement from the authorities. My boy would be my father’s alone to deal with. The police were always happy to help subdue a violent slave or capture an escaping one, but then they’d immediately hand them back over to their owner, who would be trusted to take the appropriate actions. It was a system that had proved remarkably efficient—except for maybe the slaves, but nobody ever asked them.
“And what about—”
“They found your phone and gave it to Daddy.”
“Fuck. At least it was the new one, so he won’t find much.”
“I know. He took my phone, too. I was careful, though. No names or anything.”
“Will you—”
Even now, even while almost literally helpless, asking for help with Maeve seemed as painful for him as removing a vital organ.
“I just told you, this doesn’t change anything, including with Maeve. We’ll keep looking.” Even if you aren’t there, was my implication. What I didn’t add was that mere moments before my phone disappeared into my father’s hand, I’d already had a message from Erica (well, Emma Goldman, which was what I’d saved the number under), demanding I call her as soon as possible. It could be good or bad news, but one thing was certain: he didn’t need to be worrying about his sister more than himself right now. I could handle Maeve, and I could almost handle the guilt of not telling him. I had no choice, anyway.
His next words were the exact ones I’d been dreading. “You should go.” Though the eagerness with which he’d responded to the sound of my voice indicated he might personally feel otherwise.
“I’m not leaving.”
“I know you think it can’t get much worse than this, but it can,” he said. “And it will if you get caught here.”
I groaned. “God, will you stop being so fucking noble for one second?! I want to put myself in danger on your behalf, dammit, and anyway, you’re locked in a fucking closet so it’s not like there’s anything you can do to stop me. Plus, the housekeeper and the valet have my back,” I said. “They’ll signal if Daddy comes.”
“They both know everything now, don’t they?”
“Yup.”
But like Corey being alive or dead, at this point, it was whatever.
“Maybe they could—” But he stopped himself as if realizing he couldn’t put a fellow slave in that position. It probably went against some kind of unwritten code, and anyway, nothing they could do would really help, unless they knew how to deactivate microchips. My dad had probably triggered his preemptively. Even if by some miracle he could escape the chains and then escape the room, he wouldn’t make it halfway up the stairs.
“They don’t have the keys, and they’re already risking a lot letting me be down here,” I said. “They want to help you. They know what happened. But there’s only so much they can do without putting their own asses on the line.”
“I know, Lou. Believe me, I get it. Can … can you tell them thank you? From me?”
“Of course. They’re not going to believe what they’re hearing, or at least that they’re hearing it from me . But I think they’re going to be hearing a lot of things from me they’ve never heard before.” I paused. “All thanks to you.”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t me. It was in you all along. You just needed a little nudge.”
“Oh,” I said with a little laugh. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“I could call it something else, but this hardly feels like the time or the place for such language.” He was cracking jokes ? I’d sensed a change in his voice, a lift, from when I’d arrived minutes ago until now. There was still a weak rattle of pain in it, and I didn’t want to think about what kinds of awful things must have been going through his head before I’d arrived. I just knew I needed to keep him this way as long as I could, so fuck if I was going anywhere, no matter what he said. Because I knew he didn’t mean it, anyway.
“Maybe we could—” We prided ourselves on figuring things out, but how? Force of will? Magic spells? Have me run upstairs and try yet again to make Daddy see reason, and cut short our time together? For fuck’s sake, we’d already vetoed every idea for a possible way out of this. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
“I need you to stop panicking. I don’t—” I don’t want to remember you that way, was what he meant.
I swallowed. In a minute, talking was going to be a lot harder, so I’d better get the words out now.
“And for you? What do I need to do for you?”
A pause. Not something he got asked very often. He’d once told me that, in this very basement. No one does anything for me, ever.
“Just—just talk to me?” There was a question in it. Why was there a question in it? Because he still didn’t believe that anyone would do anything for him? Well, fuck. In that case, I’d better find a way to talk.
“About what?” Not that I thought he’d be picky.
“Um. Tell me about your dog.”
“Oh—okay.” Where had that come from? Then again, it was an innocuous topic that had nothing to do with violence, rape, torture, or death, and so actually had a lot to recommend it right now. “She was an English setter, and she was mostly Ethan’s. Daddy wanted her trained for duck hunting, even though he only went once a year. I’m not sure she ever actually got a duck, though she sure seemed to like eating them. Not to mention rolling in their rotting carcasses. But she was the sweetest, gentlest, most loving dog I ever knew …”
At first, there was only silence on the other side of the door. Had I said something wrong? How had I fucked up talking about a goddamn dog?
“Artemis,” he said finally. “Her name was Artemis.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Are—are you psychic?”
A rueful laugh. “If I were, as much as I’m enjoying this conversation, don’t you think I would have been able to avoid being forced to have it? Her old collar and bowls are in here.”
“Wait, Daddy kept those?”
My father had always given the impression that he’d found Artemis a disappointment, given how much he’d paid for her. Then again, how many evenings had he spent with her head resting on his lap in front of the fire pit? Not to mention, Ethan had loved her more than anything. And maybe, with his dog as with his son, my dad realized too late that he should have held on tighter to what he had while he had it.
And unwittingly ensured I wouldn’t ever make that mistake.
If I could have used his name, I would have. I would say it and say it and say it and never stop saying it, not until the end of time, not until I couldn’t anymore, not until I was dead and buried and earth and rain and snow covered up my lips. If I could, I would give up my own name in exchange. Of course I couldn’t do that, but there was one thing I could do. I’d already tried last night. But now there was nothing to hold me back.
“I love you.”
HIM
“Don’t say that,” I said automatically.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because it’s easier?” I realized instantly how lame that sounded but also that I didn’t fully want—or know how—to take it back.
Instead, I awkwardly scrubbed a hand over my face, chain rattling, and took a breath. “You know, people—well, people who aren’t Erica Muller, anyway—believe slaves can only feel ... basic stuff. Fear. Anger. Maybe some loyalty. A simple affection for people who are kind to them. And honestly? I never questioned it that much. I just went with it.”
On the other side of the door, silence. Well, I couldn’t have fucked that up any more if I’d tried. Then:
“That’s insane.”
“I know. But it sure made things simpler.”
“So you just … shut it off?” she finally asked, more curious than accusing, thank fuck. “Everything real?”
“I mean, yeah. I’ve stayed awake for days at a time, thinking about quantum theory, pondering the subatomic world, and somehow that was easier, and a lot less scary, than thinking about love. About what it actually means,“ I finished, not waiting to find out if she’d stormed away from the door in disgust yet. “I mean, look, let’s be honest, if your life’s never easy and you’re never really safe, why the fuck would you make it harder by giving away your heart, too? If you’re forced to give away every other part of yourself, why would you choose to let go of one of the few things you can actually keep?” I glanced away from the door, terrified of her answer. Terrified she wouldn’t answer at all.
“Because some things are worth letting go of,” she whispered. “Because you get so much back in return.”
“How do you know?” asked stubbornly.
“How do I know? I … I don’t know. I just—”
“Believe,” I scoffed despite myself. “Like faith. Like miracles. You just believe.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I just believe. And, look, it’s a privilege to believe. I know it is.”
“It is, but …” I swallowed. I couldn’t believe what I was about to say, because I hadn’t known it was true until a second ago. “I wish I could believe, Lou. I really do. I wish it so goddamn much.”
“But you do,” she replied instantly, to my surprise. “Look at your mom. Look at Maeve. You would die for them. You know you would. You almost did, a few times.”
“But that didn’t feel like a choice. That just … was. Letting someone else in— choosing someone—that’s different. That’s something I always thought I wouldn’t do. Couldn’t do. Wasn’t meant to.” I threw my head back helplessly on the cold concrete, my voice cracking slightly. “Because the truth is … this is what scares me most. Not the mines, not dying and my bones getting thrown down the shaft, more than watching everyone close to me be tortured and raped, more than reliving every bruise, every beating, every whipping, every cut and burn I’ve ever gotten, all at once . It’s this. Saying it out loud. Letting someone in. And I don’t know,” I paused to forcefully swallow back everything that was threatening to pour out, “why it’s like that. I wish I did. But it is, Lou. It is.” I closed my eyes softly. “And that’s why I don’t know if I can believe. And that’s why you shouldn’t say it.”
She paused long enough that I was pretty well convinced she was gone. “Well, I’m sorry,” she finally huffed in an old, familiar tone. “But that’s how I feel, and if I want to say it, I will. You don’t get to tell me what I can say, or what I can feel, or what I can believe.” She took a deep breath. “I love you. I love you, okay? And I don’t want to hear another word out of you about it.”
And amazingly, I laughed. “Well, shit. Of all the things to act like a spoiled princess about. You really aren’t making this easy for yourself, you know.”
“Hey,” she went on, softer now, “when have you and I ever been about easy? Anyway, the truth is … I’ve never said it before, either,” she added. “To a boy.”
In my mind’s eye, I could see her blushing.
“You’ve never said it either, have you?” she asked. “To anyone.”
“No,” I admitted.
“Have you felt it?”
I closed my eyes. “I think so,” I said with finality. “But I’m not exactly an expert on this kind of thing.”
“Well, I’m not either, you know.”
“I’ll—I’ll figure it out,” I said quickly, suddenly realizing I might have just fucked up absolutely everything. She might leave . My only hope was that she could read between the lines of what I was saying—even if what I was saying wasn’t it . “Just give me some time.” I sat up and scrambled against the chain to get closer to the door as if I could somehow reach out and touch her—as if that weren’t the very thing throwing me in here was meant to prevent me from doing. “I promise. Just, um, don’t leave right now,” I pleaded. Or ever. “Yeah?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She said it without a pause. Like it had never even crossed her mind. I exhaled and collapsed back down onto the concrete.
“And,” she continued, “it’s okay if you’re not ready to say it. Because … because you will.”
And God, if her beautiful face were minted on a gold coin, this would be the other side of it—why she wasn’t just a princess, she was my princess.
And why I felt such relief, I would never know because as soon as she got word that her father was coming downstairs, she was going to have to go.
And then, eventually, so was I.
I leaned closer to the door, barely breathing. “Listen, remember back at Erica’s? That conversation we had in the kitchen, when I asked you why you were there?”
“I remember.”
“I knew I’d done nothing, nothing to deserve you there—for fuck’s sake, I’m too much of a selfish, cowardly asshole to even choke out three little words—and yet, despite it all, you were there. And I just … I doubted that I, a faithless man in a faithless world, could possibly have the love of someone with so much goddamn faith .”
“Well?” she breathed, soft as a whisper. “Do you still doubt it?”
I shook my head slowly, forehead resting against the metal shelf, and whispered it like a prayer. “No.”
My fingers dug into the shelf like it was the only thing holding me up. “Look, maybe ... I don’t believe in souls. You know that. But I know you do, so if I’ve got one—if there’s some piece of me that still exists on the other side of all this, of whatever I end up—then it’s yours, m?i léift. And maybe ... maybe in some better world, one where I’m not shackled and you’re not dragging around the weight of the privilege you didn’t ask for and every goddamn person you couldn’t help, maybe we get to find each other again. Not as what we are now. But as what we were supposed to be.”
She hiccupped her next words, and I knew what that meant. Hell, I could see it—her face crumpling, her shoulders shaking, trying to stay quiet and loudly, exquisitely failing, like always. And I could never do the one goddamn job that mattered—
“I have an idea. Put your hand by the bottom of the door.”
I obeyed instantly. The length of the chain was just enough. If I stretched out my good arm as far as it would go, trailing the bad one behind it, I could fit the rough tips of my fingers just beyond the surface of the door. And I was rewarded by warm, delicate, manicured nail tips against my own. It wasn’t anything, really. But it was so much more than I ever, in all my years—exposed, boiling, freezing, starving, bleeding, chained, caged in dirt and mud and piss-filled holes—thought I would have, or ever deserve. I still didn’t deserve it, or even understand it, but what I’d said was true: I didn’t doubt it. Not anymore. I knew she would stay until the very end of the line, and that I would stop being so fucking noble and let her. Until the other side of the door was quiet, until one or both of us fell asleep on the concrete floor, or the housekeeper gave her the sign, whatever happened first.
She was quiet already. Could she already be lying there asleep, the tears on her cheeks frozen where they’d fallen? Could this be—
And then came a sudden, sharp, staccato giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Here we are, talking without seeing each other’s faces,” she said. “Just like the first time.”