Chapter 6
6
HER
I couldn’t sleep.
Why was there a whole wing of my house I’d never thought to visit? Why was there a whole database of slaves—and their families, of all things—I had never thought to browse? Why had I spent all evening furiously rewriting a paper I had now tentatively titled: “Slave Welfare in the NNAU: Legislation or Illusion?” And why were both of them occupying so much space in my head right now that I couldn’t get them out? I couldn’t even close my eyes . All I could do was roll over, stare at my bedroom’s elaborate wainscoting, and let it all crash over me, wave after wave.
Desert sage, sunshine, and some plain soap. That’s what the sheets smelled like, I’d finally decided, inhaling again. Of course. The scent of a boy who worked outdoors much of the day.
Maybe I shouldn’t have looked at the file. It hadn’t satisfied my curiosity, after all. It had only awakened it. How could it not have? Every single goddamn thing I learned about him turned me onto a million more things I longed to know. And yet?—
Dangerous.
That should be all I needed to know.
If the so-called boy—man—whatever—of my dreams had attacked one of his owners, he’d committed one of the worst crimes a slave could commit, and I suspected that was what he was hiding. That’s why he’d been put in chains and sent to the farm. And if he hadn’t been sold to the professor, he might still be there. Hell, it was probably where he deserved to be. Not to mention, it was clear now why Daddy had been able to afford him.
Anyway, the only pain that should concern me right now was my own pain, the pain I would feel if I flunked o-chem, lost my scholarship, and had to drop out of school. Problem was, whatever else he was, he was the only one standing between me and that fate: the fate of having to date Corey the douchebag for his money, or going to live with my father in a cardboard box. Or in slavery, if it came to that. Debt collectors still came knocking, after all. These days, if you weren’t born a slave, that’s often how you became one.
Fuck if I’d be the one to make my family poor again.
My friends had no idea—no one did—but years ago, when my father had started out in business, he and my mother had lived in a one-bedroom in one of Phoenix’s scariest neighborhoods. He’d been doing better by the time I came along, thankfully—we all had. Nine figures better, to be exact.
And then Ethan disappeared.
I’d worshiped him, of course, because he was everything I wasn’t. At the country club, he used to steal Daddy’s golf cart and a six-pack of beers for us, veering crazily off the paved path on two wheels while I clung on white-knuckled. You have to break a few rules now and then, Lou. That’s how you find out who you really are. I never took his advice—I figured he’d broken enough rules for both of us—but now, I stared where I knew his old marbled guitar pick sat on my dresser, the one he gave me when I was ten, and wondered whether I should have broken more. Maybe he would have stuck around if I weren’t so goddamn boring.
But while I blamed myself, my father had imploded even more spectacularly. After struggling his entire life to reach the top, it had destroyed Daddy that he couldn’t even save his own son. After the second relapse, my father didn’t leave his bedroom for weeks. He didn’t seem to care that the debts were piling up and the phone was ringing off the hook with calls from his colleagues and clients. Nothing seemed to matter to him anymore, not even us, his wife and daughter, who were left to find our own ways of coping—through alcohol and school, respectively.
So as much as I wanted to get out from under them, I also knew that without Ethan, I was my parents’ only hope—not only financially, but to hopefully, someday, bring them both back to the land of the living.
And to achieve that, I needed the slave boy. But only as a calculator. A study aid. An object. A tool.
In other words, I’d need to treat him as exactly what everyone said he was.
Once again, my mind drifted to the pralines in my desk drawer, the ones I’d spent nearly every cent of my pathetic allowance on.
I’d never bought something like that for my goddamn calculator.
Plus, there was still so much of his story I didn’t know. So much that could explain everything. He had a family. Still had a family—at least a sister—somewhere, location unknown . Was that what the attack had been about? Had he tried to defend them, to fight for them? He wouldn’t be a person if he didn’t.
A person. In the dark, the slightest smile crossed my lips. Why couldn’t I just accept it? I knew it. Everyone knew it. And yet everyone was expected to act like they didn’t.
Still. What could I do? I couldn’t help him, for fuck’s sake. Not only shouldn’t, but couldn’t . Without any money, I had about as much power as he did. And if I kept trying, if I kept getting closer, I couldn’t kid myself anymore. I knew exactly what would happen: I’d get caught and throw away everything I’d worked so hard for, for the sake of a slave who could offer me nothing, and who might not even hesitate to shed my family’s blood. Hell, he wouldn’t even tell me anything. He’d made it perfectly clear: He didn’t want my help.
So drop it. Grab those pralines, walk downstairs, toss them all down the garbage disposal, and flick the switch. Then come back up here and go. The fuck. To sleep.
Instead, I rolled over and took another long, deep inhale. I wasn’t going to drop it. I was going to find out everything. If I didn’t, I’d never sleep again.
HIM
I couldn’t sleep.
The morning shift—five to eight—was supposed to be my time to do it, but I rarely did.
In fact, today, those twenty minutes in Louisa’s pillowy bed, enveloped in citrus and rose and another scent I could only describe as rich girl —was going to be the best I could do, though I shouldn’t have done it at all. And worse, because I had done it, now I owed her one.
Instead, I lay on my narrow metal top bunk in the basement room meant to serve as the male slave quarters, though, since the gardener slept in the shed and the valet slept upstairs, I had it all to myself. My hands behind my head, absently twisting my metal bracelet around and around on my wrist, staring at the pipes overhead, and realizing I was fucked.
There was a reason I didn’t accept help. From free people, from fellow slaves, from anyone. Not unless I’d manipulated them into it and knew I’d earned it.
The truth was, I hadn’t just been wagging my tail for that lonely middle-aged wife like a puppy through an electric fence, of course. And it wasn’t just pralines I’d wanted—I’d actually been conning her into helping me escape. Of course, my plan was stupid and ill-conceived and destined to get me killed, but in my defense, I’d been fifteen. Ultimately, the only reason I hadn’t done it was because my arm had nearly been lopped off first.
It was part of why they’d thrown me behind that electric fence to begin with: Because I was a liar. Because I was defiant. And because I was dangerous—hell, before the farm bought me, I’d spent a month living in a cage with a gigantic red label proclaiming me exactly that, and it wasn’t wrong.
But I’d never done anything this dangerous: Flirting with my master’s daughter not because I wanted something, but because I wanted her . Sure, I could tell myself that flirting got me what I wanted. And I could claim I just needed her computer, or her help ingratiating me to her father. But I could lie to myself all I wanted. I fucking wanted her, and if I wasn’t afraid the goddamn gardener would walk in any second, I’d be jerking off right now to that image I’d tried to shove out of my head earlier—to those plump, pink, glossy princess lips too goddamn pristine to have ever sucked off anyone, let alone a slave, let alone willingly . But most of all, to the ludicrous idea that she might ever regard me as anything more than an object for her entertainment. Regarding me as a person, as a man who could want things, who could want her . And—to steal her phrasing—how dare she?
Slaves weren’t supposed to want things.
In fact, for years, ever since my sister had vanished, the only thing I’d allowed myself to want was to find her and keep her safe, forever. The way any man—even if he was a slave—should do.
It didn’t matter what happened to me after that, and there was never supposed to be anything else involved. Any one else involved.
But fuck it, now there was.
A shaft of white moonlight cut across the locked window of the slave quarters, bisecting my bunk. As spartan as it was, this was the best room I’d ever had, but it didn’t mean that Keith Wainwright-Phillips wasn’t scum. He was like all the rest. Those who had torn away my family, treated me like a farm animal, numbered me and chained me and herded me from pen to pen, forced me to spend my thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth birthdays in shackles, hoeing and harvesting under the lash in a muddy field. Those who had destroyed my mother and stolen my sister. Those who deserved death.
It was a clear night, I noticed, and sleep sure wasn’t working. No plan survives contact with the enemy, boy, the old professor used to tell me, rapping my knuckles over our games of speed chess—one of the many things von Esch had decided I simply had to learn to truly be considered educated. When he first bought me, we’d played on the regular, until I actually started winning and he’d knock the pieces off the board in a tantrum and stalk off to another bottle of Remy Martin. But I’d already learned enough. A good opening only takes you so far. It was time to change up the strategy, as usual. I jumped down from the bunk and grabbed some flip-flops from under the bedframe, right next to the wooden crate where I kept my clothes and other accouterments—I wouldn’t say belongings because legally, nothing could belong to me.
The good thing about sleeping in the morning was that the basement quarters weren’t locked. Slaves—dangerous or otherwise—couldn’t be let out alone at night, you see, unless they were working. The Pleiades would be high by now, and if I was going to be awake anyway, nothing was going to prevent me from seeing it before the sunrise. I was loath to admit there was anything I liked about this place, but the desert was incontrovertibly the best place I’d ever lived for stargazing, and I’d found a spot in the garden right under a mesquite and next to the wind chimes. The housekeeper and maid were already up and over in the main house, and no one else was around to see me quietly latch the door to the room, make my way up the stairs, and head out the separate access door to the basement wing, furiously zeroing in on the garden path ahead of me so I wouldn’t be tempted to head the opposite way to see if her light was on. Or whether her blinds were open.
In the garden, I nestled in the cool sand, my back against the bark of a timeless mesquite. Years had passed, but the seven sisters were still as innocent as when I’d first seen them, from the roof of my first master’s country estate in Walferdange. As innocent as I had once been.
Right. As if slaves ever had the luxury of being innocent.
There could be death, you know. Did it matter what happened to Louisa? Did I care if she was collateral damage? The world didn’t think I was worthy of touching her, so why should I care? I’d kill Keith Wainwright-Phillips in a second if I had to. But if I put Louisa in danger, I’d just be causing another innocent to suffer, an innocent whose window I could be looking up into right now if I walked around the corner of the house, not that I’d ever paid attention to such a thing, or for that matter, what she might be wearing—or not wearing—while sleeping. A rich and free innocent, granted, but not one who deserved that . Which in itself took a lot to admit because up until recently, I was convinced they all deserved that.
And so did I, probably. After all, my sister wouldn’t need saving if I hadn’t fucked up and put her there to begin with.
I closed my eyes, and the star cluster—Alcyone, Maia, Electra, my constant women—arrayed themselves methodically and logically behind my lids the way they had on the star charts I’d stolen from my master’s son’s textbooks, showing me, as always, the way through darkness, even when I couldn’t see them.
And they told me that the only way to help Louisa was to stay away from her. But the only way to help myself was to go back.
HER
I sat where I always did on campus when I wanted to eat lunch and think—on a little stone bench in the back of the optics building, where, in the spring, purple-throated hummingbirds gathered to sip on honeysuckle and ocotillo flowers.
But today, I wasn’t alone. An insistent mist on my arm brought my attention to the fact that the bushes were being watered—by a slave girl with sandy hair cropped short, in the same style they all wore. She looked maybe eleven, and her fair skin reddened by exposure under that distinctive dull gray one-piece uniform. She’d rolled the sleeves up, but the fabric was too thick for the desert sun at its zenith, and at her feet was an empty plastic bottle that may have once contained drinking water. I vaguely knew that the slaves who worked on campus were supplied by an outside contractor, though most of them were housed in a forbidding-looking concrete building just off campus, complete with razor wire. Looking at the girl again, I was floored at how young she looked. Did they actually buy slaves her age for this kind of work? Or maybe they owned her mother, and the daughter was just part of the package? Did that happen, ever?
God, there was still so much I didn’t know. And worse, had never thought to find out.
“Hi,” I said.
“Himiss,” she murmured as if it were all one word, staring at her feet. She wasn’t allowed to ignore a free person, but she still used the smallest voice she could muster. She’d clearly hoped to go unnoticed, and I had to admit, a week ago, she probably would have, like one of those dull green compactable trash bins placed everywhere on campus. Now that she was in my crosshairs, though, she was shaking. It was obvious that getting any attention at all from a student had never resulted in anything good for her.
“It’s okay,” I said awkwardly. “I’m just—here.” I held out the mini bag of potato chips that had come with my turkey sandwich. The girl was thin, and though I couldn’t imagine it was in the university’s best interests to starve their slaves, I doubted much junk food was included in whatever they were fed. It could be gruel three times a day, for all I knew. “I don’t want them.” Actually, I did want them, but I didn’t need them. I beckoned her closer, still holding out the bag.
But instead of the gratitude I expected to see, her face looked as if I had just pointed a loaded gun at her and ordered her into the back of a van. She was shaking that hard, and the hose was flailing every which way in the small hand that had a shaky grip on it already.
“Okay, maybe not,” I said helplessly. “One?” But the girl took a step back. Jesus, I’d never seen anyone so frightened of potatoes. I held it out ridiculously in my flat palm. I guess in my mind, the slave girl had now evolved from an inanimate object to one of the lower mammals. Erica Muller would be so proud.
Was that what the slave boy— my slave boy—was to me? A mammal? Had he been doing work like this at eleven? And what would he do if I offered him a potato chip? Laugh, probably, and make some sarcastic remark.
Oh wow, a potato chip. I’m moving up in the world. Next maybe I’ll get a crouton.
And maybe take it. My own family’s slaves didn’t get chips, either.
“Or … how about some water?” I unzipped my backpack and uncapped my reusable bottle, thinking I’d found the solution. But it got me nowhere. In the end, I left the chip bag gently on the bench and walked away, glancing back over my shoulder to see the girl still standing there, staring after me, water squirting forlornly out of the hose.
“Well?” Corey demanded later that afternoon as I dashed out of my psychology lecture hall, head down, praying he wouldn’t spot me. My mind was made up about where I was going, and my lunchtime encounter with the slave girl had only cemented it. But he had spotted me, of course, and I was about to pay the price for it.
“Well what?” I responded, hoping that when I didn’t slow down, he’d get the message and fuck off.
“I haven’t seen you in four days, and you’ve barely answered any of my messages.”
“I answered your first message,” I mumbled without looking at him. “I said I was studying for my o-chem midterm. That hasn’t changed. When it does, I’ll let you know.”
“You were supposed to be studying with me!” he exclaimed.
I sped up further, heading single-mindedly toward the social sciences building. I only had a small window to meet with Erica Muller before the professor’s office hours were done for the day. But her office was all the way across the campus mall, and I hadn’t factored in having to spill my guts to Corey on the way there—which I dreaded, not only because I didn’t have time, but because I didn’t relish explaining the reason why I had stopped studying with him, or that I was now hauling ass across campus to meet with the professor he referred to as a pinko commie snowflake to discuss that reason.
Or that that reason was a person. Even if Corey didn’t consider him one.
I would have to come up with an excuse. “You’re busy working with Langer, not to mention your other classes,” I bullshitted. “I know you don’t have time to tutor me every day. Anyway, I found … a new study technique,” I said quickly. “Online. It’s really helping.”
He frowned, the muscles in his tanned face tightening unpleasantly. I knew he wasn’t buying it. And if he got suspicious that I’d replaced him—with a slave, no less, one he’d already openly expressed his contempt, if not outright jealousy of, he wouldn’t let it drop. He’d make sure both I and the slave boy paid the price for it. He was that vindictive. I was already starting to feel ashamed that I’d ever considered dating him. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel the same.
“Let’s do something tonight.”
I couldn’t help but think he was testing me, somehow. “Can’t. Girls’ night with Juliette in Old Town. Nails and shopping. I haven’t done anything social in months.” The shopping would be minimal, of course. My dad had revoked access to his credit card, after all. But Corey didn’t need to know that, even though he probably suspected it.
“What about?—“
“Look, I’ll see you on Friday. You’re coming to our house for dinner with Langer, aren’t you?”
Not that I was actually looking forward to that, knowing all the minefields I might step in, but at least it might get him off my case.
“Of course.” He grabbed my arm. Why did he always feel entitled to do that? “But don’t forget that next weekend’s my birthday, and I’m planning a party. Are you coming?”
I groaned inwardly. Come to think of it, Juliette had mentioned something about that in a text, but it had slipped my mind after the past week had started giving way to something far more interesting than Corey.
I tried to shrug him off, but his grip tightened. “I’ll try,” I said, not trusting myself to say more.
He finally let me go with one of those supercilious smirks his face seemed to have been born with. “Good. I’ll see you soon.”
All I knew was that before “soon” rolled around, I’d have to figure out a way to get out of it. For the slave boy’s sake, and my own.
Even if I never spoke to him again.
Academic offices weren’t renowned for their size, but even by those standards, Erica Muller’s was puny—a stuffy, cramped little room hidden down at the end of a dim hallway in the back of the social sciences building. The one window, covered by a pair of dusty, crooked Venetian blinds, looked directly at a breezeway with a massive air conditioning unit. I couldn’t help but think that given the professor’s reputation, the administration had given her this piece of real estate on purpose. And Erica Muller herself appeared to share my lack of enthusiasm for the space, given that she was shoving coffee-stained papers into her worn leather backpack when I appeared breathlessly at her door.
“Professor Muller, I’m so sorry I’m late. Do you have just a couple more minutes, please?”
She didn’t even look up. “I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to get to this meeting. You’ll have to wait until my next office hours on Thursday.”
My heart sank into my knees. No. This absolutely couldn’t wait. I hated being pushy with authority figures—or anyone—but there were always exceptions. And this was one. “Please, it’s—it’s really important. It’s about a slave.”
The professor looked up sharply.
I had a feeling that might do the trick.
Erica Muller looked different up close than she did in the lecture hall. She appeared younger, for one, despite the frizzy hair and dowdy glasses, and wore a sleeveless blouse that showed off a small tattoo on her shoulder, one that wouldn’t have been visible from halfway back in the classroom. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it looked like two broken links of chain with something written on it. I forced my eyes not to stare.
“Why would a slave attack an owner?” Before she could mount a response, I pressed on. “It’s just that particular slave, he’s—he’s not like that. He’s not—“ He’s smart and kind and funny and completely amazing, I wanted to say because it was true and because I couldn’t say it to anyone else, not even him. And hot, but I doubted Muller would be much interested in that aspect of the problem. Even though it basically was the problem.
“Louisa.”
“Yes?”
“Breathe.”
“Oh, God.” I practically fainted as she pulled out a wooden chair for me to collapse in. “I’m sorry, Professor Muller. There’s a lot going on right now.”
“Call me Erica. I’m not exactly big into hierarchy, in case you hadn’t noticed.” She retook her desk chair and spun it toward me. “You have my attention. I’m not going anywhere. Tell me.”
I tried to get my breathing under control. I reached inside my bag.
“Here, I brought this,” I said shyly. “Maybe you can make more out of it than I could.”
She took the paper immediately from me, pushing up her oversized glasses to scan it, her face interested but maddeningly unreadable. “This kid’s life reads like a novel. He went from a private home in Luxembourg to a factory farm in Romania to Heidelberg University, all before he turned eighteen?”
“He’s … kind of extraordinary.”
From my professor, there came a tiny, almost undetectable smile.
“But it’s not that part of his life I’m interested in.” I was interested in every part of his life, actually, but not at this immediate moment.
“I see,” Muller said neutrally. “The first thing that jumps out at me is that his mother died mere days before his first owner sold him. It seemed to be a hasty sale, too. They basically handed him over to a public auction house instead of going through a private buyer. That’s unusual, given he was born and raised there.”
“Do you think they’re connected?” And what if they were? Would that be a good thing?
“It’s possible. But you know, these files aren’t always reliable. You’ll remember we discussed this very thing in my lecture a few weeks ago. Sometimes owners will put false information in them simply to punish slaves they felt were disrespectful,” she explained. “And the slaves have no recourse to get it corrected. In fact, there was legislation proposed several years ago to instate some sort of a verification process, but?—“
She must have noticed my eyes glazing over.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to turn this into a lecture.” She adjusted her glasses and examined the paper again. “I also notice that his disciplinary record shows no history of serious violence, except this.” She looked up and spun her chair around again. “In any case, Louisa, recent research has found that there are very few attacks on owners that aren’t provoked or justified in some way. You’d never know that to read about them in the corporate press, though,” she added bitterly.
I let out another breath.
“Still, I know you don’t know the exact circumstances, and that’s what worries you.”
I nodded. “So what do I do?”
“I have a suggestion, and I want you to consider it very carefully.” She sat back in her chair and steepled her hands. “Have you thought about asking him?”
I was dumbfounded. “Asking him?”
“It’s public information, Louisa. As a free person, you have a right to see it. And of course he should answer your questions. Not that I’m suggesting you order him to answer. But you could ask him. Politely.”
“Um.” I blushed. “There’s a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Then he’ll know I was snooping.”
I wondered if Erica Muller thought her office hours were starting to feel like a relationship therapy session. But she just gave me a small smile of amusement, or possibly concern. In any case, she scribbled a number down on a piece of paper. “Think it over, anyway, and let me know how it goes. This is my cell number. I always have it with me and turned on. Just in case you ever need it.” She slid it across the table. “No questions asked.”
By the time I walked out of her office, I’d forgotten all about Corey. I was actually feeling lighter. Not because I had a plan about what to do—I didn’t, really—but because I was now aware of at least one person on the planet I could trust not to judge me. And that included the slave boy himself.
That light feeling melted away, however, the minute my phone buzzed and I glanced at it to see three missed calls from my father. His voice seemed to be coming from the bottom of the ocean as I shakily pressed the phone to my ear, stomach churning with anxiety. I hadn’t technically done anything wrong, of course, but, well.
“I want you home immediately after class, Loulou. We need to talk.”
HIM
“Sir?” I prompted.
I shouldn’t have spoken, but why had Master Wainwright-Phillips called me in here if he was just going to stare dopily at his laptop screen for five minutes? For effect? In any case, while I waited, I stood in the middle of the southwestern-style rug I had just put down yesterday, expertly feigning interest in its orange-and-yellow geometric pattern while actually staring my master straight in the face, the way I’d learned to do a long, long time ago.
Despite all the effort he—well, his slaves—had put in to make his study look more “start-up-like,” it was no different from all the free people’s offices I’d ever seen. With their elaborate paneling and massive desks and chairs, they seemed designed to reinforce the inferiority of whoever entered, especially if that person was a slave, glistening and panting and covered in dust from having just hauled lava rocks all morning, and who didn’t even have the privilege of being offered one of the very chairs I’d carried up to the office yesterday.
But that was the least of my problems right now. There didn’t seem to be much question as to what this summons was about. The proof was hidden under my mattress downstairs: a map to 2481 Salt River Boulevard.
Given the expression on the housekeeper’s face when she’d come out into the yard to inform me I’d been summoned, I knew it couldn’t be good. It seemed unlikely that anyone could have discovered the printout already, but who knew?
I’d already made up my mind to go on tutoring Louisa. Naturally, because she was the easiest pathway to getting the information I needed, which right now was what Langer was doing under the code name White Cedar. I had some idea of where to look, but I needed to buy more time. Time in which I would grow closer and closer to losing control of the whole goddamn enterprise, all because my dick practically hit the bottom of the desk every time her tongue poked out of her mouth in concentration.
In the meantime, my mouth was dry as this goddamn desert. Plus, my palms were clammy and my heart was pounding as I stood there like a tool, waiting for my master to say something, no less nervous now than when I was eight or ten or fifteen years old and being ordered into a master’s presence.
The only difference was I had gotten better at hiding it.
When Wainwright-Phillips finally looked up from his laptop as if he’d just realized I was there, I quickly threw my gaze to the floor, fast enough that there was no way he could have known how closely I’d been studying him.
Nobody I knew was better at that.
“What do you know about the financial situation of this household, boy?”
Um, okay. That definitely wasn’t among the list of questions I’d been expecting. Which meant it was probably a trick.
“Relax. It’s not a trick.”
I raised an eyebrow, something I’d never get away with in a million years with most masters. But for some reason, with him, I decided to give it a try.
“Look, I know you’re smart enough to be able to answer that question,” he continued obliviously. “I knew you were smart when I bought you, but in a few days, you’ve managed to outdo even my own expectations for a slave.”
That “for a slave” part was priceless, wasn’t it? Still, he hadn’t said anything about the eyebrow, so it evened out.
“So tell me.”
I took a deep breath. It may not be a trick, but it was an important question, and the answer I gave would matter if I had any hope of keeping my neck off the chopping block. That meant You went crazy and flushed all your money down the toilet wasn’t the right thing to say, even if it was true. Time to bring on the bullshit. “I know you’re currently seeking some strategic new ventures to stabilize your financial position.”
To my surprise, he smiled. “Right answer. Buying you was one of those strategic ventures, I see.”
I exhaled. This conversation was already going in an unexpected direction, but that was no reason to let my guard down.
“I’m pursuing a business venture with Max Langer—I presume that at some point you’ve heard his name?”
“Yes, sir. He’s the Phoenix tech wizard who created the FableFlow app, sold the company, made his first hundred million dollars, and is now CEO of Orbital Dynamics, the company pioneering the use of reusable rockets. He’ll be a billionaire before he’s fifty if all goes well. In short, he’s exactly who you should be partnering with. Not that you asked for my opinion, sir.”
Wainwright-Phillips coughed and took a sip of water. Fuck my curiosity, my mouth, and my tendency to push things too far, but to my surprise, he recovered quickly, smiled, and nodded. “Good. In any case, you’ll meet him later this week as he’s coming to a dinner party, at which I’ll expect you to serve. You don’t know this—even some of my closest associates don’t—but unlike them, I didn’t start out on third base. I worked my way through school, then started at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder so I could give my family everything they deserve. I’ve done that, and now the fact that I may lose it all has been … difficult.”
I’m a fucking slave, you dipshit. Forgive me for not weeping for you.
“In any case, you may as well know I’ve made a decision to embark on a venture with Mr. Langer that some may call risky, but that I predict will pay off handsomely down the line when the new product—top secret, of course—launches. In the meantime, this household has been on a shoestring budget as I’m sure you’ve noticed, which is hurting my wife and daughter immensely. It’s so far from the lifestyle they’re accustomed to.”
Remember what I just said about weeping?
“I suppose I’m biased, but Louisa is one of the most determined and driven people I know, even though I admit I’ve spoiled her, which isn’t doing her any favors now. But she’s determined to make her own way in life, and the pressure to earn her degree is causing her a great deal of stress. I regret that there’s not much I can do, science having never been my forte.” He paused, peering down his nose at me. “So I guess it doesn’t surprise me why she decided to enlist some unconventional studying techniques.”
Boom. There it was. I swallowed, my mouth so parched I could hardly open it.
“Tell me, why didn’t you ask permission first before tutoring my daughter?”
“Sir, I?—“
“The ironic thing is that if you had asked, I would have allowed it. But you went behind my back, and you have to be punished for that. I think five lashes should do it.”
I swallowed and bent my head, even in my relief that I was being punished for a lesser offense than the one I’d actually been afraid of being found guilty of. Sometimes that was all a slave had to give thanks for.
“Yes, sir.”
“The gardener will do it in the back by the shed. It’s more civilized to have another slave do it, I’ve found.”
I’d heard of that practice. Apparently, it was more common in New North America than in New Europe, where punishments in private households were often meted out by hired handlers. But of course, it was also cheaper, and it was official now: Wainwright-Phillips was broke. It also seemed clear that he himself had no intention of being there. To him, it was just another rote, mildly unpleasant business task he could outsource, like ordering an assistant to fix a jammed copier.
“And before you assume anything, no, Louisa did not tell me, so you have no reason to hold anything against her. I found out on my own. You’re not the only clever one in this house.”
I believed him that Louisa hadn’t told; if she’d wanted her father to know, she would have asked him right off the bat. But I would have to figure out who had told, and soon, because that person would need tight supervision and maybe a punch in the teeth for good measure.
“And yes, I’m punishing her, too. She’s grounded for three days, except for school. She may be eighteen as she’s quick to point out, but it’s my house, my rules.”
Though my eyes were still trained on the floor, I knew he had risen from his chair, and I half expected him to grab me by my ear and toss me out the door. Instead, when I dared to raise my gaze, I saw a conical paper cup from the water cooler in front of my face. His hand was attached to it.
“Sir?” I asked, still suspicious.
He laughed. “It’s water, boy. You clearly need it.”
I took it and gulped. “Thank you, sir,” I said sincerely, or at least as sincere as I ever got with masters or anyone, really.
“I’ll order the gardener to wait for you at the garden shed in an hour. Best to get it over with, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir.” I took that as an order to leave.
“By the way,” he continued.
I turned around.
“I want you to continue tutoring my daughter. For an hour every weekday, ideally. I’ll make sure the housekeeper knows this and gives you the time you need. If the improvement continues and she passes her exam at the end of this month, I’ll personally ensure that you’re rewarded.”
I paused suddenly, crushing the paper cup in my hand. To a slave, a reward was a matter of speaking—anything from a morsel of chocolate to better accommodations to relief from more backbreaking duties like gutter cleaning and floor scrubbing. In some rare cases, it could even mean freedom, but that was one thing, in the interests of surviving day to day, I tried to never let myself contemplate, and I didn’t intend to start now. In any case, I didn’t know Wainwright-Phillips well enough yet to know what a reward might mean in this case, and I didn’t dare ask. All I knew was that things had just gotten exponentially more complicated—like they weren’t already.
“Remember,” he said. “I’m putting my trust in you, boy. Don’t let me down.”
“Sir, I?—“
But he had already closed the door.
I knew the routine. The scars on my back testified to it. And while knowing the routine didn’t make it easier, it did make it less surprising. My first master’s old cook used to say there was a wild herb growing in the Grünewald that you could apply an hour before a whipping and you’d hardly feel a thing. I didn’t really believe it was real, but I’d never given up hoping.
“I knew we had a date coming,” said the hulking gardener, spittle gathering in the corners of his mostly tooth-free mouth as he pointed me behind the auxiliary shed, which I had gathered was the de facto punishment ground because it was as far away from the main house as it was possible to get without stepping in horse manure from the pasture next door.
“ You told the master, didn’t you?”
The sick fuck just laughed, a sound that came out more like a pained, asthmatic wheeze.
I took that as a yes, but how?
The gardener provided no clues, just watched me strip off my T-shirt, and then, to my annoyance, used his oversized muscles to shove my face painfully against the pole, mashing wood splinters into my skin.
“Hey, dickhead, take it easy. I’m cooperating, yeah?” Like the son of a bitch actually cared. He roughly attached me to the thick wooden pole with a pair of rusty cuffs wrapped around it by a thick chain, my arms raised above my head at a weird angle he didn’t bother to adjust. The pole had been hosed down, though it still bore visible spatters of flesh and blood, plus a distinctive metallic smell that I would know anywhere. I wondered who had been the last one whipped here. Hopefully the gardener himself.
Where is Louisa?
What the fuck? Why would that cross my mind? Miles from here, no doubt. I didn’t dare to think she even knew what was happening, let alone would give a damn about it. She probably had some three-Cosmopolitan lunch to go to, some country club outing, some shopping spree, some pleasant and innocuous activity that made sense in her world. She would never have to see a scene like this. Why would she want to?
Behind me, the gardener drew in an impressed breath as he surveyed the handiwork of previous owners and their punishers. “Your back isn’t nearly as pretty as your face, boy.”
“That’s what they tell me.” I hadn’t seen it, but I had seen the naked backs of plenty of other slaves, and I wasn’t so vain as to think mine was any different. At eight, I’d graduated from canes to whips—a real rite of passage since after all, whips break the skin while canes generally don’t. But my first master had been an amateur compared to the overseers at the farm, who used to attend fucking professional development seminars on how to make their punishments more brutal. I wasn’t kidding. I’d once actually found the agenda for one, complete with diagrams.
The gardener, meanwhile, was a slave, not a professional. So he wasn’t aware of best practices about whether to go for depth or breadth—aiming again and again for the same spot to deepen the pain or spreading it out to cover more area. He’d be relying on primitive technique, so what he’d do was anyone’s guess. That would make it especially fun.
“Don’t worry,” the gardener said, running his thick paw down the whip sensually, like a Thoroughbred’s mane, “the master told me to take it easy on ya. So I’m only gonna do six lashes instead of seven.”
“But—“ I cursed the fact that I was already chained, which of course was what the bastard had been counting on.
The gardener laughed wheezily again. “Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret. By the way, I hear you and Miss Loulou are about to have regular dates.”
Louisa’s name in this ugly motherfucker’s mouth made me want to rip my fist free and shatter every tooth the guy had left.
“Yeah? So what?”
“So what?” The gardener dug into the pocket of his dirt-covered jeans. “So unless you do exactly what I say, you’re gonna find yourself back here real soon.”
The last thing I saw before the first lash came was the map printout from under my mattress, crumpled between the gardener’s grimy fingers. By the second, I was stifling the whimper I wouldn’t let this asshole hear, pressing my head against the pole to stabilize myself. By the third, fourth, and fifth, when those familiar hot rivulets started flowing down my back, all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut, clench my jaw against the new pain and the old, and just breathe as my mother had taught me long ago.
For once, I was actually looking forward to late-night duty, which always started with washing up from dinner. Other than tutoring, it was as light as my work got. Of course it wasn’t my fault that the maid, indiscreetly tossing her black mane, had offered to do something to, as she put it, “help with the pain,” then brushed up against me while I washed dishes and she ferried salads and desserts back and forth. Normally, I would have jumped at the chance to make at least one part of my body feel better, no matter the agony the rest of me was in.
But Louisa.
Yeah, what about her? I scolded myself as I scrubbed a casserole angrily with a piece of steel wool. Okay, so she hadn’t told her father about the tutoring. Still, she was free. She was my master’s daughter, she was a spoiled brat, and she clearly didn’t know or care that she was the reason I was now groaning inwardly as I bent down to load the rest of the dishwasher. I’d thrown on a loose T-shirt with some dumb American brand logo on the front, and the housekeeper had given me an ibuprofen and some antiseptic cream, which, granted, was more than I’d been given after most whippings, though my back still wept blood and stung me like a hive full of angry bees whenever I moved.
So fuck Louisa. Fuck it all. The only way she could be of any use to me was if she could help me find Langer and find my sister. Anything else was a liability to me. A dangerous one. And after today, I was already in enough danger.
“If you know how to get this, you must know how to get other things,” the gardener rasped poisonously in my ear as I dangled there in agony at the end of it all, hands still chained, stretched arm muscles screaming for relief. “Matter of fact, so do I. Over the years, I found ways to see anything I want, anytime I want.”
What the fuck was this idiot talking about? I clenched my teeth, forcing my murky, pain-contorted brain to think back to what the housekeeper had told me about the boarded-up window of the women’s slave quarters.
“But the princess’s room …” He paused to chuckle throatily. “I’m still shut out of there, but it ain’t for lack of trying.”
Breathe, you stupid bastard. I know you know how. A sudden breeze blew a typhoon of grit into my torn-open flesh, and I bit back a moan. I prided myself on never begging anyone for anything, and I sure wasn’t going to start with this asshole.
The gardener just stood there, watching me twist, holding the map printout. “I want you to plant this in her room. And not in a goddamn drawer.”
He held a tiny device between his dirt-ridged fingers, and it only took a second for me to recognize what it was: a camera.
“What the fuck? Are you crazy?” Where would a gardener get that? Besides, if anyone was going to be watching Louisa strip naked, it was going to be me. Full stop.
“If I don’t got pictures by Friday, this printout is going to be sitting in the middle of the dining room table when Langer shows up for dinner. Do we have a deal?”
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
The gardener unlatched the cuffs. Wrists released, I landed hard in a heap on the ground, in too much pain to try to chase after him and bash his head into the wall for daring to even think about her in that way or any way. Not that it would accomplish anything except sending me right back to this goddamn post. Neither would the microcamera, which was still in my pocket because what the fuck else was I supposed to do with it?
The only good news that afternoon was that Louisa was in class all day, so even though she was grounded, I’d probably be able to avoid seeing her.
But when 10 p.m. rolled around, the front door banged open dramatically. I was bent over the sink, and the sudden noise caused me to drop the pot I had been scrubbing. It clattered to the tile floor and kept clattering, while soapy water dripped off my hands. I quickly grabbed a tea towel and winced as I bent down to stop the noise and throw the pot into the sink. Smooth.
She stood in the entrance to the kitchen, silhouetted in moonlit blue, wearing her school clothes, which in Arizona this time of year apparently meant a tiny crop top and cutoff jean shorts, and I couldn’t help but inconveniently notice, of all things, how perfectly they hugged her curvy little hips and ass. She was clutching a bottle of something shyly to her chest.
Before I could say anything, words—few of which made much sense to me—tumbled out of her mouth all at once.
“At first, I was all mad at you because I was going to miss our girls’ night in Old Town with Juliette, which was the only thing I had to look forward to for the past three months. And I thought it was all your fault because I let you tutor me, and right after Daddy told me, I had to go to class. And then I scored an eighty-nine on a quiz, and I’m not failing anymore, and all because of you, too, and then when I got home, the housekeeper told me what happened.” She took a deep breath. “To you, I mean.”
I opened my mouth, but she barreled on. “I feel so stupid. It’s all my fault. I’m sure it was something I said to Daddy. I can never fucking do anything right and—“ She held out the bottle in her hands like some kind of religious offering.
And then—shit. She was crying. She was standing right in front of me, crying, complete with a glistening little tear running down from her big gray eye, down over my favorite tiny mole on her cheek and onto her chin. Her shoulders had even started to shake.
And, fuck, here I was swooping across the kitchen to her, like some big hero—a hero who wasn’t even allowed to touch the object of his heroics. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Okay, first things first. I could take the bottle from her hand before she dropped it and spilled the damn thing all over the kitchen—which I did, just in time to read the label: Aloe vera gel: relieves pain and treats wounds naturally.
Even more fucks. It was for me. To help the pain. I put it on the counter. I’d deal with that later. Right now, a small, helpless, adorable creature was standing alone and in pain—not physical pain, but pain nonetheless—and every instinct and impulse I had was telling me to go to her. My mother and sister had been more stoic than most, especially given the life they’d led, but they had had their moments. Many a slave girl had also fallen into my arms when life became too much, and I was always happy to oblige, especially because I knew what usually followed. When it came to being a shoulder to cry on, I actually had a pretty decent résumé.
This was obviously different.
She hiccupped. I cringed, cursing myself, closing my eyes and reaching out a hand, kind of, sort of offering. She looked up for a second, then down at my hand. She did not move an inch, either forward or back. A split second later, the decision was made for me. She had practically launched herself at me, and all of a sudden, I had an armful of my master’s daughter.
I was so fucked.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. You’ll get in trouble again—because of—because of—“ She was still hiccupping. I wasn’t sure if whatever I was doing was making it worse or better, but I did know that despite her protests, she was making no attempt to move away. In fact, one of my hands was now officially touching one of those curls, the ones so long and thick and over-the-top they hadn’t even seemed real when I’d first seen them. Up close, she smelled exactly the same as her room always did: vases of fresh pink carnations; citrus perfume in tiny, jewel-like bottles; girly, expensive, precious things. More things I wasn’t allowed to touch; things they chained me up and threw me in cages to keep me from touching. Things like, for instance, her tits, which had the audacity to actually be heaving , along with the rest of her, as they pressed up against my chest. Well, that was Fantasy Number One of roughly 3,128 fulfilled. If we stayed like this much longer, I’d go for numbers two, three, and four. Guaranteed.
Fuck. I took another deep breath. For her sake and mine, I had to get my dick under control, then I could decide what to do next. I’d never been so horny while still bloody from a whipping, but Louisa Wainwright-Phillips was really pushing my limits in more ways than one.
In the meantime, I should probably be doing something other than standing here marveling at the fact that this was even fucking happening. I spread my fingers and moved them gently a little down her spine and up again, careful not to make any sudden movements. Then, slowly, carefully, I eased them back so I could rest against the marble island, even though it sliced through my wounds like a butcher knife, and I made the mistake of making a little hiss of pain as the edge of the counter hit one of the lash marks.
“What are you doing? You’re hurt!” she exclaimed, loud enough to be heard down the hall if not upstairs.
“Shhh,” I whispered frantically into her hair, gently pressing her head down again. “Shouting isn’t going to make it any better. And anyway, it’s fine. Really. I’m fine.” At that, I could swear she burrowed a bit closer into my arms. “Hey. Listen to me. This is not your fault.”
“It’s not?” she squeaked.
“No. It’s not because of anything you said. Your dad told me that himself.” I paused. “Besides,” I remarked, “out of all the whippings I’ve had, this isn’t even in the top ten.”
A wail greeted me. Okay, wrong thing to say.
“You’re not fine,” she said. “You’re in terrible pain and it’s all because of me.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her dramatics. “If that makes you feel better, sure.”
There was silence for a second, then I heard what sounded like either a hiccup or a giggle emerge from the nest of hair that concealed her face. I had to admit, when her puffy, red, tear-streaked, and gorgeously imperfect visage finally emerged to gaze up at me, the sight—despite all of that—was as good as cool water down my ruined back. She didn’t move her face, and now her glistening gray eyes were fixed on mine, her full lips glossy and rosy and impossible not to want to kiss, and—at least at that moment—eminently worth risking getting thrown into a mine for.
“Fuck it.” I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but I bent down, knowing exactly where my mouth was headed without registering at all what would happen when I got there.
A door abruptly opening and closing upstairs brought us both back to our senses. We broke apart, hearts pounding, and, just like that first meeting in her bathroom, we put as much empty space between each other as we could. We paused a minute before realizing nobody was coming.
She unfroze and grabbed the bottle of aloe, then pushed it toward me.
“Aloe grows all over the desert, you know. They make this at a natural store by the university. It’s good for everything—sunburn, cuts, bruises. It’s a natural antiseptic.”
She paused. The clock ticked. Here was her cue to offer to put it on me herself. Well?
Instead, she flushed and glanced up at the clock. “I’d better go.”
She paused, clearly hoping I’d reply. Maybe even ask her to stay. Of course if I asked her to stay, fuck the aloe. Fuck my back. If I had my way, I’d finish that goddamn kiss, first of all, and after that, rip that cutesy little crop top off, get her naked, and have her arching her back on the countertop and moaning in seconds flat.
Good thing for both of us that in this world, I didn’t have my way.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked. “For studying?”
Studying? Hold on. Rewind.
As soon as it began, I had to end it. I turned away from her and threw open the cupboard. “I can’t.”
“What? What do you mean you can’t?”
I didn’t turn around. “Well, my English isn’t perfect, but if I remember correctly, ‘can’t’ is a contraction meaning ‘cannot’ or ‘unable to.’” Classic immature male behavior. In mere minutes, I’d gone from noble hero to snarky dick.
“You know that’s not what I meant. You don’t get to tell me what you can and can’t do.” The vulnerable, crying Louisa was gone. The old, haughty, petulant Louisa, the one from the intercom, was making a reappearance.
“Look, you know enough that you can do it without me now. You need to tell your dad you don’t need me anymore. That you figured it out.”
What was I doing? I’d held her and been seconds away from kissing her. We both knew it. I’d slept in her bed, for fuck’s sake. And now I was acting like I barely knew her. My only hope was that maybe eventually, she’d understand that it was for her own good as much as mine and wouldn’t hate me for the rest of her life.
“But…but…I need you! I thought we were—“ she cut herself off. “What are you doing?”
“Making you a macchiato. Ecuadorian roast,” I said flatly. “That’s the kind you like, yeah?”
“I don’t understand.”
I pulled out the coffee and banged it pointedly down on the counter, then forcefully pulled open the machine to fill it. “Well, in case you forgot, it’s sort of my job.”
“But Daddy ordered you to tutor me. It’s an order,” she said frantically, her voice now high-pitched and shrill. The classic spoiled child’s solution to not getting her way. “Plus, my exam is coming up and there’s no way I can pass it without you.”
The machine’s hissing cut her off as the steaming espresso poured into the cup. “Why are you being like this?”
I turned around and grandly placed the beverage in front of her. “Here you are, miss. Enjoy.”
She looked down at the expensive ceramic cup of artisan coffee as if it were a dead rat. I crossed my arms and leaned back on the counter expectantly, waiting to see whether she would throw it back in my face, at which point I would have accomplished my goal and ruined both of our nights completely. Very slowly, delicately, and carefully, she placed two fingers on the rim of the cup and pushed it away from her. Then she looked at me.
“Does all this have something to do with why you attacked your first owner?”
My whole body went rigid. “What?”
“That is it, isn’t it?” She pressed on. “Was it to protect your mother? Or your sister?”
Damn her. Like an idiot, I stood there fumbling for a response. I thought I was on it. I thought I’d figured everything out. I always figured everything out. And now there was this spoiled princess, this naive innocent, turning every single table on me, as easy as anything.
Maybe she wasn’t so naive anymore.
“How do you know about my sister?” I finally asked.
“Two reasons. First, I looked at your file.”
The file. Always the fucking file, my life history laid out as if I were a used car. With a deep breath, I resigned myself to hearing whatever she had to say next. “And second?”
“Second,” she continued, “because I sent her a message on my computer this morning. And tonight, I got a reply. Her name is Maeve, by the way.”