CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mylene Hathaway stared at the blank computer screen like it was a blank canvas. In her time under Tran Pham's thumb, she had learned to do magic with the dance of keystrokes and lines of code. Sometimes, she daydreamed of posting on social media or even anonymously on message boards, asking for help. She could tell the truth and explain why she lived as a prisoner in this cute little house. Then again, why would she do that? She had nothing to gain from freedom, so she stayed where she was, doing as instructed.
Each day, Mylene followed the same routine. She woke up in the same little bedroom with bare walls and a single chest of drawers, pulled the worn duvet over her tiny thin twin bed, ate her breakfast of plain Greek yogurt, granola, and honey, worked on her tedious assignments from Pham's organization, ate a midday meal at which her creativity was limited to lunch meats and various breads, continued working on her assignments, prepared dinners that let her lose herself in the chopping and cooking, and, once again, worked on her assignments.
If she faltered or in any way deviated from her standard work output, Pham's people would take away her privileges—fresh groceries and full-bodied coffee—and without those, life was merely a continual task list, broken only by dreamless sleep.
She'd hoped that with Tran Pham imprisoned, life would change. It hadn't. She'd hoped that with him behind bars, she might walk away. She couldn't.
Her little beach house had a shabby picket fence instead of razor wire. The building wasn't much to look at from the outside; it was slightly run down but not jarringly out of place for the neighborhood. The grass, dominated by weeds, was always cut before it became a nuisance, and, she reasoned, the lack of a manicured lawn was a native ecosystem and good for the bees. That wouldn't exist if Pham kept her elsewhere. Dandelions pocked the sidewalk cracks. Leggy purple and white weed flowers spotted the yard. She supposed it was nice, though she didn't look out her windows and never dared to step out her front door. The outside world was almost as terrible to look at as were the walls inside her house.
Her little prison of a home offered safety so long as she kept her eyes pinned to the ground when she was outside the kitchen, her office, or her bedroom. She wasn't a flight risk. Pham didn't require bars or guards. Their weapons were far more powerful: fear and shame.