Page 77 of Art of Sin

I might never look at him again.

“We were imprisoned in a room with boarded-up windows and ate food laced with sedatives—enough to make us docile, not enough to make us zombies. Besides that, nothing bad really happened for the first year. We had daily trainers and tutors in etiquette and liberal arts, even economics.

“When you’ve been on the streets for any extended period of time, like Nate and I had been, a cage can trick you. Even though we were waiting for the other shoe to drop, we got used to our situation. I wouldn’t even say we were unhappy. Steady meals, showers, a soft bed to sleep in, all the books and television we wanted—”

Lightheaded, I pause to take a breath. Gideon’s thumb strokes my wrist.

I still can’t look at him.

“Obviously, things changed. We had our first audition”—I almost gag on the word—“which consisted of a performance of some sort. A part of a play, a dance routine, a scripted debate… The piece was determined by our handler to entice his prospective, uh, buyers.”

Gideon makes a soft, pained noise.

“It went on for the next two years. Auditions and assignations, which we learned fast was a pretty word for rape. By the time I was seventeen, we’d tried and failed to escape twenty-four times.”

Now that I’ve started, I don’t know if I can stop. The words are poison being purged from my system. I’m not in control.

“Then things changed again. Our handler became, uh, unwilling to part with me, and became violent, which caused problems because if we were hurt, we couldn’t perform, and Nate and I were often requested as a pair—they called us—called—Day and Night because our hair—”

A flashback seizes my mind. Nate screaming, holding a stolen steak knife to his arm, threatening to cut himself—damage the merchandise—if I wasn’t released from…

Chains—

Pain—

I break out in a sweat, nausea rolling through me in waves. Groaning, I drop my head to my knees. Gideon’s touch on my hand vanishes. A minute later a cool, damp washcloth drapes over the back of my neck.

“Breathe.” His voice floats somewhere above me. “That’s it. Just breathe. I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

Gideon refreshes the washcloth two more times before the dots clear from my vision and my breathing evens out. Shaking like I’m coming down from an adrenaline high, I take the cloth and wipe lingering sweat from my face.

The end is close. So close.

“When we finally escaped, it wasn’t even our doing. Apparently the cartel wasn’t happy that two of their bestselling commodities were frequently out of commission. They came to the house to take us and kill our handler, but he… he was waiting for them and shot them first. He came to our room right after, covered in blood. We knew he was going to kill us before letting anyone else have us.”

One

last

breath—

“So I killed him first.”

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