Page 14 of Never Bound

“Wherever they throw you, you’re going to die down there, with the bonus of knowing you fucked upherlife forever, too. And I don’t know if it’s her eyes, her tits, or that her snatch tastes like chocolate chip cookies, but whatever it is, it’s enough to keep you lying to yourself, and worse, lying toher, every time you look her in that sweet, innocent face. Youknowyou’re going to get caught. Youknowthis is going to end. And when it does, you won’t be playing by anyone’s rules but theirs ever again.”

The crippling strike, just like the fucking professor while I was off aiming for the king.You got too greedy, boy,he’d remind me while smugly sweeping my queen off the board.And left her vulnerable.

“Ah. I knew you were smart,” he said smugly. As if he thought he’d already won.

“Yeah, I am. Smart enough to tell when I’m being played,” I said. With finality, I stabbed the spade as deep in the earth as it would go and turned back toward the house.

He may have the entire board, but I still had one pawn left. And I’d done more with less.

“No deal,” I said. “Thanks for the drink.Sir.”

At first, I’d been ridiculously smug about the hiding place I’d chosen near the garden shed for the phone, the aloe, and two or three other things I wasn’t supposed to have. Sure, it had meant dodging the gardener, but like Langer, I believed in nothing if not keeping your enemies close. And now that therewasno gardener, you’d think it would be just about perfect.

However, even the best hiding place quickly became a bad one when I insisted on going back there twenty fucking times a day. But what choice did I have?

I still felt disgusting—in more ways than one—and I only had a window of a few minutes to clean myself up before Louisa got home, not to mention decide exactly how little I could get away with telling her about what had just happened, assuming I hadn’t dreamed it. But instead, as soon as Langer left, I retrieved the phone and sank to the ground amid a bed of agave plants, drawing my knees to my chest and navigating to the messaging app. But there was nothing from Maeve, and all at once, the image of the mutilated girl in the desert flashed across my mind like images in a bloody slideshow.

The microchips.Of course.Because to steal a slave, you had to either disable the microchip somehow—which had never been done—or remove it. But since the chips migrated, removing them usually meant horrific injury if not death for the poor slave in question. And that didn’t even take into account what awaited the girls if they survived—and I had a feeling it wasn’t freedom.

No, I still wasn’t sure what Langer’s grand plan was, but I now had some idea of what was happening to Maeve and the other girls.

Disruption. Literally.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. No. Because another piece of the puzzle had just fallen into place.

It was only since the party—when I’d spoken to Langer—that Maeve had gone quiet.

He knew I knew. He’d known since the party that I knew.

In other words, I had fucked up the whole thing. While I’d been dicking around playing speed chess with Langer, I’d put my sister in even more danger.

Frantically, I tapped out another message, asking if she was okay and pleading with her to respond, even while the image—theimage—flashed into my mind. The one of Maeve, the purest soul I’d ever known, screaming, pleading, strangled, gagged, restrained, violated, broken. Another family member lost because I couldn’t ever seem to use my supposed brainpower for anything other than solving dry scientific equations with no practical use but making rich guys even richer. Fuck, if there wasanyreason to resent the education I’d been given, it was that. At least as an illiterate slave toiling in the fields, I wouldn’t be haunted by everything that, despite my gifts, I was still failing at.

After checking the time again, I minimized the messaging app and turned to the contacts. Up until recently, Louisa’s number had been the only one saved there, but a few days ago—against all my better judgment—I’d added a second one.

I rose, shielding my face from the midday glare. I now knew where I would dump the phone. But before I did, it was time to make one last call.

5

HER

“Youseemtobedeveloping a Jesus Christ-like tendency to hurt your hands,” I scolded him, unwinding a length of gauze across his lacerated palms, which I’d already treated with antiseptic and aloe—probably in the wrong order, as my future in the medical profession continued to prove bright.

“Oh, is that what you’re going to start calling me now?” he asked. “Just when I was getting used to Albert Einstein.”

I groaned as I tried to use some dull scissors to clumsily snip off the end of the gauze. For a pre-med, I sure seemed to fuck up all my attempts to give medical treatment. “Yeah, that’s just what you need—to get it in your head that you’re not only a super-genius but the Messiah, too. Besides, weren’t you just telling me a few days ago that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible?”

“That does sound like something I would say,” he admitted. “But weren’t you the one who disagreed with me? Besides, science is more flexible than you think. Hell, even gravity breaks down at the quantum level.”

I hid a smile and ripped off another piece of gauze. “Oh, so you’re happy to defy the laws of science when it benefits you?”

“You know I’m happy to defy the laws ofeverythingwhen it benefits me.”

Face to face, we straddled the thick cushions on the sand-colored chaise in an outdoor “room” nobody ever used, which was a shame for something so lovingly landscaped. Red terracotta pots and agave plants, plus a golden paloverde, provided just enough shade from a dusky autumn that had turned his eyes into twin coppery flames and his hair into liquid gold. And it almost matched the color scheme of the trucker-style college hat he’d playfully grabbed off my head and slapped over his sunny locks.

After greeting him, I’d dared to snatch us a stack of fresh-baked raspberry cheesecake bars from the kitchen, which he’d happily inhaled all but one of, despite the tricky relationship dynamics and despite the chance of the housekeeper inquiring why I was suddenly eating for three. I’d hoped to do more, honestly. Earlier, I’d browsed the campus bookstore, not quite bringing myself to admit what I was looking for and pushing aside the thought that he probably wouldn’t even accept it. Anyway, I’d given up in frustration. Why had nobody warned me how difficult it was to buy a gift for someone who wasn’t allowed to own anything?

However, when I’d stopped at a promotional table on campus to fill out a credit card application—mostly, I admitted, to get the fifty-dollar nail salon voucher they were offering—the hat had appeared as a bonus gift. In perhaps the least shocking revelation of the day, it looked much better on him.

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