Page 23 of Never Bound

“For anything I said or did, or didn’t do—I just, I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make up for anything. And that you probably hate me.”

“It’s okay, miss. I don’t hate you,” she said, much to my surprise. “You’ve never hurt me or been mean on purpose. You were actually kind of nice to me.” Then her sour expression reappeared momentarily. “Once or twice.”

Okay, so we weren’t exactly BFFs yet. I ran a hand continuously down one of my curls as I continued to speak. “It’s just that things have changed recently, and I—”

“I know, miss,” the maid said.

“You do?”

She shrugged. “Well, excuse my saying so, but you’re absolutely shit at hiding it. He’s better, though not nearly as good ashethinks he is.”

I opened my mouth in a silent plea.

“Don’t worry, miss.” She must have seen the tears in my eyes as I ran away from the shed earlier. And she wasn’t totally devoid of compassion, as much as she had the right to be. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m notthatmuch of a bitch.”

I closed my eyes.

“Also, that stuff with me and him? It all happened right after he got here. And it was never likethat.”

Just think: if I’d given in and slapped her, she wouldn’t be telling me this. “He does owe you favors, though, doesn’t he?”

“A few.” The submissive pose was long gone now. She had crossed her arms casually, absently scratching a scab near her elbow, and for some reason, I was glad.

“Well, maybe I can take on some of his debt. What do you want?” I asked. “Um, from me. So I guess there aresomelimitations.” Not that I really thought the answer would be “sex,” but who knew?

“Well, I told him I wanted to see the ocean, and I wasn’t kidding.”

“Done,” I said quickly. “Well—”

She rolled her eyes, clearly having expected to be screwed over, although perhaps not this fast.

“Not right away,” I hastily clarified. “I have to finish out the school year. And, uh, get some money. But this summer we’re totally going. I promise.”

“I believe you,” she said. “And for what it’s worth, I saw him put the phone in one of the yard waste bags this morning.”

“Was it still working?”

She shrugged. “And I’m fairly sure he was planning to go out the back way, through the neighbors’ horse corral. After that, I have no idea. He didn’t tell me,” she said. “Really.”

It wasn’t much to go on, but it would have to do. I should have ripped that warehouse map right out of the gardener’s filthy hand, but I’d been an idiot and hadn’t. Nor did I have time to sneak back into my father’s file cabinets and figure it out that way. Besides, even if I did figure it out, it would be too late. It mightalreadybe too late. If the phone was still intact, my best hope right now was that he’d left something on it that would help me trace him.

Because the only solution afterthatwould be to call my father, tell him he had run, and get him to trigger his chip.

Better whipped than dead, right? I kept telling myself that.

Meanwhile, she had turned back to her work. I knew she didn’t really believe me because why should a slave ever believe anything she was promised? Not to mention, what the hell were the two ofusgoing to do at the beach? Slather on luminescent mineral sunscreen and commiserate about how the campus smoothie bar kept running out of organic kale?

But I hoped that didn’t matter. I hoped the apology was the key. Frankly, the chances that no free person had ever apologized to her before and actually meant it weren’t zero.

The garden shed was predictably empty. I sank down in the dirt, already weary, in the shadow of the four thick paper yard waste bags that had been lined up next to the shed. I pulled out my phone, aware that it was likely the last time I’d ever dial Albert Einstein—at least with any hope of him answering. Of course no vibration sounded from anywhere, and a monotone voice informed me that the number was no longer in service.

I growled and attacked the first bag, then the second, pawing through cactus stems and paloverde trimmings, their thorns piercing the delicate skin of my fingers until they were almost as bloody as his had been earlier. At last, I found it, a brick of broken plastic that I scooped up, knowing before I even brought it into the light that it was too late. The case, smashed, the guts and wire hanging open like an eviscerated animal. All of Maeve’s messages, and all of mine, gone into the ether.

I sank down into the dirt, too spent even to cry. It didn’t matter how long I kept the cage door open. After what I’d said—after what I’d done—the bird would never fly back.

I picked up my own phone and selected a contact robotically, knowing the only way I could get through this conversation was by dissociating from my body, and hopefully my mind, too. “Hello, Daddy? It’s about the boy.”

But before I could finish, a sound from behind cut me off: sneakers crunching on fallen leaves, and a tall shadow blocked out the afternoon sun. I spun around to see him standing frozen a few steps from the shed, still in his sunset-colored college hat, straightened now. His chest heaving, exhausted golden eyes darting in disbelief between my face and the broken phone in my other hand.

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