Page 26 of Never Bound

As usual, throngs of backpack-laden students trudged to class or zoomed by on bicycles. Still more swarmed in and out of the student center, juggling sandwiches and smoothies, or spread out on picnic tables or in the grass under the shadow of the lane of towering date palms standing like soldiers on either side of the campus mall. If I’d been alone, it would have been so mundane as to be beneath notice.

But withhimnext to me, it was like landing on Mars. The biggest tragedy was that I wouldn’t have any idea what he was thinking, other than that I was a spiteful brat and slightly insane, which wasn’t too far off the mark afterthatdrive.

“Shit,” I muttered without looking at him. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Yeah, we do,” he said without looking back.

One-third of the people on campus were slaves—the grounds and cleaning crews and most of the service workers. But they wore uniforms, which was helpful in letting students and faculty know from a distance that they could ignore them, abuse them, or simply shove them out of the way. Personal slaves got brought to campus, too, and allowed to stay with their owners in classrooms, sitting or kneeling as per the owner’s preference, but there were rules governing their behavior, too—starting with always walking a couple of steps behind.

I sized him up out of the corner of my eye. If only he hadn’t tangled with the wire fence. In his college hat, T-shirt, and jeans with rips in the leg that could almost pass for deliberate, he’d otherwise be indistinguishable from the crowd of other college boys milling around, except for one thing, of course. We’d either have to hide it and pray no one noticed, or show it, have him behave the same as every other slave on campus and pray he didn’t slip up. Sure, there were a few Erica Muller-type radicals, but there were far more rich snobs coasting through college on their parents’ dime, and if some pro-slavery asshole caught on and made a scene, we were fucked no matter what.

Hiding it would be easier. I threw open the trunk of the Cadillac and scanned the space until I found a potential solution balled up in the corner: an old denim jacket of Ethan’s, with a shearling wool lining. It had at one point been luxe-looking, though it was now stiff and wrinkled. I tossed it at him. “Here.”

“Do you know how hot I’m going to get walking around in this?” He glanced at the jacket warily, then up at the sun.

“Yeah, well, tough shit,” I said. “It’s either that or play the good slave. I don’t care either way, but it will cost us time that I don’t thinkyouwant to waste.”

We glared at each other until he gave in, shook it out, and slipped it on. Immediately, my face flushed rose-red. God, those broad shoulders lookedincrediblein clothes, the few times anyone gave him anything decent to wear. And now all I could think about was ripping the damn thing off him. I jerked my head away before he noticed.Not now.

And anyway, he was already halfway down the sidewalk.

“Hey, it’s—what are you doing?” I exclaimed, chasing after him. “You’re going in completely the wrong direction.”

“Maybe it would help if you actuallytoldme where we’re going.”

“Maybe it would help if you’d listen to anything I said!”

He crossed his arms impatiently. “Well?”

“The Harris Mirror Lab,” I said. “To meet someone named Milagros.”

To my shock, his whole expression transformed. “Wait. Mirror lab? As in the mirror telescope? TheZenithtelescope?”

“Yeah, it’s made out of liquid—”

“Liquid mercury in a paraboloid shape. Yeah, I know,” he continued eagerly. “It’s the biggest in the world outside of the Himalayas. They’re now testing the same technology in microgravity to see if they can build one like it in a crater on the moon. Hell, when I started researching Phoenix, it was the only thing about this place that sounded halfway interesting.”

If I weren’t still so angry, I might have actually smiled at how his eyes were glimmering like the binary stars of Sirius. Instead, all I asked was, “Is it still?”

He opened his mouth, but before he could answer, I spotted a figure frantically waving from the other side of the mall, long platinum-blond hair unmistakable.

I groaned. “Shit. It’s Juliette.”

“Oh, great. Is it safe to assume she’s a typical friend of yours?”A rich, slave-abusing jerk,was what he meant.

“She’s one of the better ones, though I know that doesn’t mean much to you after the examples I’ve provided. Also, she knows who you are. Well,whatyou are.”

“Thanks for that.”

“But she’s also a girl, so just flash her a smile and she won’t ask too many questions.”

“Oh, that’s the plan, believe me,” he said, watching Juliette trot toward us across the lawn.

I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t it always?”

“Hey, I—”

“Hey,” said Juliette, blissfully interrupting our sniping. We both said “hey” back. But only one of us, when he smiled at her, made Juliette flush, stumble over her words, and completely forget to demand what the hell was going on. “What—what have you heard from Corey?” she finally asked me. Her tone was concerned.

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