Page 52 of Never Bound

But that instinct was exactly why I was now in chains, on the orders of the very man who had insisted, upon our first meeting, that Inotbe chained.

My master had finally figured me out.

There was no sound in that room, no ticking clock, no day, no night. The highlight was when what might have been a cockroach or a rat scrabbled in the corner, then hastily left. The room wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t warm, either, and I spent whatmighthave been all night and most of the next day huddled on the concrete floor. Occasionally, when I was lucky, drifting off for mere seconds before jerking awake, shivering in terror and renewed pain, possibly feverish now, remembering the reason why I was where I was. At first, I’d expected, if not Louisa, then her dad orsomeoneto come, but now I was almost willing to consider the fact that they—her included—had forgotten about me.

If she had,well, congratulations, kid.Maybe she could still move on from this nightmare and have a real life. That was better than considering the alternative—that she was somewhere alone, crying, hurt in soul as much as in body, with no one to comfort her. And that was my only regret, really. Not what I’d done—I’d do it again in a second. The regret was that she might still need me, and I wasn’t there. It was the same regret I had about Maeve. The same regret I’d have for what remained of my life, it seemed. Either do nothing and watch as you lose the ones you care about the most, or fight back and lose them anyway, only more painfully for all of you. I should have learned it earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered aloud to both of them. To my sister, to my mother. And then toher.

I’d failed to save them all, and the most shameful part of all was that if anyoneshouldhave been able to do it, it was me. Save for freedom, I’d had almost every advantage anyone could ask for. But what were all the gifts in the world if I couldn’t do the only thing that mattered?

And meanwhile, I’d die. Not in a mine, but here. Alone. Forgotten. Entombed alive in her own house.

Knowing that you fucked up her life as well.

Well, at least I had the mocking voices in my head to keep me company.

It was better that she didn’t come, I told myself, curling up into a tighter ball for the fiftieth time to delude myself that I could actually sleep like this, in pain, exacerbated by discomfort and grief.

Louisa had never seen me in chains. She didn’t seem to realize, innocent as she was, that it was practically my default state. But Corey, idiot that he was, did. He’dwantedLouisa to see me like this. He’d wanted her to see me for the animal, for thethingCorey desperately needed me to be so he could cling to the superiority he’d felt had been stolen from him.

So this was best. Hell, it was best that she forget about me completely. But if she decided to be stubborn enough to try to remember me, it was better as the real person we’d both found a way to pretend I was, for a while.

I didn’t really hope Corey was dead, but … fuck it, of course I did.

Anyway, dead or alive, it didn’t matter. The punishment would be the same.

I fell asleep shivering and woke up to a voice.

15

HER

“Itoldhimwhatreallyhappened. What Corey did. And I’ll tell him again. I’ll tell him until he listens. And everything I said the other day, about not giving up? It all still applies. Nothing’s changed. Whatever happens. We’ll figure it out. We always do.” I spewed my every thought toward the crack under the door, without even a word of greeting, which seemed ridiculous anyway.

But I got no response. There was nothing in there. No light, no words, no movement. “Hey,” I said, though cold dread had already gripped me, sending my heart rate into overdrive. “Are you there?” Surely he just had to be asleep. What if the housekeeper had been wrong? Had he been moved? Sent away? Surely he couldn’t have been soldthisquickly, though I didn’t doubt Daddy had his channels. Or what if he wasdead? What if my fucking father had let himdiedown there in pain and despair and—

“Lou,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, God,” I said, exhaling, my forehead touching the door, my long hair swinging in front of my face. “I’m fine. I brought you some—for your shoulder—” I pulled out the pain pills and bandages and slid them underneath the door, followed by the energy bar courtesy of the housekeeper, shoving it up against the too-small opening. “Goddammit, it doesn’t fit.” I tried forcing it, holding back the urge to scream or cry. “And neither does water or antiseptic or—”

“Lou, I feel like I’ve been saying this to you a lot lately, but calm down. Breathe. I’m not going to starve to death in the next five minutes.” His words were normal for him, but his voice was not.

He’s in pain.I’d known he would be, hence the meds, but hearing it in his voice was altogether different.

“Fuck. You sound awful.”

“Thanks. You don’t even want to know how I look.”

“No, I mean, you need to see a doctor. And as much as I wish passing one semester of o-chem made me one, it doesn’t.”

“Not really a priority for your dad now, I wouldn’t think. Anyway, this wouldn’t exactly be the first time I should have seen a doctor but didn’t.”

Yes, and his body was a hastily rewritten palimpsest of scars and untreated wounds, but there was no time to pointthatout because I had just realized that it wasn’t my imagination that every time he moved, I heard an unmistakable and sickening rattling. And then I knew. “Hechainedyou?”

“Why wouldn’t he, after that?”

He seemed surprised atmysurprise, but—oh. Because he was a slave. And that’s what happened to slaves who fucked up. He didn’t have the liberty to ever forget that, but apparently, I, naïve idiot that I still was, did.

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