Page 61 of Never Bound

“I didn’t tell you about her.” I didn’t think I had, anyway. I wouldn’t count on the reliability of my memory right now.

“You mentioned a freed girl named Maeve, and I pieced together the rest.” His eyes narrowed as if he were genuinely concerned about my sanity. “Remember, I told you to assume I know everything about you. Anyway, I’m sorry she’s missing, and I’ll see if there’s anything else I can do, but right now all I can tell you is that she isn’t with us.”

He’s lying, I thought immediately, because I always did. Maeve hadnamedResi in her messages. Whoever she was, wherever she was, she had to have Maeve somewhere. Even if it wasn’t with the rest of the girls.

“Come on, Max. What are you really doing over there with those girls?” I asked even as I realized I was showing my hand yet again. I knew I’d regret it as soon as the words left my mouth.

“Just like Lemaya said. Employing them.”

That sure wasn’t what Maeve had implied. Then again, there’d been a language barrier between her and the other girls, and she had mentioned something about being paid. Fuck. And that still didn’t explain why Langer said she wasn’t here. Shehadto be here. Because the alternative—that I’d come this far and cost myself this much for a dead end—was unthinkable.

“Look, the booze and pills have you loopy right now,” Langer said. “You’re not thinking clearly. I can tell just by looking into your eyes. Later this week, when I give you a tour of the office and the labs, you’ll see everything. And you’ll understand you have nothing to worry about.”

Nothing to worry about? As usual, I had one million things to worry about, but I couldn’t remember what half of them were right now. And my shoulder was practically screaming for those water jets.

Plus, there was still the blonde to ask about Maeve.

And the time to do it might be now because as soon as I got in the hot tub, she started running her angel-soft fingers up under the new turquoise board shorts I’d taken out of one of the packages, while my traitor dick reacted predictably. Over her shoulder, I could see that Langer had joined us on the other side of the tub with Lemaya, who must have decided she liked more than his vibes, given everywhere her hands and mouth were.

Employing them.How stupid did Langer think I was? It was easy to assume from her enthusiasm that she was doing it all by choice, but I knew better.

“You’re a million miles away, sweetie,” the blonde said gently. The fingers that grazed my jawline and tilted my face toward hers were surprisingly soft, even though they came alongside stiletto-shaped nails the hue of glazed vanilla. And so were the fingers that zeroed in, somehow, on exactly the place between my dick and balls that I would have liked a girl’s hand to be under the right circumstances—which these were anything but. “What are you thinking about? Or should I say, who are you thinking about?”

Something about the way she spoke made me think she already knew. Which was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? Fuck these drugs. I was so off my game, and I needed to get her goddamn hand off my junk. It wasn’t the first time a free woman had tried this kind of shit on me when she thought backs were turned. The problem was, sometimes they weren’t.

Lost in shitty memories and a dearth of good ideas, I knew she could probably feel my heart rate increasing even through the haze of the meds.

“Shh. It’s okay. I was a slave, too, a long time ago,” she whispered. Startled, I followed her hand as she pulled back one side of her white swimsuit, revealing not only part of her nipple but a trail of burn scars on her torso, long and flat, like a cattle prod or even a clothes iron, winding all the way down past her waist. Now that I looked closer, I saw it. Cosmetic surgery or makeup had dulled some of it, but there was no mistaking what it was. Looking across at the entwined figures of Langer and Lemaya, a similar sight greeted me.A real Michelangelo of pain, Max had called the late Gerhard Langer. Whatever else he was lying about, it seemed he hadn’t been lying aboutthat.

What kind of topsy-turvy world had I fallen into where people with these kinds of scars ruled the goddamn universe from a thirtieth-floor penthouse? The one Langer was trying to create with Project White Cedar? I had a feeling I was going to find out.

“I take it you work for Resi, too?” I asked the blonde.

A weirdly joyful smile spread slowly over her face as she lifted her upper body out of the water, and it only took a second for me to realize my mistake.

“Tresa Hahn,” she said, pointing to herself girlishly. “So sorry I never introduced myself. Of course you never introduced yourself, either.” She giggled. “But I know who you are. There’s no mistaking that pretty face. You look just like your sister.”

My stunned reply was cut off, out of nowhere, by a pain as excruciating as any I’d ever felt as she sank all five of those glossy, pearly fingernails into my balls and wrenched them forward, jerking my whole body toward her. Tears leaked out of both eyes as I clamped down violently on my lip to bury my scream.

She pressed her forehead to mine, smoothing back my damp hair. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” she whispered as I silently mewled through each eternal second. “I hate making bad first impressions. But you need to stop asking questions.” She held me in her claws for one extra second before lazily releasing me, only to have my back hit like a brick against the tile edge of the tub, where I slumped, gasping. “If you don’t, remember this feeling because little sis is going to get something ten times worse.”

18

HER

Istoodatthedoorof the Cadillac, keys in hand, breathing in and out.

Why shouldthisbe one of my triggers, anyway? I’d been driving this car for over a year, and he’d only been in it twice. But I’d also been sleeping in my bedroom fortenyears, and that didn’t stop him from being the first thing I thought of when I saw my bed, my desk, my bookshelf, my chair, and oh, every time I opened my goddamn eyes. Fuck him for being so damn memorable.

Besides, what really mattered was that my dad had agreed to give me the keys back. The fact that he’d confiscated them to begin with was a joke because what the hell did he think I was going to do? Drive off a cliff in some dramatic final act of rebellion? It wasn’t like I could go look for my boy—I’d need at leastoneclue as to his whereabouts to do that. But Icoulddrive to campus, and on campus, I could find Erica, and Erica could tell me what she’d discovered about Maeve. And that was exactly what I planned to do now.

The confrontation with my father had been the catalyst; the chemical reaction, one might say, that had set me in motion. Now, to stay moving, to gotowardsomething—to beat back the inertia that wanted to keep me in bed and shutting out the light morning after morning—was the only thing Icoulddo.

I turned around when the door to the garage opened gingerly. The maid stood there, her hair pulled back in a swingy ponytail, brushing dust off the knees of her jeans from wherever she’d been kneeling earlier. She shrank a little when I met her eyes.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

---