“And at most?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure people’s families still got sold into slavery for major debt, don’t they? They’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be you. To be me.”
“And you?” Resi pressed.
“With Keith out of the picture, I’ll be free, too. Max will make sure of it.”
Lou, don’t believe me. Please don’t believe me.
I knew how hard she’d worked. I knew how much she loved her family, despite it all. I’d seen it all. I understood. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.
An enticing smile flowed over Resi’s face. Her gaze shifted between me and Louisa.
Then she burst into laughter. She even tipped her head back.
“Girl, it wasn’t a lie after all. He fuckinghatesyou.” She kept laughing as she crossed the floor in a few strides of her toned legs, opened one of the bureau drawers, and removed something from a velvet bag.
No. Not that.That wasn’t what I meant.
“Tell me more, baby,” she implored me. “Tell how much you loved watching her choke.” Resi unsheathed the sleek, brand-new electric cattle prod, slowly, reverently, and tossed it to Obadiah. “And to think,” she said with a glance back at me. “I was going to use this onyou.”
The former gardener moved the prod over Louisa’s chin, and my eyes narrowed as I watched it glow like a blue halo in the dim light, the low hum of a thousand other moments. The sound of helplessness; of being owned.
“Your master’s spoiled brat. Helpless. Restrained for your pleasure.” Resi’s eyes flicked to Louisa’s cuffs, which by now must have cut off all circulation in her arms, which might be a blessing. “I should have known. You’re just like me.” Her tone was slow, rich, feline, her mouth parted again, tongue showing, blue eyes swirling. “You want to see them all burn.”
She nodded, and Obadiah’s hand shot out. Louisa’s scream tore through the muzzle, split through the walls and into the night air beyond. She bucked and kicked and thrashed, but that wouldn’t last long, I knew. The prod shot out steam, cauterizing the flawless virgin skin of her neck, filling the air with the smell of her burning tissue—hers, the girl who had never known slavery, who had no reason to be here at all, who had only wanted to find a way to do good in the world. And I couldn’t see her face, but picturing it—and the tears I knew were streaming down her cheeks—was enough. She began kicking and thrashing anew as Obadiah dug into her flesh, moving from her neck to her shoulder to her legs, where, from my angle, I could see massive blisters begin to sprout like mushrooms everywhere the electric prongs dug in.
And I watched it all, blinking back a different searing heat behind my eyes—of guilt, of shame, of tears that no matter what, I couldn’t let fall. Not here.
And I said nothing. Because if I said something, she’d use the prod on me. And then I’d never be able to get these cuffs off and save Louisa.
Hell of a choice, as usual.
After an eternity, Obadiah stopped. And I couldn’t look at what was left of my princess.
“You see, Louisa, no one ever really bothers teaching slaves right from wrong,” explained Resi, nodding at me as if in approval of my performance. “They assume our minds are too simple to handle such weighty matters; that our masters will always be there to decide for us. So when we finally do get a chance to make a choice… Well, sometimes we get a little carried away.” She laughed. “Come to think of it, he isn’t evenhereunder honest pretenses. You know he had to con his way in by pretending to be your ex-BF-turned-vegetable, right?”
On the bed, Louisa’s body curled up into itself like a dying spider. Watching it, I felt like dying myself. Her mind must already have my greatest-hits album of deception on repeat, starting from the moment I’d walked into her bedroom and ending with the moment I’d walked intothisbedroom. I was starting to wish I’dtoldher the long story, at least so she didn’t have to hear itthisway.
“You knew it was too good to be true. Slave crosses an ocean, meets master’s daughter, stars cross. Guess while he was fucking you, he was also fucking you over.” She sighed. “But hey, it’s all he knowshowto do.” She shook her head, blond, wispy hair bouncing. “Anyway,” she said, her face turning serious again before promptly pasting on another grin. “Let’s make sure.”
Oh, fuck no.
Noam’s meaty fist released his grip on my arm, and he stepped back. Resi’s face wore a mask of concentration as she plunged a hand under the sheet and between her own legs.
And in the former gardener’s hand, the prod hissed to life again.
Gingerly, she took my hand, the tips of her fingers beneath her nails petting it with a delicacy that surprised me. Her hands, of course, deceptive as the rest of her, weren’t quite as smooth as a woman who had been born free. Like me, she’d spent her childhood—her miserable, broken, ruined childhood—toiling for her masters, in more ways than one. Her movements, though, were calculated but gentle, carefully, rhythmically petting me, almost in time to Louisa’s choked-off screams as Obadiah continued his trail of terror over her soft flesh.
I twitched, struggling to breathe in and out without gasping. Our only chance was for me to hold the line. To buy us time. To convince Resi I still had something she wanted.
And, most importantly, that I wanted to watch Louisa burn. Because I had to keepmyselffrom burning to keep her aliveinstead of tossed in a shallow grave out behind the Langer family cottonwood tree.
So I closed my eyes and focused on breathing as Louisa’s muffled screams continued, as Resi’s wicked hands looped around mine with the barest brush of her barbed-wire nails. She was behind me now, her chest pressed to my back, her body curled against mine like a lover’s, one of my arms pinned between us at an angle I couldn’t quite register.She rested her face gently on my shoulder, her other hand snaking around my neck, then carding through my hair. I couldn’t see exactly where she guided my hand, but I could feel her—the slick heat of her, the rhythm of her breath hitching—as she used it for her own pleasure.
“This is for both of you, you know,” she whispered to me. “So you don’t forget who and what you both are. Now come on, sweet thing. Touch me. Touch me like you mean it.”
I clenched my jaw against the way her body buckled under my touch, while Louisa’s tortured scream collapsed into a thousand others—the women whose hands I’d had to let go of, whose bodies I couldn’t pull back from the edge.
