“But I was wrong, and I can see that now. The fact is, they can’t be trusted, and there’s no use pretending they can. They don’t think like us. They’ll never beableto think like us, and in the end, it’s harmful to try to treat them as if they can. Harmful for us,andthem.”
I sank further into my chair as my father’s words swirled around me, most of them meaningless. My wounds coalesced into a single blazing, red-hot knot of pain.
“I know you’re entertaining abolitionist thoughts yourself, and even though you won’t believe it, I respect that,” he continued. “So was Langer, and maybe he influenced me more than I’d like to admit. But he was wrong, Loulou, and this proves it. Can’t you see how dangerous it would be for all of us to give freedom to slaves—either a single slave or millions of them—who wouldn’t know what to do with it? Sweetheart, you’re the smartest girl I know. You must.”
You see, Louisa, no one ever bothers to teach us right from wrong.
Some of them have spent so long being oppressed and beaten down by the system that when they get a little power or freedom, they don’t know what to do with it. And then they make the wrong choice.
I made a promise to him. And he promised to believe it.
You have three hours.
“Miss.” A soft voice in my ear. The housekeeper again, quietly handing me ibuprofen tablets and pressing another cold compress to my neck, careful not to interrupt the conversation. As I turned toward it, all at once, my head broke the surface. My hearing became crystal-clear, my vision no longer a blur.
And I looked.Reallylooked—into the woman’s silvered hair and unadorned face, her wizened brown eyes blinking from behind wire-rimmed glasses. A face that had been around for so long, I’d come to no longer really see it, like some shabby paisley sofa I took for granted would always be sitting shoved into a corner, patiently waiting for me to collapse on it. That mentality was my inheritance from my parents.
But Ethan.
Ethan.
Memories crashed into me one by one, waves breaking on rocks. Of after school, of me and my brother both throwing open the door, tossing our bags aside, and dashing into the kitchen for homemade brownies and macaroons, but onlyhewould stay. Asking the housekeeper about her day, listening to her stories, and sharing his own, trading jokes that I never would share. Because I always had a friend to gossip with, a new makeup look to try, extra credit to work on, ever something better and prettier and more important. And when Ethan relapsed again, my mother broke down and my father withdrew, mourning the loss of the perfect son they’d struggled against all odds to shape him into. Only the housekeeper, of all people, had cried openly, mourning forhim. Therealhim. And I should have cried with her because I knew therealhim, too. But it was too late. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.
I raised my chin. “Track the chip.”
Him
Movement. Out of the corner of my inflamed, dust-filled eyelids. My head jerked on the end of the chain.
A two-inch-long brown gecko blinked at me curiously from behind a rock, opened a frill on its chin, then dove back down, somewhere under the earth where it was no doubt cool and moist and wonderful. At this point, if it meant a respite from unyielding, unwavering heat, even for a few minutes, I’d gladly grow scales and eat bugs for however many months remained in my short reptilian lifespan.
This was pathetic.Whywas I still here, letting Resi kill me? There had to be some natural escape route, some plan I wasn’t thinking of. There always was. But I’d tried many, including scanning my surroundings for possible tools, but all I’d found was a vintage bottlecap with an interesting logo, and a stone with a vivid, coppery blue vein running through it. Things that, long ago, I might have given to Maeve to add to her collection of vaguely pretty things, things she collected in place of the jewelry and other gifts that free girls took for granted. Things that were utterly useless to me now, though I’d managed to kick them into a hiding place under the shed just in case. And then, in a blind panic, I’d resorted to the embarrassingly amateurish technique of straining against my chain as hard as I could, just to see if it would give.
But that had been hours ago. If every single muscle didn’t palpitate with pain, if I hadn’t had a smashed wrist and a torn shoulder and zero sleep and a brain the consistency of porridge and whatever else they’d done to me, I might still be on my game. Instead, all I’d been able to do was take one finger of my good hand and bend one wire at a time, scream into the muzzle when it punctured another hole in my skin, and twist it into a better, looser direction. And hope that in a few hours, I’d be able to slide even one hand out, and from there, find a way to get out of the collar, which was now on its way to searing a fiery linearound my neck, so hot it had already seemed to turn the corner into cold.
Speaking of cold, I was growing nostalgic for the six-by-six wooden box I’d once been locked in for almost an entire day in the middle of the most brutal Romanian winter on record, with only my threadbare wool uniform to cover me. Until I stopped shivering. Until my skin turned the color of an iceberg. Unwilling to render me completely useless for work, the overseer had finally let two of my friends drag me out of there, just in time to prevent my toes from falling off from frostbite, although, to this day, I still lacked feeling in most of them. But it sure had fixed my—oh.
Again with the heartwarming memories.
But really? I could bear this if it weren’t for the thirst. Every breath felt like inhaling pure dry, scorching air, and my cracked lips begged for moisture. My tongue, swollen, dust-covered, immobile, clung lifelessly to the roof of my mouth over the bit they’d shoved in. I wasn’t above screaming at this point, but I couldn’t even dothat.
My eyes followed the line into the distance, now, near a slight, dark rise in the landscape in front of a towering structure that seemed to have had pieces stripped out of it systematically. I was surprised to see some small outbuildings. Civilization? A mirage, more likely. Just refraction bending the light waves.
Well, at least there was still science.
By the way, were there sound mirages, too? Because if not, I was pretty sure a vehicle was approaching.
My adrenaline could still flow, too, apparently. A rumbling engine shattered the desert silence, and I squinted against the quavering but unbroken line of the horizon. As the vehicle grew closer, I cursed myself for being stupid and hopeful enough, even for a second, to think it might mean salvation.
I wasn’t even sure Ideservedsalvation. If I’d failed at anything—if I’d put Louisa, or Maeve, or the girls, or anyone, in danger—then I’d failed at everything. Come to think of it, that was a saying the old professor used to use.
That “shitty little Datsun,” as Max had put it, would have collapsed like a cheap tent on these roads, which was probably why Noam had switched to a light military-style SUV, one that spewed a thoughtful cloud of dust and exhaust for me to choke on as it shuddered to a stop just a few feet away. Oddly enough, there did seem to be a kind of road here, leading off the distant highway, albeit half-buried under the constantly shifting dust. My mind drifted again to the outbuildings. What was this place?
One side of the vehicle sank lower as its driver emerged, on his face a slightly irritated but unmistakably malicious smirk. His humongous lace-up boots sank into the sand, and his bald, glistening head was big enough to block out the sun, which I supposed I should be grateful for. And also, maybe, that he was alone.
The silver 9-millimeter Noam had earlier used to try to take down Langer’s helicopter was still weighing in his hand, and the noontime rays seemed to hit every angle of it.
Reflection. Refraction. And maybe—Would you just shut up about science for once in your goddamn life?I scolded my own brain.
