Suddenly, she stopped, and her expression turned hard. She glanced up at her colleague, who followed her gaze back down. To the number burned into his arm.
26
HIM
The university hospital in Heidelberg didn’t treat slaves, so the first-year surgical resident the old professor had bribed to stitch my arm up all those years ago had shoved me in a storage closet to do the job. I’d never properly seen a hospital ward, whether for slaves or free people, but when my swollen eyelids finally struggled open, I knew immediately which onethiswas.
No curtains. No windows. No art. No TVs. No flowers. Noclocks. Just one big room groaning under the assault of fluorescent lights and harsh antiseptic and buzzing machines, packed with flat, narrow beds filled by patients who were no doubtgratefulto be here because it meant they weren’t doing whatever miserable, thankless chores they normally did.
And all solidly, expertly cuffed to their bedrails. Even the ones who, like me, could barely move their wrists.
I had an additional gift: a plastic ID bracelet bearing my slave number. A metal bracelet was soon to follow, no doubt, though it seemed unnecessary given that the same digits were neatly,permanently printed across the same spot. But then, slavery had never been anything but one huge, rigid, rule-obsessed bureaucracy.
And here I was, back in it, forever.
I flexed my fingers, grimacing at the rattle of the chain and the ache that shot up my arm. They’d put me onsomethingfor the pain, but it didn’t feel like an opioid, thank fuck. Surgery must have set some of the broken metacarpals, though my motor skills were still shit. My shattered leg had been operated on, too, and I weakly attempted to lift it. I wouldn’t know for sure, I supposed, until I tried to walk. I vaguely remembered a surgeon grumbling that she’d done what she could for me. After that, I remembered nothing. Including whether they’d used the anesthesia as an opportunity to insert another microchip in my arm.
But I had to assume they had.
How long had I been here? Days? Weeks? The room offered no clues, just beeps, whirs, and the occasional pained whimper or rattle of a chain.
I tried to sit up and look around, but a jerk back and a wave of nausea was my only reward, so I threw myself back down.
Ridiculously, one question came to mind: Who the hell waspayingfor this? Slaves didn’t get treated unless their owners wanted them treated, and last I’d checked, Keith could barely afford to feed himself, let alone surgeries and medication for a slave he couldn’t stand the sight of. And Max?—
Max.
The mine, every horrific, suffocating second of it, came back like ten tons of rock crashing down, and I closed my eyes against the images I couldn’t unsee, the pain I couldn’t unfeel. Blood. Acid. Chains. Melted flesh and shattered bone. Rock upon rock upon rock. Even thinking of it, my lungs struggled, my throat closed up.
Noam. Obadiah. Resi. Andher.
Crying my name.
The name I didn’t actually have and never would. Not that I really cared. I’d gotten along just fine so far without one.
What I did care about was that she wasn’t here, and I didn’t know if she was okay.
I tried to sit up again, but it was just as futile this time.Fuckthis place.
And then I thought I had my answer. A hand—a female hand—placed itself over my wrist, over the chains. A hand missing half its fingers.
“Schwesterchen,” I gasped as the girl I’d known most of her life by that endearment alone nuzzled against me, weeping tears like crystal prisms all down her lightly freckled cheeks, exactly like the last time I’d seen her, seven years ago.
Only this time, with no bars between us.
“Brudderhäerz,” she wept, brushing over the bandage and covering my cheeks with kisses as my hands snapped back against the chains again, keeping me from holding her, keeping me from the moment I’d envisioned for all that time. But I wouldn’t complain.
“I told them all you’d come for me,”she continued in Luxembourgish.“I made up the story. And finally, it came true.”
“Bass du ok??1 How did you get—” I demanded in our native language, my throat scratchy and rough as I forced it to spit out the words.
“Shhh,” she said.“We found a way. And I’m more than okay.”She kissed my forehead again, stroking the bandages that must have covered my head with her delicate but undeniably work-roughened hand. One I remembered feeling exactly like this when I held them, only… smaller.
“And so is Louisa.”
I melted back into the bed in relief. And yeah, a little hope.
Idiot. My sister and Louisa were both alive and apparently safe, and so was I, which was already a far better outcome than I’d ever expected. Good enough to pay for with a lifetime of slavery, or a lifetime without Louisa, or, in all likelihood, both. How could I possibly be so greedy and stupid as to hope for anything else?
