*
THE WATCHER DOESN’T EVEN come outside for three days. He sits behind the glass, tossing meal pills out into the dirt from behind the slider door, infuriating me, because now it’s me that’s watching him, not him that’s watching me, and I’m starting to think I really missed my chance.
During this time the Driver stays away. I see him sometimes, leaning against the paddock fence on the left side of the barn or leading a horse around to the other side, where a Magnate is probably waiting for his rental. I see him mucking stalls or tossing hay into the long wooden troughs. He’s dirty again during the daytime. He seems to wake up dirty, as though he slept in a mud puddle. His clothes are soiled with white lines from sweat and horse slobber he doesn’t bother to wipe away. On top of that, he walks differently during the day than he did that night when he visited me. His pace is short and clipped. His gaze stays aimed at the ground. He looks jumpy. So unlike the curious boy who stared and smiled.
Although I don’t completely understand why he does this, it makes me think of all my attempts to sabotage a sale. My torn earlobe. Broken nose. Last auction I even lay down on the stage and pretended to be dead during my individual exhibition.
My days are spent exercising, eating my meal pills, bathing as modestly as I can with a sponge and a pail of water, and watching that girl with the straw-colored hair wait by the fence. The boy has not returned to visit her, and I can’t help but think he’s been paid a visit by the Watchers. Daphne’s back outside during rec time. I can see her across the yard, lazing about with her friends. I guess she didn’t get Promised at the auction after all.
Sometimes what’s left of Sweetpea’s pack—Lily and Lotus and a few new ones—head towards the back of the rec yard, towards where I sit. Not that I’m scared of them or anything—they’re the ones behind a fence—but when I see them coming, I head behind the Watcher office, pulling my chain as far as I can. It’s not far enough that I can’t hear them singing prayers to make fun of me.
At night, I wait for the Driver, the broken knife and chain ready in my hands. But he doesn’t come.
*
MY FIFTH DAY IN solitary, I wake alone, a damp meal supplement in the dirt beside my head. I wipe it off and swallow it down. Then I dig up my bottle and retrieve the broken end of the Pip’s beater and hide it just under the cuff of the bracelet.
Today I’m getting that key.
Thoughts about the Driver boy keep bouncing around in my head. I peer over at the barn, wondering where he sleeps inside. If he is already awake.
I shake my head, irritated with myself. The boy tried to kill me. He’s trying to fool me into relaxing so that he can do something to me. What, I don’t know, but it can’t be good. No man spends time with a woman just to lay ten paces away in the grass and listen to her babble.
Then I think about Lorcan. We didn’t make enough jewelry to truly make the trade worthwhile—Bian told me that once, after he’d been living in the city for a few years. But Lorcan still came up to the mountains. Sometimes, it seemed, just to walk with my ma.
If he just wanted to walk, maybe this Driver just wants to listen.
I kick the ground with my bare foot. That’s the bad thing about solitary—you think too much. I’ve got more important things to do.
In my third month here, as part of our lessons, the Governess let us watch one of Solace’s movies. In it, she plays a singer, the property of a big, fat man who owns a club. Somehow she loses her voice, and poisons herself. Daphne said it was because she was so sad to disappoint her owner, but I thought she was just stupid. Either way, he carried her to the doctor, who gave her medicine so she could sing again. Probably because she was bringing in a lot of credits. The Governess told us we should learn from Solace’s dedication.
I guess the Governess isn’t always wrong.
I lie on the grass behind the office and curl into a ball. Then I begin to whimper as loudly as I can, just like Solace did in the movie. If the Watcher thinks I’m sick enough, he’ll have to take me to the medical wing.
It’s not long after I’ve started that the Watcher’s boots approach and halt beside me.
My eyes flutter open, and with a groan, I grasp my stomach. The white dot of sun is directly behind his hairless head, leaving his face shadowed.
“I’m sick,” I groan quietly. “The pill…” I begin to writhe.
He doesn’t move.
“Please!” I beg him. “I’m sick!”
The Watcher tries to haul me up, but I collapse again into the grass. There is a scuffle outside, and both of us turn to see the Driver. He’s just outside the back entrance of the barn, holding two large plastic buckets. He’s pretending not to look at us, but I can tell he is.
I push him from my mind and pull the broken tip of the beater to the edge of the bracelet with my middle finger. I’m close now, almost close enough to grab the key and put the little metal piece in its place.
The Watcher lifts me again, trying to make me stand. I stumble forward, one hand on his chest, the beater pin in my palm. I lift my other hand to snatch the key.
More commotion from the barn makes the Watcher jerk, and his chest strap is too far now to grasp. I’m going to miss my opportunity because of all the noise made by a mute boy.
Once again the Watcher attempts to haul me up, but I refuse to use my legs, and this time he hauls back and slaps me. The metal pin in my hand, which I was going to use to replace the key, goes flying. We both watch it skid across the dirt.
My knees lock as I catch myself. My face feels like fire, and there are bright patches in the left side of my vision. My eyeball is about to explode. When I can, I suck in a breath.
The Watcher says nothing, but his eyes have narrowed. I glance down and see the messagebox on his strap and think of the Governess and the Pip who gave him his orders. They must have told the Watcher to be ready for this kind of thing. And now that I’m standing and glaring at him, I hardly look sick anymore.
Fury surges through me. I grab at the only thing I can: the messagebox. Without a thought of the consequences, my fingers snatch it off his chest. There is a word typed in block letters on the screen and I recognize it from the bodybook in the Governess’s office. It’s my name. Or the name they call me here anyway: Clover. The weed.
The Watcher reaches for the messagebox, but I scramble away and with all my might, hurl the box into the electric brook. There is a loud hiss and a crackle, and the messagebox is carried away into the sewer.
I turn back to the Watcher, who looks mildly bothered, but won’t get angry on account of his treatments. He’s lifted his hand again and reaching for my shoulder, to hold me in place while he beats me.
I kick him in the shins as hard as I can and try to wriggle away, but it’s too late, he’s got the back of my dress. All I can do now is curl into a ball, arms up to protect the delicate bones of my face.
Bang!
The Watcher pauses, one hand still gripping my shoulder, the other stretched up above my head.
Bang!
I turn to see the Driver slapping together the two large plastic buckets with great force. He’s not looking directly at us. Several horses are startled by the noise, and race out to their paddocks, bucking and whinnying.
The Watcher, distracted, releases me, and I retreat towards the back wall to hide.
But the Watcher seems to have lost interest. He turns, picks up the piece of broken beater, and stalks around the office. I hear the automatic doors open, then shut, and through the wall comes the loud suctioned release of the internal office door that connects with the hallway. The Watcher is going to get another messagebox. He’s gone.
I look across the brook towards the barn, but now the Driver is gone, too.
I could run inside. The automatic door may let me in, but I still can’t get through the main exit because of the code box with its acid keys. I’ve failed. Yet again. Because of the Driver. And what’s worse than the failure is knowing that every time I screw up, it makes my next attempt to escape that much harder.
I sink to the ground and press the heel of my hand into my eye socket. The pressure has lessened, but my head is still aching, and my cheek stings. At least my nose was avoided.
Someone is back outside, and I lift my head, expecting to see Brax nosing out to check on me. But it’s not Brax. It’s the Driver. He’s striding towards me, this time with purpose.
He hesitates only momentarily at the brook, then jumps over.
But my mind reverts back to the danger at hand. The tricks are over, now he’s ready to get on with it. I’m still pinned in the corner. Why didn’t I run when I first saw him coming? Why don’t I ever run from him? Now even the Watcher can’t help me.
My pulse begins to climb, and soon I’m breathing hard. I bend to retrieve a rock, but this time when I throw it, he simply ducks out of the way. He moves as fast as a Watcher, I swear.
I guard myself in the only way I know how. I crouch down, ready to spring like a cornered wildcat. The Watcher may be too big to beat, but I will not let this Driver better me.
He’s five paces away when I pounce. My muscles quiver, as though I’ve just touched the electric fence and been given the shocks. He’s expected this and ducks low, guarding his gut. I reach with the chain, but he slaps it aside. My nails catch him around the face and scratch at the skin of his neck. I bite, and get nothing but a dry mouthful of fabric.
He shoves me back and I charge him again, but he slips to the side, locking my head beneath his arm. I twist, but he won’t let go. Then, somehow, he’s pinned me against the wall. Both of my wrists are trapped in one of his large, impossibly strong hands. My legs are locked together, squeezed between his. His whole body has smashed mine against the plaster. I can feel his heart beat in my own chest. Feel it as though it is my own.
I’ve never been this close to a man before. Not Silent Lorcan. Not Bian. I’m petrified as to what he’s about to do.
I struggle, but he’s locked me in place so tightly I can barely move. I tilt my chin up to see his face. There’s no hunger in his eyes like I’ve seen in the men at auction. No deadened stare like the Watcher. Instead his expression is angry.
Before I can make sense of it, he jerks back. The lump on his throat bobs. He bites his bottom lip so hard it turns white.
He points at my jaw and I flinch, but plant my feet. I touch my face, already feeling the heat and swelling from the Watcher’s slap.
“Yeah,” I say. “He got me. So what?”
He turns around, paces away, and then comes back. My muscles have all flexed, but I don’t move. I don’t know what’s come over me.
I don’t even move when his hand lifts and he touches my cheek with his fingertips, gently, like my skin is made of eggshells. He pushes aside my nest of hair and looks over my jaw. Over what the Watcher’s done to me.
I gape into his Driver eyes, and for the first time I notice how there are flecks of copper in the deep brown.
The anger in his stare is dying, and in its place comes pity.