CHAPTER 12
I AM CLEANED, RIGHT there on the table. Shaved and scrubbed down with perfumed water, oiled until I’m slippery like a fish, and then sat up and stuffed into a dress I’ve never worn before. A white gown, like the kind my people wear in mourning.
My head rolls to the side while the Pips prop me up in a chair on wheels and cart me from this room of nightmares. They take me to the front of the building, the courtyard entrance where the carriages line up to take us to auction. Girls stare at me as I’m wheeled past, pouty looks on their faces. Jealousy in their eyes. Lotus is there, the only one of Sweetpea’s friends left, and she wipes away her angry tears with her sleeve. I feel a scream, loud enough to make the whole world deaf, building in my chest.
My arm falls off the chair. I watch, unable to lift it, as it swings, slapping against the wheel for nine rotations before one of the Pips notices it and tosses it back on my lap.
Outside the sky is bruised and beaten, gray and purple and low with smog. The Governess and her Pip assistant stand beside a sleek black carriage drawn by two horses. The Driver at the helm is none other than the silver ferret from the barn. Even now, I’m grateful it’s not Kiran.
“Don’t you look lovely,” the Governess says with a smile. Long yellow ringlets trail down to her hips, where a dark blue bustle makes her backside look three times its normal size. She leans forward, and in a strange gesture, touches my cheek.
“I was a little like you once,” she says softly. “Always looking for a way to break the chain.” She withdraws her hand when the carriage door opens. “We always belong to someone.”
By the time Mr. Greer steps out, her fake smile has returned. He’s wearing the same sharp suit with the same scarf wrapped around his face, hiding all but his eyes and the bridge of his nose.
I blink. It’s the first movement I’ve been able to do in some time, and it spurs a new burst of determination in me. I try to lift a finger or wiggle my toes, but still nothing.
“Is she all right?” he asks after a moment. My neck is cramping from being at this angle, but I still don’t have the strength to fight it.
“She was so nervous,” says the Governess with a little frown. “We had to sedate her. You can understand. Going to an estate such as yours…”
“Is everything finished?” Mr. Greer interrupts. “I’ve signed the paperwork. The forms look to be in order.”
They are talking about my life. My life.
“There’s just the matter of payment, sir,” says the Governess. It’s as sweet as she’s ever sounded.
“Ah,” says Greer. He removes a small messagebox from his breast pocket and presses a few buttons. “The credits have been transferred.”
“Check it,” I hear the Governess whisper to her Pip assistant. She smiles broadly at Mr. Greer, rubbing her hands together. The Pip looks down his electric, handheld board and gives her a small nod.
Mr. Greer is staring at me, an unimpressed look in his strange black eyes.
“Put her inside,” he says.
I blink. I blink, blink, blink. I will my arms to move, my teeth to bite, anything. But all I can do is blink. I am propped up inside on a cushioned sheet, and just as soon as Mr. Greer gets inside, the carriage shifts, and with the click of hooves, rolls forward.
I am sold.
I am sold.
I hope Tam and Nina are far away. I hope Salma defends their freedom with her life. I hope, if I don’t make it out, they think I died the day I was captured. It is better than them knowing I met this fate instead.
And Brax. There is a hard clench in my chest as I think of him. I should have said good-bye. I should have left him food. I should have tried to free him, too.
We hit a bump at the front gates and, jostled, my limp body falls to the floor of the compartment. My skirt flips up, and I can’t even pull it back down to cover my bare legs. I stare at Mr. Greer’s shiny black boots. He reaches down and for a moment I think he’s going to help me up. Instead, his fingertips skim up my bare thigh, stopping just before he would have to readjust his position to go farther. Then he sits back, and returns his focus to his messagebox.
I am sold.
*
I WAKE TO THE slam of a door. Draped overhead are sheer linens, hanging from the four posts that support the cushy bed I’ve been laid out on. I don’t remember being brought here, or where I am, and a sudden dose of panic shakes through me because if I don’t remember how I got in, I don’t know how to get out.
I concentrate, but only fragments of memories return: a house Pip dressed in gray lifting me from the car, holding his head back as he carries me as if I am a dead body.
He arranges me on a bed and turns out the lights. And with nothing else to do but blink, I close my eyes.
Someone else is in my room. I can hear the shuffling of feet on the hard floor and I turn my head towards the sound. My muscles are freed from their hold, but they hurt. The pain shoots straight down my spine through my legs as I roll onto my side, and I bite back against it. The bed is so plush it all but swallows me whole; I have to roll to get to the edge.
There is a face staring straight at mine when I get there.
“You sleep forever,” Amir Ryker says.
I cringe. He may be a child, but I can’t help hating him for what he’s done to me, and hating myself ten times more for giving him the candy in the first place and failing each escape attempt, and for even not being pretty enough to seduce Kiran.
“I’m up now,” I say, stretching my tight limbs for the first time in more than a day. The room is bigger than any bedroom I’ve seen. The floors are pressed wood, and the walls are covered with paintings that change views every time I look away. They unnerve me a little, like the room itself is alive.
“Let’s play,” he says.
“I’m tired.”
“You slept all day, you’re not tired.”
I see now that the eyes must run in the family—they’re beady and black, and they narrow into little slits when he’s angry. He reaches for my hand and pulls. I groan, the tight muscles in my arms stretching.
“Where’s your uncle?” I ask. I don’t remember where Mr. Greer went last night.
“Drunk,” he says in a way that makes me think this isn’t unusual.
“Fine, okay,” I say, standing up. I blink back the dizziness and roll my head in one slow circle on my neck.
Maybe being placed with a child isn’t such a bad thing after all. He may be spoiled, but I’ve got years of experience convincing the twins we all have the same goal. Today’s goal: Turn a blind eye on the new girl—me.
“Why don’t we play outside?” I suggest. Mr. Greer’s distraction is the perfect opportunity to escape.
“Ew,” he says. “We’ll play hunting.”
He drags me by the forearm down an empty hallway with more of the creepy pictures, to a simple room with white glass walls. There’s a chest in the corner and he releases me at last to open it. In it is a shiny black bow. My pulse quickens as he removes it.
“Load hunting game,” he says.
“You got arrows?” I ask.
He ignores me.
I jump as all four walls around me burst into color. Green and blue—bright, true color. My breath catches. It looks real. It looks like my mountains.
“What is this?” I whisper.
“Shut up,” he says.
I breathe in and out, knowing it’s a trick, but unable to stop the pang in my chest. The branches rustle in the breeze. I can even hear a nearby stream. Although the room smells sterile, I can almost convince myself I’m home.
Out from behind a tree steps a deer. The dry pine needles crackle beneath his tentative hooves. I hold my breath, watching. Just watching. The way the sun catches every piece of hair, and the fuzz on his new antlers. He is beautiful