Page 14 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“Sure,” Ambra says, gesturing at the motorhome. “Anything you need to take from here, as long as you help me.”

This stalls his brain for a few moments, before he shakes his head and scribbles something down.

“But what are you writing?” she asks, unable to stop herself.

“A list,” he replies curtly, and she recognizes the tone from other handlers to stop talking. He alternates between writing in the book and glancing at his phone, referencing something, and she’ll have to steal it to check what he’s writing later.

For a few minutes, the only sound is the whisper soft susurration of the snow outside and the scratch of the pen over the cheap paper, an almost lulling concoction of noises.

Until.

Almost imperceptibly, the leash tightens around her neck, cutting off the exhale of one breath.

Gurlien drops the pen, his other hand going to his wrist, before his eyes snap up to her.

And Ambra freezes, her heart jumping.

Before the leash loosens, just enough so she can pull in another breath.

Across the cheap plastic counter tops, Gurlien’s lips part.

“Was that…”

Ambra nods, as small as she could make it.

Dread pools into her stomach, and the leash stretches taught again, as if testing.

Moving slowly, deliberately, Gurlien puts his phone into his pocket, stepping around the counter, keeping a hand over the leash on his wrist.

Another tug, not enough to compel her, not enough to pull her away, but it jerks her chin up from her place on the couch.

She can’t swallow, she can’t speak, and air barely squeaks down her throat. Her hands shake like they’re in the wind outside, and pain, sudden and vicious, rockets down her spine.

“Okay,” Gurlien mutters, and he picks up the gun from the side table then, in a moment of foolishness, sits next to her on the couch.

All of Ambra’s a single nerve, and it’s on fire, and the leash loosens enough that she gasps in some air, before tightening again.

So it’s one of the handlers that knows the unpleasantness of that motion. Knows the pain of the leash, of denying her breath for a few moments.

Her hands shake up, to clutch at the leash, and Gurlien catches them, startling a flinch out of her.

“Are they testing it right now?” he asks, voice low.

She can’t speak, no words can leave her, but she nods, a single jerk of her head, before it tightens back up again.

“Don’t respond,” he whispers, and her jaw works against the leash, cutting into the skin on her neck. “If you don’t respond, they might stop.”

They won’t, and she opens her mouth to say that, but no words come out.

The body’s eyes water, uncontrolled, tears rolling cold down her cheeks.

The reactions to this are always the worst. The automatic systems, the nerves spiking, the parts of her that she can’t control. The parts that the handlers manipulate, to tie her into the body.

Another jerk, just enough to hurt, not to bring her over. A gasp squeaks out of her, unbidden, and a drop of blood trickles from her neck.

His eyes are wide behind his glasses, and he cradles her hand, a contracting sensation, before he swipes his thumb over her palm.

If they pull her back now, before she’s had a chance to figure out the leash with Gurlien, there’s a chance she may never be free. They might shove her back into the stasis chamber, shove her somewhere nobody will ever dig up.

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