Page 35 of Never Broken

“I don’t understand.”

I pulled out the coffee and banged it pointedly down on the counter, then forcefully pulled open the machine to fill it. “Well, in case you forgot, it’s sort of my job.”

“But Daddy ordered you to tutor me. It’s an order,” she said frantically, her voice now high-pitched and shrill. The classic spoiled child’s solution to not getting her way. “Plus, my exam is coming up and there’s no way I can pass it without you.”

The machine’s hissing cut her off as the steaming espresso poured into the cup. “Why are you being like this?”

I turned around and grandly placed the beverage in front of her. “Here you are, miss. Enjoy.”

She looked down at the expensive ceramic cup of artisan coffee as if it were a dead rat. I crossed my arms and leaned back on the counter expectantly, waiting to see whether she would throw it back in my face, at which point I would have accomplished my goal and ruined both of our nights completely. Very slowly, delicately, and carefully, she placed two fingers on the rim of the cup and pushed it away from her. Then she looked at me.

“Does all this have something to do with why you attacked your first owner?”

My whole body went rigid. “What?”

“That is it, isn’t it?” She pressed on. “Was it to protect your mother? Or your sister?”

Damn her. Like an idiot, I stood there fumbling for a response. I thought I was on it. I thought I’d figured everything out. Ialwaysfigured everything out. And now there was this spoiled princess, this naive innocent, turning every single table on me, as easy as anything.

Maybe she wasn’t so naive anymore.

“How do you know about my sister?” I finally asked.

“Two reasons. First, I looked at your file.”

The file.Always the fucking file, my life history laid out as if I were a used car. With a deep breath, I resigned myself to hearing whatever she had to say next. “And second?”

“Second,” she continued, “because I sent her a message on my computer this morning. And tonight, I got a reply. Her name is Maeve, by the way.”

7

HER

Any number of thoughts knocked chaotically around in my head as I waited for him to react to the news, but the one that ultimately settled was that if I hadn’t gotten in trouble, the highlight of my evening would have been debating between hot pink and blush pink gel polishes at an Old Town nail salon, followed by campus gossip, half an overstuffed burrito, and maybe downing some cheap pink bubbly in Juliette’s dorm room.

Instead, in its place, I had a riot of images and sensations: My tears, not planned, then—yes, dammit, this was happening—my plunge into his arms, into the deep end—before I could talk myself down. Then, as if that weren’t enough: A broad, calloused hand trailing lightly down my spine, hesitant at first, then more confident as he realized, maybe, how much I really wanted it there, igniting every nerve ending along the way like tiny little bliss-filled explosions. My hot, teary cheek pressed right up against the thin T-shirt, concealing all those layers of warm skin and hard muscle, and underneath all ofthat, a heart that was—it couldn’t be just my imagination—pounding just as fast as my own.

But now it was over, and I wasn’t sure it was ever coming back. Although I was willing to consider that the guy responsible for all of it had been so thrown off balance by what I just told him that he might need a minute to decide whether he’d ever dare to try again.

Either way: Gel polish zero, getting grounded a million.

“Did you know she’s supposed to be free?” I asked. “Your sister?”

“I know,” he said slowly as if he still couldn’t believe he was even discussing this at all, let alone withme. “She told me right before she went dark on Palaestrio,” he added, using the name of the secret communication network I had learned about only a few hours ago after one well-placed phone call. “Which, by the way, you aren’t supposed to know about.” His voice still sounded flat and distant.

“Apparently, you do if, like my professor, you’re a card-carrying member of whatever’s left of the SLA. She explained to me how it’s done but that the technology is different here than what you used in New Europe. Your sister—Maeve, that is—may have tried to contact you before this, and you never even knew about it. Anyway, my professor gave me this. It’s just a cheap phone, but she told me it’ll give you access to the network. You can only use it a couple of times before you have to throw it away.” I pulled it out of my schoolbag and placed it on the counter in front of him.

“But where’s my sister?” he demanded. “Did she say?”

“It sounds like someone took her, but she doesn’t know where. We only exchanged a few words. I don’t think she was supposed to be on whatever device she was using, so I don’t know how reliable it’s going to be. But it’s something to go on, don’t you think?” I asked triumphantly.

That didn’t last.

“Why did you do this for me?” He sounded suspicious and even a little bit angry, and I deflated. I hadn’t expected a medal or anything, but what I had hoped to see on his face was very different from these opaque clouds and the traces of old wounds they hid.

“Curiosity, at first,” I said softly. “You wouldn’t tell me anything, so I went looking on my own.”

“Curiosity,” he said. “Right. Okay. So you want to use me as a case study for your research paper on slavery? Get a gold star from this do-gooder professor of yours? Sure. What do you want to know?”

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