Page 11 of Never Broken

Thatwas for sure. For a moment, I actually thought about it—at the very least, it would be a way to let down my guard, meet some cute (free) guys, and forget about my exceedingly strange night—and day. Juliette seemed sincere, and I knew I should take her up on it. But for some reason, in the face ofthat,and rape and war and mining disasters, my problems from last night—stressed, flailing, undercaffeinated, missing out on life—already felt like a million years ago. Plus, I couldn’t afford it.

“Forget it,” I said as I finally accepted my smoothie: peanut butter, of course. The slave girl behind the counter handed over the tiny cup, and I sloshed the thick straw up and down nervously as I looked at my receipt. Seven dollars forthis?And they said slave labor kept prices down. “I’m in class until three, then I have to go home and study.”

And absolutely, positively nothing else.

“That’s all you ever do anymore,” broke in Corey, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward him so I could smell the bodywash he used. Something like Infatuation or Captivation. I was not captivated, especially with the way he felt entitled to touch me. Just because he wasn’t a slave didn’t mean I had to like it. Unfortunately, though the Erica Muller types might rail against toxic masculinity, most of my male classmates seemed to think they had a right to touch whoever and whatever they wanted. Slave girls, free girls, everyone. The only difference was that free girls were allowed to fight back. “Don’t you want to have some fun?”

I untangled firmly from his grasp. I knew I shouldn’t be blowing off Corey. Half the girls on campus wanted him for his money; the other half wanted him for his softly curled dark brown hair, piercing green eyes, and golden-brown tennis biceps rippling under his polo shirts. My father had already indicated I’d have his approval to date him, and my mother—an oldclassmate ofhismother’s—seemed convinced we’d been written in the stars since preschool.

Lately, she’d been putting it even more bluntly. “You know, plenty of girls still get their MRS degree. It’s hard to find a job these days, and there’s no shame in it,” she’d slurred affectionately during cocktail hour the other night—not that cocktail hour wasn’teveryhour for her. In any case, I’d slammed down the dirty martini she’d given me—which I hadn’t wanted anyway—and stalked out of the room.

So that’s what they thought. That I couldn’t make it; that I should take the easy way out and become just another gold-digging bimbo.Notme, I’d thought. But that was back at the start of the semester, when I’d still been pulling a B-plus in o-chem.

Now, I eyed Corey as he confidently popped the plastic top of his smoothie, removed the straw, and poured it down his throat, wondering what it would be like to be joined at the hip as his girlfriend. I’d longed for college to be about exploration; about pushing the limits and growing in every possible way. That’s what I’d always heard itshouldbe about. But I had plenty of friends from school who were coupled up; some were even discussing marriage. All of them, without exception, spent Saturdays in their dorms, watching streaming shows and drinking canned cocktails. But at least they seemed happy—unlike me, they weren’t contemplating popping meth to stay awake and scrambling to find the least objectionable way to put food on the table. And none of them were failing a required course for their major or watching their fathers’ finances going belly-up before their eyes. I could do much worse than them, and if I continued down my current path, Iwould.

But I wasn’t ready yet for Corey.

“My parents need me at home tonight,” I said vaguely.

“You know, your dad might want to talk to Langer about a partnership,” Corey suggested. “He’s always looking for new ventures.”

I wondered what Corey had heard to make him suggest such a thing. “Why? He doesn’t need his help. He doesn’t need anyone’s help.”

“But—”

“He’s fine. We’re fine. Have fun at Fig and Firkin,” I said, hurling my empty cup into a nearby trash bin. The comment had made me more determined than ever to pass o-chem. If I could just manage a C, I’d be fine. I’d keep my academic scholarship. I wouldn’t be broke on the street, or ruined, or selling myself into slavery. This would all feel like a bad dream when I was successful, rich, and actually making a difference in the world instead of being buried beneath it. “I’m hitting the books.”

“But wait?—”

“Corey, what is your problem?” I turned back in exasperation. “Just because you’re acing college doesn’t mean the rest of us are. I’ve got a D going in this course. My scholarship?—”

“Okay, okay,” he cut me off. “It’s important to you. I get it.”

Well, no, he didn’t. Not really. I’d let him think it was out of pure vanity that I wanted to hang onto my scholarship, which I’d been awarded by merit, based on my high grades and exam scores. I didn’t have an inkling that without it, I’d be stuck rolling burritos or something—assuming fast-food restaurants had any jobs left that hadn’t been filled by slaves.

“Did you eventrythe pills?” he demanded.

“No, I did not try the pills, and I’m not going to.” I crossed my arms. I’d never acknowledge to him that my family had an unfortunate tendency to not know when to stop when it came to substances; getting hooked on uppers was the last thing I needed on top of having no money.

“Okay,” he said finally, smiling beatifically as if he were descending from his lofty perch to do me some grand favor. It made me slightly ill. “How about I come over tonight and help you? I know a few tricks. I’ve got calc now, but I’ll stop by around four-thirty, okay?”

I frowned.

“I’ll bring burritos.”

I shook my head. “Pizza, and it’s a deal.”

HIM

As I rifled through Keith Wainwright-Phillips’s file cabinet, I held an ice pack up to my singed eye and considered that the fact that anybody here had bothered to treat my wounds was almost enough to make me feel guilty about what I was doing. Almost.

In fact, at the Wainwright-Phillips house, they’d done more than treat my wounds. As soon as we’d arrived here yesterday, the housekeeper had whisked me to the kitchen and given me a meal of chicken and rice, an ice pack, and three ibuprofen, then handed me a thin, soft T-shirt and a pair of cut-off khaki shorts from a box of clothes cast off from my master’s family and other slaves, along with some flip-flops and a few other items that looked like they might fit. A skinny, full-lipped maid that I knew I’d be nailing within the week had even brought me half a broken chocolate cupcake from a fresh batch she’d baked, which I’d inhaled shamelessly after almost a week of gruel and worse. Finally, I’d been directed to a bunk in the basement slave quarters and allowed to sleep for two hours, which was way less than I needed but way more than I expected, and it almost made up for having the night shift.

The night shift. The princess. Thatvoice.Fuck me. My plan had been to feel her out, soften her up, andifshe was receptive,have a little fun with her in anticipation of getting what I needed—not to let her voice cast some bizarre hex on me where I couldn’t chase it out of my head no matter what I did. Besides, I don’t know if she thought I was someone else or what, but the fact that Daddy’s little angel had even stooped to humor me for more than a few seconds waskind of blowing my mind. Bottom line, so much for the “good slave” act. I shouldn’t have said any of it, and I shouldn’t havedoneany of it.

But every single part of me wanted to do it again.

Well. Despite that unfortunate little blip, Lucky Sevens were still paying out. Today, nobody threw cold water on me, screamed in my ear, or kicked me awake. When I woke up again around nine, as the other slaves went about their chores, I sat in the slaves’ common area—small and cluttered with household knickknacks and sewing projects, but still comfortable, with a small, sunny window—with the housekeeper. We drank cups of weak coffee from an industrial drum (I tried to forget about last night’s Ecuadorian roast), and swapped the usual stories. The housekeeper had come from New York, bought sight unseen at nine years old by my new mistress’s parents. “Mistress Wainwright-Phillips had married by then and they were both working long hours, so off to them I went. I looked after Miss Louisa and Master Ethan for a few years before they bought a nanny, while my partner was the gardener. Then I became the cook and housekeeper.”

---