Page 19 of Never Broken

I gestured to the chair next to mine. “Sit,” I said with a sigh. This was going to be harder than I thought. Never before had I worked side by side with a slave like this, and I hadn’t the first clue how to go about it. And on top of that, he was my tutor, which meanthewas calling the shots. I had to speak up now. “Going forward, if we keep doing this? Y-you shouldn’t ask for permission. For stuff like that,” I added hastily. I blushed deeper.Thathadn’t sounded right. God, I was bungling this. For the first time, I realized why most free people were assholes to slaves—it was a hell of a lot easier than trying to treat them like fellow human beings. “Okay?”

I thought I saw a smirk flicker across his face as he sank into the chair. “You’re the boss.”

Holy hell, was I going to regret this.

An hour later, it was official. I was distracted.

Distracted by the tendons in his bare forearm moving under his scarred skin as he scratched down formulas and the way his calloused fingers curled around the fountain pen my father had given me for my high school graduation, beneath that engraved metal chain he was made to wear because of course they had to remind himandme, every single second, that he wasn’t really a person. Distracted by the way he bit flakes of skin off his sun-chapped lips when he was concentrating; by how, when heracked his brain for some obscure word in English, he’d rake his fingers through his sun-streaked strands of golden hair and claim not to know—and then a second later, magically come up with it and pronounce it perfectly, too. Distracted by the way he had, in the course of an hour, jokingly crowned me everything from a slow learner to a remedial student, to a late bloomer, but clearly didn’t mean any of it. I wasn’t surewhyI knew he didn’t mean it. The way he looked at me, maybe. The way he waspatient, like even if it took me until the end of the goddamn world to get it, he’d still be there waiting. Or even if Inevergot it.

Or maybe it was how, when I got a problem right—and shit, I actuallydidget a few, thanks to him—he’d flash me a smile. A real smile. Like hisfirstsmile. One so beautiful and sunny andlife-affirmingthat it left me convinced—for a split second, at least—that I loved o-chem as much asheclearly did.

Idiot. You’re digging your own goddamn grave.Andhis.

And yet here I was, refusing to throw down the shovel.

In fact, I leaned back in my chair, awestruck. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you—you’re amazing.” I slapped a hand over my face. “The chemistry. The chemistry is amazing. I mean—how good you are at chemistry.That’samazing. I mean—shit. I should just stop.”

“No, please, go on. I’m really enjoying this.”

Of course I couldn’t see his face behind my hands, but I could imagine what it looked like.

It was true. This boy was magic, butIshouldn’t be saying it.No oneshould be saying it. Slaves weren’tmagic. They weren’t even people.

Keep reminding yourself of that, dumbass. Maybe the five hundredth time will be the charm.

“Anyway, thanks,” he said. “You wouldn’t know it from reading Malchow, or listening to that brilliant and enchanting boyfriend of yours I had the pleasure of meeting the other day,”he said, and my heart clenched at how he glanced down at the fresh, self-inflicted scab on his arm. I was wondering if he’d bring that up.I’dcertainly spent a good portion of my day and night thinking about that thin, perfect trail of ruby-red blood. “But o-chem isn’t that hard.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“But it’s true.”

I sat back in my chair and rolled my eyes.

“It’s not really scienceormath,” he explained suddenly, endearingly, as if this were a field theory he’d formulated while washing dishes and had just been waiting to tell someone. “They think it is—even the people who write the textbooks—but it’s not.”

“It’s not?”

“No, it’s just logic. But for some reason, people think it’s like reciting pi to the hundredth decimal place or something.”

“Let me guess: you can do that, too.”

He closed the book, and now it was his turn to lean back in the chair. “Hell, I could dothatbefore I even learned to read.”

“What, at age four?”

“Try fourteen.”

I sat straight up again, peering at him. “Fourteen? I don’t understand.”

He laughed lightly. “What, you think they send us to school?”

I sputtered for an answer, feeling my face flush. “No, but you—you’re sosmart,” I said again lamely. “All of this,” I added, gesturing helplessly to the book on the desk. “The math, the vocabulary, the?—”

He grinned. “I’m even more amazing now, yeah?”

“Notthatamazing,” I shot back. “Anyway, howdidyou learn to read?” I was going to regret asking. I was going to regret all of it. Because the more I knew about him, the more I wanted toknow. And Ishouldn’twant to know. There wasn’t supposed to be anything about slavestoknow.

And he was about to tell me.

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