Page 27 of Never Broken

Maybe I shouldn’t have looked at the file. It hadn’t satisfied my curiosity, after all. It had only awakened it. How could it not have? Every single goddamn thing I learned about him turned me onto a million more things I longed to know. And yet?—

Dangerous.

Thatshould be all Ineededto know.

If the so-called boy—man—whatever—of my dreams had attacked one of his owners, he’d committed one of the worst crimes a slave could commit, and I suspectedthatwas what he was hiding.That’swhy he’d been put in chains and sent to the farm. And if he hadn’t been sold to the professor, he might still be there. Hell, it was probably where hedeservedto be. Not to mention, it was clear now why Daddy had been able to afford him.

Anyway, the only pain that should concern me right now was myownpain, the pain I would feel if I flunked o-chem, lost my scholarship, and had to drop out of school. Problem was, whatever else he was,hewas the only one standing between me and that fate: the fate of having to date Corey the douchebag for his money, or going to live with my father in a cardboard box. Or in slavery, if it came to that. Debt collectors still came knocking, after all. These days, if you weren’t born a slave, that’s often how you became one.

Fuck ifI’dbe the one to make my family poor again.

My friends had no idea—no one did—but years ago, when my father had started out in business, he and my mother had lived in a one-bedroom in one of Phoenix’s scariest neighborhoods. He’d been doing better by the time I came along, thankfully—we all had. Nine figures better, to be exact.

And then Ethan disappeared.

I’d worshiped him, of course, because he was everything I wasn’t. At the country club, he used to steal Daddy’s golf cart and a six-pack of beers for us, veering crazily off the paved path on two wheels while I clung on white-knuckled.You have to break a few rules now and then, Lou. That’s how you find out who you really are.I never took his advice—I figured he’d broken enough rules for both of us—but now, I stared where I knew his oldmarbled guitar pick sat on my dresser, the one he gave me when I was ten, and wondered whether I should have broken more. Maybe he would have stuck around if I weren’t so goddamn boring.

But while I blamed myself, my father had imploded evenmorespectacularly. After struggling his entire life to reach the top, it had destroyed Daddy that he couldn’t even save his own son. After the second relapse, my father didn’t leave his bedroom for weeks. He didn’t seem to care that the debts were piling up and the phone was ringing off the hook with calls from his colleagues and clients. Nothing seemed to matter to him anymore, not even us, his wife and daughter, who were left to find our own ways of coping—through alcohol and school, respectively.

So as much as I wanted to get out from under them, I also knew that without Ethan, I was my parents’ only hope—not only financially, but to hopefully, someday, bring them both back to the land of the living.

And to achieve that, I needed the slave boy. But only as a calculator. A study aid. An object.A tool.

In other words, I’d need to treat him as exactly what everyone said he was.

Once again, my mind drifted to the pralines in my desk drawer, the ones I’d spent nearly every cent of my pathetic allowance on.

I’d never bought something likethatfor my goddamn calculator.

Plus, there was still so much of his story I didn’t know. So much that could explain everything. He had a family.Stillhad a family—at least a sister—somewhere,location unknown. Was that what the attack had been about? Had he tried to defend them, to fight for them? He wouldn’t be a person if he didn’t.

A person.In the dark, the slightest smile crossed my lips. Why couldn’t I just accept it? I knew it.Everyoneknew it. And yet everyone was expected to act like they didn’t.

Still. What could I do? I couldn’thelphim, for fuck’s sake. Not only shouldn’t, butcouldn’t. Without any money, I had about as much power as he did. And if I kept trying, if I kept getting closer, I couldn’t kid myself anymore. I knew exactly what would happen: I’d get caught and throw away everything I’d worked so hard for, for the sake of a slave who could offer me nothing, and who might not even hesitate to shed my family’s blood. Hell, he wouldn’t eventellme anything. He’d made it perfectly clear:He didn’t want my help.

So drop it. Grab those pralines, walk downstairs, toss them all down the garbage disposal, and flick the switch. Then come back up here and go. The fuck. To sleep.

Instead, I rolled over and took another long, deep inhale. I wasn’t going to drop it. I was going to find out everything. If I didn’t, I’d never sleep again.

HIM

I couldn’t sleep.

The morning shift—five to eight—was supposed to be my time to do it, but I rarely did.

In fact, today, those twenty minutes in Louisa’s pillowy bed, enveloped in citrus and rose and another scent I could only describe asrich girl—was going to be the best I could do, though I shouldn’t have done it at all. And worse, because I had done it, now Iowedher one.

Instead, I lay on my narrow metal top bunk in the basement room meant to serve as the male slave quarters, though, since the gardener slept in the shed and the valet slept upstairs, I hadit all to myself. My hands behind my head, absently twisting my metal bracelet around and around on my wrist, staring at the pipes overhead, and realizing I was fucked.

There was a reason I didn’t accept help. From free people, from fellow slaves, from anyone. Not unless I’d manipulated them into it and knew I’d earned it.

The truth was, I hadn’t just been wagging my tail for that lonely middle-aged wife like a puppy through an electric fence, of course. And it wasn’t just pralines I’d wanted—I’d actually been conning her into helping me escape. Of course, my plan was stupid and ill-conceived and destined to get me killed, but in my defense, I’d been fifteen. Ultimately, the only reason I hadn’t done it was because my arm had nearly been lopped off first.

It was part of why they’d thrown me behind that electric fence to begin with: Because I was a liar. Because I was defiant. And because I was dangerous—hell, before the farm bought me, I’d spent a month living in a cage with a gigantic red label proclaiming me exactly that, and it wasn’t wrong.

But I’d never done anythingthisdangerous: Flirting with my master’s daughter not because I wanted something, but because I wantedher.Sure, I could tell myself that flirting got me what I wanted. And I could claim I just needed her computer, or her help ingratiating me to her father. But I could lie to myself all I wanted. I fucking wanted her, and if I wasn’t afraid the goddamn gardener would walk in any second, I’d be jerking off right now to that image I’d tried to shove out of my head earlier—to those plump, pink, glossy princess lips too goddamn pristine to have ever sucked off anyone, let alone a slave, let alonewillingly. But most of all, to the ludicrous idea that she might ever regard me as anything more than an object forherentertainment. Regarding me as a person, as a man who couldwantthings, who could wanther.And—to steal her phrasing—howdareshe?

Slaves weren’t supposed to want things.

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