Page 33 of Never Broken

“Yeah? So what?”

“So what?” The gardener dug into the pocket of his dirt-covered jeans. “So unless you do exactly what I say, you’re gonna find yourself back here real soon.”

The last thing I saw before the first lash came was the map printout from under my mattress, crumpled between the gardener’s grimy fingers. By the second, I was stifling the whimper I wouldn’t let this asshole hear, pressing my head against the pole to stabilize myself. By the third, fourth, and fifth, when those familiar hot rivulets started flowing down my back, all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut, clench my jaw against the new pain and the old, and just breathe as my mother had taught me long ago.

For once, I was actually looking forward to late-night duty, which always started with washing up from dinner. Other than tutoring, it was as light as my work got. Of course it wasn’t my fault that the maid, indiscreetly tossing her black mane, had offered to do something to, as she put it, “help with the pain,” then brushed up against me while I washed dishes and she ferried salads and desserts back and forth. Normally, I would have jumped at the chance to make at least one part of my body feel better, no matter the agony the rest of me was in.

But Louisa.

Yeah, what about her?I scolded myself as I scrubbed a casserole angrily with a piece of steel wool. Okay, so she hadn’t told her father about the tutoring. Still, she was free. She was my master’s daughter, she was a spoiled brat, and she clearly didn’t know or care that she was the reason I was now groaning inwardly as I bent down to load the rest of the dishwasher. I’d thrown on a loose T-shirt with some dumb American brand logo on the front, and the housekeeper had given me an ibuprofen and some antiseptic cream, which, granted, was more than I’d been given after most whippings, though my back still wept blood and stung me like a hive full of angry bees whenever I moved.

So fuck Louisa. Fuck it all. The only way she could be of any use to me was if she could help me find Langer and find mysister. Anything else was a liability to me. A dangerous one. And after today, I was already inenoughdanger.

“If you know how to get this, you must know how to get other things,” the gardener rasped poisonously in my ear as I dangled there in agony at the end of it all, hands still chained, stretched arm muscles screaming for relief. “Matter of fact, so do I. Over the years, I found ways to see anything I want, anytime I want.”

What the fuck was this idiot talking about? I clenched my teeth, forcing my murky, pain-contorted brain to think back to what the housekeeper had told me about the boarded-up window of the women’s slave quarters.

“But the princess’s room …” He paused to chuckle throatily. “I’m still shut out of there, but it ain’t for lack of trying.”

Breathe, you stupid bastard. I know you know how.A sudden breeze blew a typhoon of grit into my torn-open flesh, and I bit back a moan. I prided myself on never begging anyone for anything, and I sure wasn’t going to start with this asshole.

The gardener just stood there, watching me twist, holding the map printout. “I want you to plantthisin her room. And not in a goddamn drawer.”

He held a tiny device between his dirt-ridged fingers, and it only took a second for me to recognize what it was: a camera.

“What the fuck? Are you crazy?” Where would a gardener getthat?Besides, if anyone was going to be watching Louisa strip naked, it was going to be me. Full stop.

“If I don’t got pictures by Friday, this printout is going to be sitting in the middle of the dining room table when Langer shows up for dinner. Do we have a deal?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

The gardener unlatched the cuffs. Wrists released, I landed hard in a heap on the ground, in too much pain to try to chase after him and bash his head into the wall for daring to eventhinkabout her in that way or any way. Not that it would accomplish anything except sending me right back to this goddamn post. Neither would the microcamera, which was still in my pocket because what the fuck else was I supposed to do with it?

The only good news that afternoon was that Louisa was in class all day, so even though she was grounded, I’d probably be able to avoid seeing her.

But when 10 p.m. rolled around, the front door banged open dramatically. I was bent over the sink, and the sudden noise caused me to drop the pot I had been scrubbing. It clattered to the tile floor and kept clattering, while soapy water dripped off my hands. I quickly grabbed a tea towel and winced as I bent down to stop the noise and throw the pot into the sink. Smooth.

She stood in the entrance to the kitchen, silhouetted in moonlit blue, wearing her school clothes, which in Arizona this time of year apparently meant a tiny crop top and cutoff jean shorts, and I couldn’t help but inconveniently notice, of all things, how perfectly they hugged her curvy little hips and ass. She was clutching a bottle of something shyly to her chest.

Before I could say anything, words—few of which made much sense to me—tumbled out of her mouth all at once.

“At first, I was all mad at you because I was going to miss our girls’ night in Old Town with Juliette, which was the only thing I had to look forward to for the past three months. And I thought it was all your fault because I let you tutor me, and right after Daddy told me, I had to go to class. And then I scored an eighty-nine on a quiz, and I’m not failing anymore, and all because of you, too, and then when I got home, the housekeeper told me what happened.” She took a deep breath. “To you, I mean.”

I opened my mouth, but she barreled on. “I feel so stupid. It’s all my fault. I’m sure it was something I said to Daddy. I can never fucking do anything right and—“ She held out the bottle in her hands like some kind of religious offering.

And then—shit. She was crying. She was standing right in front of me, crying, complete with a glistening little tear running down from her big gray eye, down over my favorite tiny mole on her cheek and onto her chin. Her shoulders had even started to shake.

And, fuck, here I was swooping across the kitchen to her, like some big hero—a hero who wasn’t even allowed to touch the object of his heroics. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Okay, first things first. I could take the bottle from her hand before she dropped it and spilled the damn thing all over the kitchen—which I did, just in time to read the label:Aloe vera gel: relieves pain and treats wounds naturally.

Even more fucks. It was for me. To help the pain. I put it on the counter. I’d deal with that later. Right now, a small, helpless, adorable creature was standing alone and in pain—not physical pain, but pain nonetheless—and every instinct and impulse I had was telling me to go to her. My mother and sister had been more stoic than most, especially given the life they’d led, but they had had their moments. Many a slave girl had also fallen into my arms when life became too much, and I was always happy to oblige, especially because I knew what usually followed. When it came to being a shoulder to cry on, I actually had a pretty decent résumé.

This was obviously different.

She hiccupped. I cringed, cursing myself, closing my eyes and reaching out a hand, kind of, sort of offering. She looked up for a second, then down at my hand. She did not move an inch, either forward or back. A split second later, the decision was made for me. She had practically launched herself at me, and all of a sudden, I had an armful of my master’s daughter.

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