Page 44 of Worth

I run for the house, keeping my steps stealthy enough that I make it onto the wrap-around porch and through the front door without the family noticing.

The second I’m in, a Skin greets me. “Is it time?” she asks, her calm demeanor betrayed by the fear in her eyes.

“Yes,” I rush out. “Where are the others?”

“Three of us here. But the fourth is upstairs with the baby still.” A note of distaste filters into her words.

The baby—the couple outside had become parents for a third time to the baby only two weeks ago, per the profiles that Aiden gave me. I quickly give the three Skins directions to run to the wall and cross over, not waiting to watch them go out the front door. I just hope that the family doesn’t see them.

I take the stairs two at a time. Looking both ways down the hallway, I drag up the house plan in my head that I studied and head right. I find the nursery within a few seconds. A young girl—the remaining Skin, if the tunic is any indication—rocks a newborn baby, a devastated expression on her face.

“I don’t want to leave her,” she murmurs.

“You have to,” I say, trying to focus on rushing this girl out of here and listening for any sounds of the family reentering.

The girl, probably just slightly younger than me, presses her forehead to the sleeping baby’s forehead. She makes no sound as the tears roll down her face. “I can’t,” she whispers.

“We have to go,” I urge. “Put her in the crib.Let’s go.”

She looks up at me and only then do I see it—the way the baby girl’s nose has the same point as hers; the eyes the same shape; the same pouting lower lip. But her skin doesn’t match the girl’s olive colored skin. Instead, it’s a dark shade of cocoa.

Just like the husband outside distracted by the fire.

I recoil, horrified. “She’s yours.”

The girl nods, clutching the baby tighter. “He loves me. He told me he’s going to give her back to me one day.”

I shake my head, mouth opening and closing, not knowing what to say or do. This girl can’t really believe that herowneris going to give her baby back to her. In fact, that baby is a Skin too. Children born to Skins automatically have ownership transferred to the mother’s owner upon birth.

“Go,” she says softly. “I’ll stay with her. I know I can’t take her if I leave. It’ll cause too many problems.” When I hesitate, preparing to argue with her, she says again, more urgently, “Go.”

There’s some sort of emotion spilling from me, but I can’t place it. I’m so fucking shocked that this girl is sacrificing herself for her child. My thoughts race, catching me in a loop of imagining my mother sacrificing herself to save me. But ultimately, my mother never did. My mother left me to fend for myself.

I don’t have time for this and I know it. I spin and run before she can say anymore, more sliding down the banister than taking the stairs.

I disappear into the shadows outside the porch, the family’s attention still fixed on the flames. A flare of fury burns in me brighter than the fire and I go the opposite direction of where I know the ladder is.

Sneaking up behind the man and his wife, the former still screaming for Skins to come help put out the fire, I watch the shed being consumed for a moment. Then I turn my attention to the husband.

This asshole has groomed that poor teenage girl still in the house to believe that she’s worth something to him. He’s promised her child to her; a child that she had with someone who owns her and could sell her—or her child—at any given moment. He deserves to be punished.

The pure rage filling me makes me shake erratically, like a volcano preparing to erupt. I grab ahold of him, just as he turns toward the house to shout again for his Skins. He yelps, and I take advantage of his surprise to shove him—one…two….three times.

Twisting and bellowing, he stumbles back towards the shed, trying to catch himself. I watch like it’s happening in slow motion, relishing the satisfaction I feel when I view the terrified expression on his face.

The husband falls back through what used to be the doorway of the shed, into the fire, screaming.

I don’t stay to see if he gets out, but as I turn, I find myself face-to-face with the wife. Without a word, she sidesteps, allowing me to pass. I raise an eyebrow at her as I move, but she gives nothing else away. She simply goes back to viewing her husband screaming as he drags himself out of the burning shed, his skin glistening from his scorched wounds and missing every bit of hair off his head.

Aiden grabs my arm and hauls me on top of the wall when I make it to the ladder and start to climb, gathering me against him and slamming his mouth down on mine. This kiss is more brutal, like when we were training and he bit me hard enough to bleed. But his time I’m giving as good as I’m getting, and he groans loud when I bite down on his lip the way he’s showed me, pulling back, the lingering taste of smoke on his breath.

My body screams for touch. I am thriving on the thrill of my actions and being in control, and of punishing that man. But I know we need to get out of here, too. With one more rough kiss, I push away and jump. I land on my feet in front of the Skin from inside the house. Behind her, Val is cramming people into her SUV.

“She’s not coming,” the Skin says sadly, gazing towards the direction of the house as if she could see it through the wall.

“No,” I answer, and Aiden moves past us with the ladder, loading it into our car. “But it’s going to be a while before he can hurt her anymore.”

The woman eyes me. “She’s been in this house since she was five. She thinks she loves him.”

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