Two syllables.
But it has no meaning. I understand it, but it makes no sense.
Everything goes gray about the edges. Shouts burst around me. The floor rises to hit my knees. All the oxygen flees the room, and I’m pulling nothing but poison into my lungs.
My forest is gone.
My life is meaningless.
There is nothing left.
I’m falling, falling, falling, with no end in sight.
This is the NAO’s most deadly weapon, I think.
They have the ability to use love against us. They can take what we care for most. They can systematically remove the things that make us human.
Without them, we have nothing to fight for. If we have nothing, why would we fight?
This is how they get what they want.
By breaking us.
I swallowed hard, ripping that memory apart before it had a chance to drown me in yet another panic attack.
When I finished my story, silent tears dripped, and Lucas regarded me with an impassive face. “What happened to her?”
I sighed. Of course he’d ask that. I cleared my throat. “She—she was captured.”
“How long ago?”
“January.”
A pall fell as we both silently acknowledged what that meant. If she’d been captured, then he’d been the one to decide her fate. He dropped his head, hiding his expression. His voice broke the silence, mellifluous and soft. “I don’t remember her.”
I nodded, both relieved and upset. “I’ve been scared to ask you. Scared of what the answer might be.”
“She’s pretty?”
“Beautiful.”
“I usually have to send the pretty ones to the House.”
I swallowed. Tears rose.
“That means she could be alive, Sophia.”
My bitter laugh replied. “Death before slavery.”
His head rested against the wall, and he regarded me through his lashes. “There are shades of gray.”
My eyes snapped to his. “What would you know about it?”
“I’m very familiar with the brothels. They’re better than torture and death.”
“Rapeistorture, Lucas. Even if it doesn’t hurt.”
He sighed. “If they’re executed, they’re tortured to death. If I send them to the Stability bloc, they starve. If I send them to the House, yes, they’re raped, but they’re fed, and they have beds to sleep in, and if they behave, the men aren’t allowed to harm them.”
