"I do want to be with you."
"Then that's all that matters. The inner circle can go to hell."
I lean against his chest. Let him hold me. Let myself believe, just for a moment, that this might actually work.
That we might actually survive what's coming.
"Five days," I whisper.
"Five days."
"And then we burn it all down."
"Together."
The next few days pass in a strange blur.
No more training sessions.
No more commands and compliance and practicing for an audience that will never see me perform.
Just—being together.
Learning each other without the structure of captor and captive.
Without the script of owner and acquisition.
Learning who we are when we're just Vaughn and Eden.
It's strange. Disorienting. Like learning to walk after years of crawling.
But it's also beautiful.
We have breakfast together without him telling me I need to eat.
We read in the library without it being a training location.
We walk the grounds without me calculating escape routes.
We're just—together.
And somewhere in those days, I start to understand something about myself.
Something about who I was and who I've become.
I think about the girl I was at the Sanctuary.
Eden Finch, daughter of Thomas Finch, promised to Elder Jacob.
Quiet and obedient and so desperate to be good, to be pure, to be worthy.
Terrified of her own desires.
Ashamed of her own body.
Convinced that wanting anything was sinful.
That girl died the night I ran from the Sanctuary.
