Her eyes widen slightly before she can control her reaction, but it’s too late. I saw the way she lit up. “What school?”
“You said you were interested in studying psychology, didn’t you? This is your chance. I will gladly pay for the classes if that’s what you want to pursue.”
“You can’t be serious.” She lets out a laugh, her head snapping back in disbelief. “No way.”
“Why not? I mean it. I’m very serious.”
“But…” She creeps closer like an animal, on guard but curious. “Are you being for real?”
“Of course. Don’t get any ideas,” I warn before her imagination runs away with her. “This doesn’t mean you’ll have free rein to spend all day on the internet. Your activities will be monitored.”
My warning is the pin jabbed into a balloon. I see her face fall before she can help it. “So it’s the illusion of freedom. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“I never said you would have total freedom, did I? This is a step in the right direction, though. And if it makes you happier,” I add, “you don’t have to do this at all. I’ll take it back or use it for myself.”
“You know I want it,” she replies, dangerously close to snapping. She hears it, too, and tucks her hair behind her ears before chewing her lip. “I just don’t like the idea of being monitored.”
“Behave yourself, and you have nothing to worry about, right?” Her withering stare is all the response I need. “You can study all you want, live comfortably. You would want for nothing. You should know that by now.”
I’m not sure what passes over her face, exactly, but I know it isn’t gratitude. She blinks rapidly, her head cocked back, likeshe’s trying to understand and failing. “So I would live here as… what? Your actual, true wife?”
“We’d be partners. Real partners.” For now, at least. “Once we track down Donovan and move on with our lives, you could decide who it is you want to be. Do you want that?”
She does. It’s written all over her face. It glimmers in her eyes; it’s the warmth that colors her cheeks. To have a life of her own. It’s what she wants more than anything.
Or so I tell myself before her expression goes hard, blocking out the hope. “What’s the point of kidding ourselves?” I’ve never heard her sound this defeated. “We both know we would never be a team.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Then I do, and you haven’t caught up yet.” She slowly shakes her head. I feel her sadness as if it’s a living, breathing thing weighing me down. “I would always be your prisoner, Liam, because you could never bring yourself to trust me. Not all the way. I don’t think you could ever fully trust anybody. Why bother pretending?”
With that she turns on her heel and walks calmly from the room without a backward glance.
I don’t know what pisses me off more.
The fact that she got the last word.
Or the fact that she’s right. That she sees through my bullshit and has the nerve to call me out.
27
AURORA
Ever since I woke up with a tracking device implanted in my body, the idea of having a burner phone where Dad can contact me seems like a good idea.
I’ve stopped leaving it under the bathroom sink during the day, only hiding it there overnight. The rest of the time, I keep it close to me—under my pillow if I’m hanging out in the bedroom, or tucked into my pants when I’m in the living room, watching TV.
It’s ironic. All Liam managed to do was make me more determined to get the hell out of here somehow. Did he think he was going to hold me tighter by violating me like he did? Was I supposed to take his violation as a sign he genuinely wants me as his so-called teammate?
He must be out of his mind. He only thinks he’s a genius, a mastermind. I hope I get to see him find out how wrong he is. I hope he at least pays for hurting me the way he has. Using me, lying, taking advantage every chance he gets.
Which is why I keep the phone close, in case something new happens that I need to know about right away.
As it turns out, something new happens a few days after Liam tried to bribe me with a laptop. In the end, I accepted it, because I would be an idiot not to. It’s another step toward my eventual freedom—I need to look at it that way. Whenever resentment comes up as I imagine being monitored, I remind myself that education means freedom. He can’t take it away from me. Nobody can.
I’m reading through descriptions of a couple of interesting-looking classes, trying to make up my mind how to start, where to enroll, when there’s a buzzing sensation from my waistband. Even though I’m alone in the living room, with only the guards by the elevator to keep an eye on me like I’m a kid who needs to be babysat, fear races through me like lightning.
Of course, nobody noticed. Nobody knows I got a message but me. Dad is still somewhere, reaching out. It’s up to me whether or not I want to respond. Should I?
