He smiles. “Where are your manners? You’re not going to greet our guest?”
Confused, I follow his line of sight. There’s a young woman sitting on a chair in the far corner of the room, and, at first, I don’t recognize her.
When I do, the blood drains from my face.
My father laughs. “You kids remember each other, right?”
She was sitting so quietly, so still and small that I almost hadn’t noticed her at all. My dead heart jumps at the sight of her slight frame, a spark of life trying, desperately, to ignite.
“Juliette,” I whisper.
My last memory of her was from two years ago, just before I left home for my father’s sick, sadistic assignment. He ripped her away from me. Literally ripped her out of my arms. I’d never seen that kind of rage in his eyes, not like that, not over something so innocent.
But he was wild.
Out of his mind.
She and I hadn’t done anything more than talk to each other. I’d started stealing down to her room whenever I could get away, and I’d trick the cameras’ feeds to give us privacy. We’d talk, sometimes for hours. She’d become my friend.
I never touched her.
She said that after what happened with the little boy, she was afraid to touch anyone. She said she didn’t understand what was happening to her and didn’t trust herself anymore. I asked her if she wanted to touch me, to test it out and see if anything would happen, and she looked scared and I told her not to worry. I promised it’d beokay. And when I took her hand, tentatively, waiting for disaster—
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened except that she burst into tears. She threw herself into my arms and wept and told me she’d been terrified that there was something wrong with her, that she’d turned into a monster—
We only had a month, altogether.
But there was something about her that felt right to me, from the very beginning. I trusted her. She felt familiar, like I’d always known her. But I also knew it seemed a dramatic sort of thought, so I kept it to myself.
She told me about her life. Her horrible parents. She’d shared her fears with me, so I shared mine. I told her about my mom, how I didn’t know what was happening to her, how worried I was that she was going to die.
Juliette cared about me. Listened to me the way no one else did.
It was the most innocent relationship I’d ever had, but it meant more to me than anything. For the first time in years, I felt less alone.
The day I found out she was finally being transferred, I pulled her close. I pressed my face into her hair and breathed her in and she cried. She told me she was scared and I promised I’d try to do something—I promised to talk to my dad even though I knew he wouldn’t care—
And then, suddenly, he was there.
He ripped her out of my arms, and I noticed then that he was wearing gloves. “What the hellare you doing?” he cried. “Have you lost your mind? Have you lost yourself entirely?”
“Dad,” I said, panicking. “Nothing happened. I was just saying good-bye to her.”
His eyes widened, round with shock. And when he spoke, his words were whispers. “You were just— You were sayinggood-byeto her?”
“She’s leaving,” I said stupidly.
“You think I don’t know that?”
I swallowed, hard.
“Jesus,” he said, running a hand across his mouth. “How long have you been doing this? How long have you been coming down here?”
My heart was racing. Fear pulsed through me. I was shaking my head, unable to speak.
“What did you do?” my dad demanded, his eyes flashing. “Did you touch her?”
