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The questions continued rapidly after that. How long had he been a slave; “Seventeen days,” he’d answered after a moment of thinking about it. Where had he lived before that, what job or jobs had he done, did he have contact with any other supes.

There had been some other weird questions thrown in that made no sense to Jared, but he answered them anyway; what had his parents’ names been, what type of shoes had he had when he was younger, what was the color of the walls in the house in the slums he’d been living in right after the Takeover.

Some of them Jared had to think about for a minute before he could answer; others he hadn’t realized he’d remembered until he was answering them.

“Rhys will be punished, of course,” Sebastian said on the heels of asking about a stuffed animal that Jared had slept with as a child.

“What?” Jared asked, utterly left behind by the change of direction. “Why?”

Sebastian paused for a moment, studying him with an inscrutable expression. “For buying, torturing, and raping you,” he said, as if that answer should’ve been obvious.

“But—”

He didn’t.

The words wouldn’t come. Jared tried to say them, but he couldn’t.

But it had been that, at least at the beginning. At the party he hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t wanted to be used. But it had been inevitable, hadn’t it? And Rhys had treated him well, certainly better than anyone else would have.

After that… Well, Jared had expected things to be bad with Rhys, but they hadn’t been. If he’d had the choice of it, he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t prefer to stay with Rhys than go back to living in the slums, even if he’d been free.

But he didn’t have the choice, did he?

“He didn’t buy me,” Jared managed after a moment of battling with the words to find the ones that would come out.

“He still tortured and raped you,” Sebastian said softly, frowning.

No!

Jared shook his head frantically, shoving the chair back as he abruptly stood. Sebastian stood as well, holding a hand out toward him that Jared dodged away from.

It hadn’t been like that. It hadn’t!

“Calm down, Jared. We want to help you,” Sebastian said, his voice turning soothing.

The panic was gripping Jared’s throat, and he knew his reaction didn’t make sense. He knew that he should want to have help. But the prospect of losing that place he went to when Rhys was using him, when the pain licked at him so deliciously and he started floating, was terrifying. He felt good there, he wasn’t afraid, and he’d spent so many years being afraid, being hungry, being cold.

Jared’s words came back to him in a rush. “No!” he shouted. “No, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t!”

“We could help you leave,” Sebastian said almost curiously, letting his hand drop and studying Jared intently. “Send you⁠—”

“No,” Jared snapped. “No, I don’t want⁠—”

A quick knock on the door preceded it swinging open to reveal a woman in a dark business suit. “Sebastian?” she asked, her gaze giving Jared an assessing look from head to toe before turning to the other man. “Is everything all right? We heard⁠—”

“I don’t want to go!” Jared yelled. “I want to stay with sir. With Rhys,” he corrected. “Why can’t I stay?”

The woman stepped into the room, revealing Rhys in the doorway behind her.

Jared’s breath caught even as relief and hope threatened to tangle up in him. “I want to stay,” he whispered beseechingly.

Rhys moved past the woman, getting to Jared and gripping both of his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Jared’s voice shook. “Torture and rape, it wasn’t. I tried to tell him that.”

“He bonded to you quickly,” Sebastian told Rhys after exchanging a look with the woman.

“It was,” Rhys said to Jared, his voice quiet, even as his thumbs stroked Jared’s skin. “You have to know that’s what it was.” He sighed.