by Anne Tibbets
Did my parents know what they were doing when they’d sent me away with Vira? I wanted to believe they’d thought I was on my way to a better life.
I guessed it didn’t matter anymore.
I found myself silently praying that the worm program had worked at Auberge HQ and that my hopes of becoming a chef weren’t permanently destroyed.
But there was nothing I could do about it at that moment, so I left the bedroom, found the stairs and made my way back to the kitchen. He wasn’t there.
I took some time rummaging around the cupboards, admiring the shining pots and pans. I helped myself to another sandwich and two glasses of fresh water, lay down on the couch in the parlor and fell asleep instantly.
* * *
I’m waiting in my appointment room, but he’s late.
I don’t mind.
I sit on the bed and wrap the scratchy sheets around me to keep warm. The rooms are kept very cold to help the girls appear “perky,” if you catch my drift. Five minutes before the appointment time is up, they blast the heat until it’s almost unbearable. It always makes them hurry. If they’re comfortable, they take their time. And neither the Line, nor the girls, want that.
Just before the hour has passed the door opens and in walks a man wearing an expensive business suit. I can tell because of the fabric. All wool. Pressed as crisp as a board.
He’s an older man, probably in his fifties, with black hair that’s grey at the temples. He’s not tall, but not short either, and a little stocky around the middle.
I get up from the bed and stand naked in front of him.
Instead of undressing like the rest of them do, he just stares.
Great.
Another looker.
Every time a looker comes through that door, I wonder what kind of looker he is.
Is he the kind who looks, and then uses the last five minutes in a mad, violent rush?
Or is he the kind of looker who sits there and drools the whole time, and then wants me to touch myself? Which, by comparison, isn’t as bad as the alternative, but humiliating nonetheless.
Or is he the kind of looker who can’t perform, then blames me and beats me until the hour is over?
Any kind of looker is trouble.
Figuring out what kind he is, is half the battle.
But this man hasn’t moved a muscle and he’s making me nervous. He just stares at me, like I’m a statue.
I keep my expression blank. Any eye rolling, any eyebrow raising, any smiling or smirking before I’ve determined what kind of looker he is just leads to difficulty. They always take it the wrong way, like I’m making fun of them.
It’s best to stay numb.
He coughs uncomfortably and licks his lips.
Here it comes, I think.
“How old are you?” he asks.
“How old would you like me to be?” I answer carefully.
“No. I want the truth. When’s your birthday?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “And that’s the truth.”
He looks...disappointed?
Odd.
He nods, as if he’s thinking to himself. “How did you end up here?”
I shrug, not wanting to show that it bothers me, this conversation. Many ask me that but I never tell the truth. “How do any of the girls get here? I’m no different.”
“Did you run away?”
“No.”
“Did your father sell you?”
This question hurts, but I keep my face empty as I lie. “No.”
“Then how did you end up here?”
Should I tell him the truth? Should I lie through my teeth? He seems different than the rest, who only want to know my story in hopes it’s a turn-on. But I haven’t learned enough about this looker, who’s now a talker, which is an entirely different breed of appointment, to know how he wants me to answer.
When in doubt, tell the truth.
Right?
“My parents couldn’t feed me, so they sold me to work in a restaurant. When I hit puberty, the restaurant owner sold me here.”
“So, your parents don’t know where you are?”
“I doubt it.”
“Do you know where they’re from?”
I lie. That’s none of his business; this is too real. “No.”
Again, he looks disappointed.
What’s he getting at?
How does this turn him on?
“Pity,” he says, and then he turns and leaves.
I’m confused and relieved at the same time.
I spend the rest of the hour huddled under the scratchy sheets, staring at the ceiling.
Hands down, it was the best appointment I ever had.
Chapter Sixteen
I awoke to someone touching my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, Ric was leaning over me. It was still dark. The overhead lights had been turned off, but a small lamp was on in the corner of the parlor.
“You want to crawl into a bed?” he asked. “Pick any one you like. This place has seven bedrooms.” He grumbled that last part.
I sat up and tried to get my bearings. There was a wet spot on the upholstered pillow where I’d drooled. I wiped my mouth with my gloved hand. I’d been out so deep I’d forgotten where I was. For a second, I’d thought I was in my sleeping chamber.
Panic.
But it faded quickly.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Late.”
“I couldn’t find you.”
“Sorry. I was using the computer in the office, reading the news and all the proclamations Auberge put out about the break-in. They haven’t found Sonya yet.”
I sighed heavily. Part of my worry evaporated. “Well, that’s something.”
“Yeah. Well, you, uh—” Ric stopped short, then blurted out, “You can take your gloves off. The worm worked.”
I blinked, then managed to say, “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I checked the public database. Naya from the Line doesn’t exist anymore. There’s no record of her anyplace. But Natalia Grey does. She has your palm prints and everything. Seems like Tym did it.”
“You mean, it’s over?” My stomach rolled over.
No way.
Nothing was that simple.
“Yes. Well,” Ric said, “for you. Either that, or Auberge wants us to think it is so you’ll come out of hiding. But we don’t know that for sure.” He rubbed his palm against the back of his neck. “Without Tym, I don’t have a way to get into the mainframe to find out. We’ll need to recruit another hacker to make sure everything is all right before we move you to North and submit your application to the Institution. Otherwise, you could be falling into a trap.”
“How long will it take to find another hacker?” I asked.
“A while.”
“Then what do we do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know.” He raised his arms with disgust. “Nothing happened the way it was supposed to. This whole thing is out of control. I’m just making this shit up as I go.”
“Ric, it’ll be all right.”
Maybe it was the way I’d said his name, or the fact that I was suddenly the one reassuring him, I didn’t know. But he looked at me with the softest expression.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “Sounds like there’s nothing we can do at this very moment. So I guess we’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
He hesitated. “We will?”
“Yeah.”
He stepped toward me. I leaned back into the couch to add some distance between us, but he sat on the coffee table directly across from me and stared into my eyes.
Chills. I couldn’t tell if they were good chills or bad.
But his eyes were gentle. Regardless of how my body was reacting to his gaze, I could tell he meant well. The thought of him sent a current of conflicting sensations through me.
It frightened me.
Yet I wanted to melt into his expression.
No one looked at me the way he did.
It was intoxicating.
He rested his hands on his knees. They were inches away from mine. I simultaneously wanted to reach out to them and feel the warmth of his fingers, but instead backed farther away.
“Naya,” he said, as if he was about to say something meaningful. “We?”
Oh.
He wanted a “we.”
I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
My eyes filled with tears. Maybe it was the hormones. It was probably something else.
He was sitting so close.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking away. When I was able to look back, I saw his eyes had filled with tears too.
“Don’t you trust me by now?” he asked. No, begged.
“It’s not that. It’s not. I swear. It’s, it’s just everything is happening too fast.”
“Everything?”
I nodded sadly. “I can’t seem to be touched. Like, physically. It’s too soon.”
“It won’t be like that forever,” he said. It was almost a whisper. “One day, you’ll be ready.”
His words pierced me like a sword. I hoped he was right. “You promise?” I tried to sound nonchalant and failed.
He saw my confusion. I scrutinized his eyes for signs of hurt or pain but I didn’t see any. He was resigned. Then, he stood up. “You hungry?”
I collected myself and nodded. “Always.”
He walked toward the kitchen, and I got up and followed. “Let’s see if there’s any cheese left. You can teach me how to make macaroni.”
* * *
After we gorged ourselves on pasta in cheese sauce with a dash of nutmeg, we slept in separate bedrooms. Him in his old room, me down the hall in a guest room with a four-poster bed and a private bath. We stayed a few days. I wore abandoned clothes from Anj’s room, and Ric taught me how to properly operate and use his tablet. The technology wasn’t so tricky, once I got the hang of it.
In addition to that, Ric gave me a crash course in playing pool, a game with marble balls that you hit with long sticks. Then I showed him how to cook French toast as he walked me through the medical process of pregnancy and giving birth.
Gruesome.
Our days were filled. We kept busy, waiting for the opportune time to recruit another hacker. But the Auberge announcements and declarations still discussed the HQ break-in, so we waited.
One day more.
Then two.
Three.
During this time, I enjoyed cooking in the kitchen, experimenting with old recipes I’d learned from Hugo. Eventually, my memories were exhausted, and Ric produced a stack of recipe tablets that had once belonged to his mother. I learned traditional Irish dishes, like corned beef and cabbage, and Italian dishes, manicotti and how to make marinara sauce. Plus the ins and outs of what to do with ground meat, since our resources were limited.
During these days, as we waited, I’d randomly lean over and touch Ric, just to give it a try. A light brush on the shoulder. My fingers on the skin of his arms. Each time it sent my nerves on edge, but it eventually got easier.
He made it easy with his casual nature. He had to have known what I was doing but didn’t say a word.
It was one of the reasons he was growing on me.
When we weren’t playing games, cooking or watching the news, we sat and talked. Ric told me about his family and the pressures he felt growing up in prominent society, which he apologized for constantly.
Ridiculous.
I told him what few memories I had of my life before the Line. My apartment in East. My folks, my baby sister.
During those days, part of me knew we’d have to leave the estate and find someplace else to hide, but in all honesty, I was afraid to discuss it aloud. I didn’t want to ruin it. For the first time in my life, even though it was a complete façade, I felt safe.
Normal.
I wanted it to be real.
* * *
On the fourth or fifth day, Ric left to replenish the refrigerator and to make a few calls, he said, to some hackers. The news reports were fewer and fewer. He thought it was time, although he didn’t want to place those types of calls near the estate.
While he was gone, I made a chocolate mousse pie with a cracker crust from a recipe of his mother’s, and as it cooled, I explored the inside of the estate by myself, trying to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in that environment.
Aside from the parlor and bedrooms, there was also a large dining hall, complete with a real wood mahogany table and twenty upholstered chairs. I wondered if there had been dinner parties, banquets, luncheons. Servants holding trays. Little Ric’s feet dangling over the edge of a fancy chair.
There was also an art gallery with statues and paintings, an atrium full of herbs and ferns and a music room with a grand piano and stringed instruments mounted on the wall like trophies. Plus, there was a whole other section below the house, complete with another kitchen and small apartments, which I could only guess had once been for the staff.
In its day the estate must have been a bustle of constant people and activity. It made me sad to see it empty and in the beginning stages of neglect.
Such a waste.
Eventually, I found the library. It was a dusty room brimming with books from floor to ceiling. I wanted to find some about pregnancy and motherhood, hopefully one with lots of pictures, but there weren’t any except antique leather-bound novels that creaked when I opened them and smelled like mildew, and I was afraid to handle them.
I was sure they were worth quite a few credits. They didn’t even make paper books anymore.
I gave up on that and kept looking around.
Next door to the library was an office. It had a wall of shelves with various antique office equipment in glass cases, each with its own golden embossed label. There was an old metal keyboard called a typewriter that had an odd rubber roller on the top, a letter opener, which looked like a dull knife, and an old plastic printer. In addition, I found a pile of tablets stacked neatly on one side, and an old desktop computer on the other. It seemed like the office was still in use.
Then a thought struck me.
If one of Ric’s relatives worked for Auberge, and this house was his family’s estate, would there be Auberge files within that office?
And more importantly, if there were, would they be of any help to me?
There was only one way to find out.
I felt like a snoop, but I looked anyway.
First I searched the top of the desk and drawers, touching every tablet, trying to find useful information. Most were full of financial documents and piles and piles of medical reports I couldn’t understand, and one tablet had nothing but pictures organized in a file labeled “Molecules.”
This did me little good.
My curiosity grew.
Why medical documents?
Was Ric’s relative a doctor?
I searched the desk further.
The top drawer had office supplies. An old pair of scissors, some contraption that spit out tiny pieces of metal, which I could only assume had once been used to bind slips of paper, and an assortment of old ink pens.
The top right and left drawers were filled with more financial tablets.
When I pulled on the bottom left drawer of the ornate desk, it wouldn’t open. In fact, it was locked. I checked the desk drawers again, this time looking for a key, but found none.
More determined than ever, I snatched the large sci
ssors from the top drawer and jabbed one of the shears into the lock.
I rattled it around until the drawer popped open.
Inside were more tablets. More medical documents. More molecules.
My frustration grew. I pounded the desk with my fist.
Then I saw it.
One of the tablets at the bottom of the drawer resembled the square black ones the guards used on the Line. I reached for it, and with a touch of my fingertip the screen came alive.
It read “Carriers.”
It was a long list. A list of names and dates.
I didn’t pay it much mind until a name caught my attention: Mame, Girl 8, Line 12.
What the...?
I’d known her. She was the girl who had taught me to read.
My pulse quickened. With nervous fingers, I scrolled down the list.
More names and dates. All girls from the Line. Each one with a date afterward.
My eyes searched for more names I recognized. They went back as far as ten years. But I found none that were familiar until I scrolled all the way to the end and saw one that made me gasp.
Naya, Girl 4, Line 12.
Holy Fuck.
I was the last name on the list.
There was a tall, black leather office chair behind the desk. I involuntarily sat in it as my legs gave out.
The date on the list after my name was approximately three weeks ago.
My release date.
I was a carrier. Whatever that was.
The realization did little to me. Perhaps this was a list of the girls Ric, Sonya and Tym had helped. Carrier could mean a carrier of a child, couldn’t it?
But I doubted Ric would keep a list of those he’d smuggled out and away from Auberge control on a tablet, inside his Auberge-connected family estate. Besides, I also doubted he’d been helping girls escape for ten years. He would have been a teenager.
I found this unlikely. It had to be something else.
I heard a rustling in the kitchen. Ric must have come back from his outside expedition and was most likely in the process of preparing dinner.
I snatched up the tablet of names and made my way to the kitchen with the intent of showing Ric, but when I got there, he was in a state.
