Page 69 of Change

It was just a building. I could keep things factual and without emotion. It’d been over ten years, and no one had lived here for quite some time. The past was in the past.

And then… there was Titus and Damen, with Uncle Gregory in tow.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

Damen pushed past the others, elbowing Bryce out of the way. He hooked his finger under my chin, raising my face toward his. “Baby, before we start, I want you to know you’re not being pressured to do anything. Don’t say a word if you don’t want to.”

I nodded. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again. “You look worse than normal.”

I frowned at him.Thatwas certainly not the way to a woman’s heart.

His eyes widened a fraction of an inch, and when he spoke next the confidence had fallen and his expression became sheepish. “Not that you don’talwayslook beautiful. It’s just that—”

“It’sfine,” I repeated once more, this time for Damen’s sake. I stepped back from him, lightly slapping at his hands. “Let’s just get this over with.”

My breath was heavy as I pushed past the others and approached the small concrete patio. It’d never been much of a patio. There’d never been an awning to shade us during the hot summer days, or the rain, as we’d waited here just to be let into the house.

“My God,” Bryce was hissing to Damen, but not low enough for me not to hear. “What is wrong with you? You’re gettingworse. Don’t tell me that not being swooned over is affecting your vocabulary.”

Damen made a low sound—a retort ready—but I pointed to the stairs. “This is the only entrance we were allowed to use.” My nerves had vanished—only a strange, hollow numbness remaining. My voice was surprisingly steady. “Mr. Richards wouldn’t let us near the front door.”

The lightened mood dropped instantly. Damen stepped to my right, and Titus to my left. Somewhere behind me, I could feel Bryce and Uncle Gregory’s stares.

“We?” Damen asked.

I hugged myself as a familiar warning rang in the back of my head. Dr. Kohler had tried to have this conversation with me what felt like a million times. And with her, I froze. My thoughts would be lost in the horrors of my memories, and my imagination had been left to fill in the rest.

What exactly had the layout been? I could only remember bits and pieces—unsure of what was reality and what I might have dreamed. There were gaps in my memories, and a cloud covered my thoughts until I wasn’t certain of my own senses.

But here, with the remains of my old home in front of me, things were different. My fingers twitched, digging into the space between my waist and elbows.Thishad been real. The layout was there, and I could almost feel the splintering wood of a roughly assembled banister.

I might be able to do this.

“It was mostly boys.” I ascended the three short stairs, glancing to where the railing once stood. “At least, the ones treated like me. We were different. Most of the other girls had their own place.”

Vaguely, I knew I was managing to speak in complete sentences. Memory hadn’t rendered me comatose.

Would Dr. Kohler be upset if she knew what I was doing right now? This was what she’d been bugging me about for years.

“Different how?” Damen asked.

I shrugged, ducking into the kitchen. The black and white laminate tile had also mostly escaped the fire unchanged, but the years’ worth of weather and ruin had discolored it into an almost unrecognizable mud and yellow. The others trailed into the room, and I knew they were analyzing me, but I ignored them.

“Most of the girls were meant to be adopted,” I explained. “They lived in a different part of the house and got nice things and good food. They never were…” My words trailed off, but only for a second.

The ceiling light was missing a sconce. That might have been from the fire—or maybe before. Mr. Richards never cared much about repairs in places where clients wouldn’t see.

“They never weregame.” My focus wandered to the mold-covered fridge. “He didn’t want them dying, I guess.”

“How often did a hunt end in someone dying?” Uncle Gregory was the one who spoke this time.

“Not a lot,” I answered. “Only if the dogs got out of control.”

Uncle Gregory was frowning, but not looking at me. It made talking to him tremendously easier. “How often were the hunts?” he asked.

I could almost feel the tension radiating from Titus and Damen, and Bryce loomed in the corner of my vision. “Only once or twice a month, per person.”