Page 13 of Dangerous Deviance

What’s Jimmy’s? the voice asked.It’s a clue. It has to be.

“What’s Jimmy’s?”

“The restaurant with a gambling hall in—” she stopped mid-sentence, then gawked at me. She leaned forward. “Are you even from Sage City?”

Sage City?

Where is that? The more you know, the better off you’ll be to find her.

“Sage City?”

Maddie’s lips pressed together. “I guess not. Where are you from, then?” She shifted her weight, leaning back in the seat. “Do you remember?”

I closed my eyes, trying to reach as far back as I could, but there was nothing. Just the dream of my sister, the ghosts of my parents, all four of us on that river shore. I went there in my mind, trying to see more, and after a few seconds, I saw it: flashes of dome buildings, rounded with glass walls, safety washing over me. Then a ringing started, shattering the image.

Look forward, the voice said.Help your sister.

The dome buildings with endless lines of people. Nameless, faceless, all of us—

Ask her, the voice interrupted. Then the ringing grew, dissolving the image, a pain growing behind my eyes.She knows more than she’s telling you.

I shook my head, getting rid of the sound. “What can you tell me?” I asked. “About Wil. About this place. And Sage City?”

“Sage City is the capital of the state. And the family? They have their hands in alotof it.” She shrugged and ate a few more bites. “You can spit in any direction and hit something they control.”

“The police?”

She nodded. “Everyone bows to the family.”

“And Wil?”

“He runs the gambling hall. Runs a lot of the drug deals too.” She smiled to herself. “Has more money than any sane person knows what to do with.”

I raised a brow. She seemed a little too eager to compliment him. “I thought you saw him as a brother?”

She laughed. “I’m just saying, is it really that bad?” She gestured around us. “It could be so much worse. But you get this all to yourself. And all you have to do is be his toy.”

The word ‘toy’ put a bad taste in my mouth. He might not have been the worst of the brothers, but that didn’t mean he was good, simply because he wasn’t bad. At the end of the day, he had still forced me into a sexual relationship. And no one deserved that.

Maddie bolted upright, her eyes lighting up with an idea. “You know what you should do?” She nodded like it was the best idea she had come up with all year. “Get him to fall in love with you. Then you can do whatever you want!”

I furrowed my brows. “Love isn’t real.”

“Really?” She cocked her chin. “What makes you so sure?”

Because family was the only kind of love that didn’t leave you. And I refused to believe that my sister had left me. She had been taken. I needed to find her.

I didn’t have time to make a man fall in love with me, just so that I could get a promotion from sex toy, to wife. I needed to find my sister. Now.

Perhaps she has a point, the voice said. I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. Go away, I thought. Stupid voice. Stop trying to tell me what to do. But it continued anyway:Love is a dangerous drug. If he’s under your spell, you can control him. Just like he wants to control you.

And then you can use him to find her.

I didn’t want anyone’s help. Especially not his. And Wil didn’t seem like someone who cared either way. Live or die, all he wanted was a toy.

But he had said that he would help me find her, if only I agreed. And I had agreed.

Where was my sister?