Page 56 of Never Lost

I’d be lying if I said the sight of it so close didn’t make me shudder, but if I was sure of anything, it was that Resi’s henchman wouldn’t shoot me dead beforeshearrived to join the fun.

Other than that, all bets were off.

“So here’s the stray,” Noam announced. “All chained up, waiting for your bone.”

Great, the dog analogies again. Corey had loved those. But this asshole was no Corey. For one thing, he looked like he could actually win a fight. IQ was probably about the same, though.

From the trunk, Noam produced a small plastic water bottle, dripping condensation and comically small in his hand. Still, I desperately jerked my head toward it in an almost Pavlovian response.

With his teeth, he unscrewed the plastic cap and spat it aside, then held the bottle up to his own mouth, letting the cold water run down his sweaty cheeks and chin and dropping in dark drops on the sand. I strained against the chains almost involuntarily as if I could dive and catch them before they expired.

Noam’s laughter. A sound I really didn’t ever care to hear again. “Go fetch.”

I gasped as I watched the strangely crystal-hued bottle arc in the sun, spraying whatever was left of its contents every which way, and feeling any pride I had left melting away in the heat as I dove for it, straining against the chain. The most I could do, though, was kick it toward myself and tilt my head down toward it, try to figure out some conveyance to get it past the muzzle and shake out even a drop. The best I could pull off, though, was poke my tongue a little bit past the bit that kept it pinned down, enough to touch the very top of the bottle, though the slight moisture I felt there could very well be my fevered imagination. In the end, I just slumped back down into the dust on my knees, limp against the chain, wishing Resi had covered my ears, too, if only to block out the sound of Noam’s wheezy laughter.

Dully, I stared down at the dark spots on the dirt where the spilled water was already disappearing, slowly, hopelessly, blinking grit and detritus out of my inflamed eyes.

But no tears. Not yet.

Her

“You heard me. Track it. Now.” I spoke with precision again. Like cut glass. No hesitance. No doubt.

“Loulou, you heard what the agent said,” my father protested with a sigh. “There’s no point. They’re gone. Even the plane is off the radar.”

“Daddy, he wasn’t on the plane. In fact, he’s probably still somewhere very nearby, in serious danger that he put himself in at least partly onyourbehalf, and if we don’t find him now,wemight be dead soon, too. And we might not be the only ones.”

“How do you know this?”

I leaped out of my chair again and gestured to the length of my burned body. “For fuck’s sake, Daddy, do you think I did this tomyself? Oh, and by the way? I know what happened to Ethan.”

His face, as I’d expected, went pale. A mix of shock, horror, anger, and something I couldn’t even name. Complete and utter denial, maybe. “What in God’s name are you talking about? What does that have to do with?—”

“Everything,” I said. “It has everything to do with it.”

“I don’t—” He looked at the agents and then back at me. “Where? Where is he?” His eyes had gone from exhausted to wild, those of a desperate father clinging to hope.

“Track. The. Chip,” I said. “And I’ll tell you.”

Robotically, he removed his phone from his pocket, again, and began swiping. It was a simple app, the tracker chip. Once someone bought a slave, ownership was electronically transferred and the records updated, with the new slave linked to the owner in the app. From then on, it took only seconds to pinpoint their location and summon the police if needed.

At least that was how it wassupposedto work.

“I can’t,” my father said. “It isn’t working.” He looked bewildered. “This has never?—”

“I’m afraid you no longer have that privilege, Mr. Wainwright-Phillips,” Labrecque broke in, her voice booming with glee. “Your slaves—along with all your other assets—have been frozen indefinitely, pending the outcome of the investigation.”

“This is bullshit!”

Every head spun toward me.

“Miss Wainwright-Phillips, you’re completely out of line,” Labrecque hissed, her voice dripping with condescension. “We have protocols to follow in these situations for a reason. It’s for your safetyandthat of the slaves.”

I scoffed audibly.

“Now, if there were some kind of emergency situation, for instance, if someone were in imminent danger?—”

“Someoneisin danger!”