Page 1 of Never Lost (The Unchained #3)

HER

T his should have been his moment. Not mine.

It should have been him , not me, standing here while Maeve— his Maeve—curled up in a hammock, looking at me with eyes just like his, asking for him. I wanted to grab my phone, to call him, to fix the fact that he was now the one missing. But I couldn’t. Because I had no idea where he was.

And I had no idea how to tell her.

So I didn’t. For now, I just let her talk. I think she needed it.

“After they said they would free us, we all stopped working,” Maeve said in French.

“The riding school closed; they’d gone bankrupt.

But none of us had the official papers, so we also couldn’t leave.

And yet they wouldn’t feed us. One woman had an infected wound from where she’d been bitten by a horse, and they wouldn’t take her to a doctor.

They said they didn’t have to. We were all terrified, thinking they’d lied and couldn’t afford to buy our freedom; that we’d either be stuck there, starving, or have to leave and risk being caught and enslaved again. That’s when I met her.”

“Resi,” I prompted.

Maeve nodded, still curled fetally in the hammock in a pair of tiny shorts and a tank top, looking impossibly young with her short, baby-fine blond haircut.

But as skinny and battered as her body was, she was the furthest thing from broken.

She spoke calmly, without stammering. And even when she averted her fiery eyes, it only took seconds for her to flick them back boldly in a way that was so familiar it made me shake.

It had become clear, after Maeve had appeared in the doorway of their house like a ghost, that she knew no further English other than the few phrases she’d clearly practiced ahead of time—what she’d already said, plus “yes,” “no,” “I don’t know,” and, of course, “I don’t speak English.”

Not to mention, she kept asking about her brother, and I hadn’t been able to respond—and wouldn’t even if I could. The last thing I wanted to be responsible for was telling Maeve that he was now as missing as she herself had just been.

And where the hell was Erica? Not to mention, where was he ?

Not just so he could help me communicate, but so the siblings could have the reunion they deserved after seven fucking years apart.

Instead, this poor, exhausted, injured, bewildered girl—who longed only to see the brother who’d promised to come for her—was stuck with me.

Useless, hopeless, helpless me, who didn’t even know how to speak?—

“Francais?”

I hadn’t looked too closely into Maeve’s all-too-familiar amber-gold eyes right away, for fear I’d be crushed under the weight, unable to continue the conversation.

But as they’d lit up like a sunburst—and a smile had crept over the pale face with its sprinkling of freckles—I couldn’t help but admire them.

In joy, they were beautiful—every bit as beautiful as I remembered.

“Ouais!”

Of course. Maeve’s brother didn’t speak three languages because he was gifted. He spoke four languages because he was gifted. But Maeve spoke three languages because she was from Luxembourg, as I knew thanks to him that almost everyone there did.

I pulled over one of the lounge chairs up close to the hammock and leaned in.

My own French was proper, evenly paced, schoolgirlish.

Maeve’s French, however, was rapid and spoken in what I soon realized was a heavy Luxembourgish accent, which meant I still missed about two-thirds of what she was saying.

“Répètes-toi, s’il te pla?t? Lentement ? 1 .” I gave her an apologetic smile, and this way, we haltingly continued. I hadn’t wanted to push her too far or too much, nor insist she explain what exactly she’d been through.

But now, as she continued, Maeve didn’t hold back—much.

“A friend, another slave I knew who lived in town, introduced us. It happens all the time, Resi said. Owners lie. They say they’re going to free you and then they don’t. But they don’t want you anymore, so they just let you starve.”

“She wasn’t wrong.” Thanks to Erica, I knew this happened. I knew slaves had died because of it. “But wait. Then that meant ? —”

The realization made my stomach flip.

“You went with her. By choice.”

Maeve nodded, shame clouding her eyes. “I didn’t tell my brother that. I was embarrassed.

It was… okay, at first,” she continued in French.

“The house was beautiful, and we had nice clothes and food. For the first time in my life, I didn’t even have any real work to do.

I didn’t even know what to do with myself.

Most of us didn’t go outside—we were afraid to, anyway, because we might be caught and sent back.

Eventually, she took some of them to the lab.

She said she needed our help to free us all. ”

“Did they come back?”

She shook her head.

“She told us she was experimenting with something that would make it so we would never have to worry about being enslaved again. That it would only take another month or so and then we’d all be free to go, without worrying about being caught, and that we’d have money, too, and education.

A brand-new life. Most of them believed her and went with her willingly to the lab.

But some didn't come back, and it was taking longer than she said it would—and then we who were left started asking more and more questions that she wouldn’t answer—and then she started getting scared—and locked the doors—and started making us—and then finally, finally, she took me to the lab. ” She closed her eyes delicately.

Shit. I’d pushed her too far.

“Lie down, Maeve,” I said. “Relax. You don’t have to tell me anything before you’re ready.

” I got up to refill the glass of water she had been drinking from and rummaged around for some food—cheese, crackers, granola bars.

I didn’t even know if Maeve was hungry, but it felt useful, for some reason.

On the way in, I noticed the blood soaking through her bandage.

I was no doctor yet, not even close, but I knew enough to know she’d need that changed soon.

Maeve closed her eyes, and her tiny form curled in on itself.

“I just—I made up stories.” She closed her eyes as if this were the one nice memory she’d kept—as if she’d maybe even substituted stories for reality, as she’d done long ago, much to the annoyance of her brother.

“And I told them I had a brother who was coming for me. That he’d help us. That he’d help them.”

“The other girls, you mean?”

“No,” she said, glancing down at her bandage.

And for the first time, I looked, too, at the thick gauze wrapped around Maeve’s arm and hand, so tightly that from a distance it would have been almost impossible to tell what was there—and what was missing.

I recoiled in horror, turning my head away and covering my mouth.

Maeve looked, tears rolling down from her beautiful eyes. “Not all of them needed help. Just the ones like me. The ones who found out the truth.”

When the door finally opened around four, Maeve had passed out in the hammock again, under a furry white blanket I had draped over her to keep her from the desert’s evening chill.

Soon after, I had fallen asleep too on the lounge chair, a book of Irish poetry over my face.

I was grateful that Maeve had drifted off first because trying to explain that tears were streaming down my cheeks because I thought I’d just discovered a love message from her older brother would be too embarrassing for words.

I bolted upright at the noise but collapsed back down in relief a second later. It was Erica and Milagros.

I watched from the doorway as my professor dragged herself through the door, more of a disheveled whirlwind than usual, and collapsed on the densely pillowed sofa.

Millie the cat bounded over, meowing, and Erica stroked her tail absently.

Milagros, meanwhile, her aquamarine hair spiked up high and wearing a black tank top with a rather rude message printed on it, went to the kitchen to feed the cat and open a bottle of Txakoli.

She noticed me standing in the doorway of the kitchen and didn’t even flinch, as if she’d somehow expected me to be there.

”How is she?”

“Asleep. Where?—”

“An eight-hour meeting with the Board of Regents,” called Milagros, with predictable vitriol in her voice. “That’s the answer to the question you were about to ask.”

“But why did you cancel your office hours? Don’t they know that you?—”

“Louisa, I don’t have access to my office or my email.” She sighed. “I’ve been suspended from teaching.”

“What?” I exclaimed, clapping a hand over my mouth so as not to wake Maeve.

“Somehow, someone found out what my associates were doing to help get Maeve out of the house, traced it back to me, and reported it to the board.”

“What did they do?”

“They used one of our med students’ credentials to schedule an ambulance,” she said.

“Claimed Maeve had a specialist appointment off-site on orders from Max Langer, which Resi didn’t contest. The driver was one of ours.

Unfortunately, doing that for three other girls proved unfeasible, and we didn’t have time to come up with a different plan for them.

And now,” she added forlornly, “if I get caught doing anything else like this”—she gestured around the room—“I’ll be fired.

And Milagros will be expelled. I have it all in writing.

” She whipped a piece of paper out of her leather satchel and tossed it limply on the coffee table.

“And my other associates can’t, either, because that will be linked back to me, too. ”

“What? Why now?” My head spun with the implications. “I thought they already knew you?—”