Page 33 of Never Lost (The Unchained #3)

HIM

S tars.

Antares. Almach. Aldebaran.

Andromeda. Cassiopeia. Perseus. Gemini.

Sternenflüsterin.

“Where’d she go?” Maeve had asked, popping open the skylight of our attic room and clambering carefully up beside me in her hand-me-down nightgown.

The cold black slate of the eaves was rough and uneven beneath our hands and feet, and the hazy golden light of Luxembourg City did its best to ruin the stars for two kids who’d been waiting all day to see them.

But tonight, it hadn’t succeeded. Not completely. “Where’s Sternenflüsterin?”

I sighed and kicked the eaves, watching rotting roof tile and moss tumble down onto our master’s manicured lawn. I’d be raking that up tomorrow.

She’s not real, you ridiculous kid. You made her up like Frankenstein, from half of Scorpius and a little bit of Libra.

There aren’t any pink unicorns with diamond hooves and rainbow manes, in the stars or anywhere else.

And if they ever do find one, they sure as hell aren’t going to give it to you .

“Well,” I said instead of any of that, “we’re always facing away from the sun at night, so we see different constellations as we orbit around it. It’s like… a big game of hide-and-seek.”

“So what does that mean?”

“She’ll come back,” I told her. Maeve yawned and nuzzled my shoulder. Like me, like always, she’d worked a twelve-hour day, and now her fine but tangled blond hair fell across my oversized hoodie, her fingers digging into the fabric, helpless against sleep. “She’ll always come back.”

I jerked awake, rattling my chain, surprised I’d fallen asleep at all. Yes, I was exhausted, but I’d also be dead soon, so all in all, it didn’t make a ton of sense.

The stars, though. This was no Luxembourg City. It wasn’t even fully dark yet, but already, they were all arrayed for me in this utterly overwhelming violet sky. Every single one.

In Rio Dulce, too, Maeve would be able to see Sternenflüsterin. She’d be able to see every constellation she’d ever made up, and that far south, maybe a few new ones, too.

Meanwhile, I’d be dead, but I’d always suspected that was probably what it would take to save her. Frankly, it hadn’t seemed like that big of a deal, back when there’d been nobody but Maeve that I cared about leaving behind, and nobody who cared about me . But now?

“It worked, you know.” If Resi, for whatever reason, was telling the truth, and my plan had somehow succeeded despite the laughably terrible odds, then I knew I’d never see Louisa again. Ever. There’d be no way for her to find me.

I hoped there wouldn't be because that was the best chance for her, and her family, and the other girls, to be safe. And it was the only hope I had left.

Some water sure would be nice, though. My thirst had become a fire, a craving that drove me to inhale the harsh, dry air as if it could somehow condense into liquid in my mouth. But only blood lingered, a metallic tang that intensified with every sand-raked swallow.

Worse, the cuts on my legs and hands had festered with sores, rashes, and cavities. With each movement, grains of sand grated against them. My whole body was burning from the inside out. Or maybe the outside in. In any case, from everywhere.

And it was cold. It was fucking cold . I shivered and cursed the desert, and my luck to have wound up in a place whose weather made the least goddamn sense of any biome on earth.

And now an exhaust-spewing SUV was sputtering up the road. Noam.

A growl formed deep in my throat. It seemed my transformation into an actual dog had begun.

As Noam approached, only my eyes moved. As the goon raised the pickaxe, I squeezed in on myself like a frightened snail. But I couldn’t wriggle, couldn’t squirm, couldn’t even move. All I could be was a target. This time, at least, everything went black early.

Much to my dismay, I woke up alive. I didn’t think my pain could get worse, but, well, I’d been wrong a lot recently. Hell, that was torture in itself.

Cry, you bastard. You’re going to die here, and no one’s going to ever fucking see, so let it all go. Do it. Cry.

But I couldn’t. Maybe I’d forgotten how.

“I told you, baby, let the tears fall,” whispered Resi in the moonlight.

I went rigid. Where the hell did this motherfucking bitch keep jumping out from?

“You’ll feel better.”

I growled into the bit again. It wasn’t a threat, really, or a plea for help. It was a plea for death.

Kill me. End this. I don’t care.

Like before, I wasn’t sure if I meant it. But I also wasn’t sure that I didn’t.

Resi smoothed the hair on the crown of my head, the few strands untouched by blood, and planted a light kiss that, if I didn’t know whose lips they were, I might have leaned into. Just because it was something that wasn’t pain.

Instead, I managed to jerk away by a centimeter. For Resi’s sake, I could accomplish that .

“Still defiant, huh? Oh, honey. I tried.”

A crumpling noise, and I blinked to see her hold up a manila envelope.

My heart lurched, somewhere deep inside.

When her hand emerged, set delicately in the ridges between her thumb and finger, glinting triumphantly in the moonlight, was a microchip.

My microchip, because who else’s would it be?

She hadn’t ever successfully removed any others, as far as I knew.

“It came out,” she said. “Still transmitting. It just didn’t travel as far as you’d hoped.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, and it all came back. The envelope. The formula. Lemaya.

It was over. Resi would destroy the formula, of course. And instead of helping free slaves, I’d only managed to get one—Lemaya—killed. And soon enough Louisa, myself, and probably a hell of a lot of other people, too.

“Your bro Corey didn’t think you’d seen enough of that for one lifetime,” Resi said, though I could barely hear her anymore. Was it too late to choose death? If I couldn’t do anything to stop this, I probably should. “But luckily, I do, so I have a little deal for you.”

She reached down delicately, opening the case she had been carrying from the start, revealing a vial of sulfuric acid. Because she would have a vial of sulfuric acid.

“Anyway, up to you.” She shrugged. “Oh, and yeah, obviously I might be lying about everything. But none of that matters because you love her too much to risk it.”

Through my shock and sickness and grief came the crumpling of the plastic water jug.

“Well?”

The words fell dejectedly out of my atrophied tongue. “Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied, she grabbed my throat, tilted my head back, and tipped it all down.

And because there was no longer any reason not to, I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, whimpering as I gulped cold liquid silver, the life she alone could give and take away, like the mistress she’d been waiting her whole life to transform into.

Like the slave it seemed I was always destined to be, no matter how strong, no matter how smart, no matter how capable.

But at least Louisa would never see me this way.

I changed my mind again. I wouldn’t cry after all.

That was the one thing I wouldn’t give Resi.

“Good boy.”

My head collapsed onto my shoulder again, eyes staring dully and obediently at the dirt.

Resi’s hand curled slowly and tenderly around my neck, cool as ice. My eyelashes fluttered. Like I liked it. Like I was already hers.

“You’ll learn to love that phrase.”

HER

I knew now that the man outside Ivy’s house hadn’t even been after Alma and Erica. He may not have even known they were there.

It was me he’d been stalking. For hours. For years .

Obadiah’s clammy hand clapped onto my face before I could speak, scream, or attempt to fight back. As if I could anyway. It was a miracle I’d even made it up the steps.

Figured. Last time, I could have fought but chose not to. This time, I wanted to but couldn’t.

He wrenched my phone away easily, then dug into the envelope and reached into it savagely, pulling out a fistful of bills, a wad of papers with scientific notation, and a note in handwriting that made my stomach leap.

Unfolding the note, the former gardener grinned in what could pass for recognition, though I knew he couldn’t read what it said.

In any case, he let it flutter down the rocky escarpment in the breeze, so now I never would, either.

“Ya know, Miss Loulou, I always heard there was nothing in the world better than freedom.” He sloppily folded up the remains of the envelope and jammed it into his pocket.

His rotting mouth contorted, and his grimy-as-ever fingers burrowed excruciatingly into my wounds as we descended the stone steps, the rising moon already casting eerie yellow shadows.

My senses clouded over with panic, and the chill again highlighted the dampness of my clothes.

I’d hoped to be alone up here, but not anymore.

Where were the stoners? Where was Wheatley?

Where were the police? Where was anybody ?

And most importantly, where was the boy I thought I’d find?

I was supposed to save him, and now here I went again, needing saving.

Pathetic, stupid, useless girl. And now, a dead one.

Because there was no one. We were alone. The predator, at long last, had trapped his prey.

“But the truth is, it ain’t much different than being a slave,” Obadiah was rambling.

“Long hours, hard work, rich assholes telling ya what to do all the time. Sure, having money is nice and all, but now I gotta pay for food and beer and rent, so at the end of the month, it don’t add up to much.

And if that weren’t bad enough, I finally get the chance, after all this time watching from a distance, to touch you, really touch you, and what happens?

My new mistress—uh, boss—tells me I can’t.

Even worse, she orders me to burn off all that pretty skin of yours before I get the chance to enjoy it.

No,” he continued, “freedom ain’t been all it’s cracked up to be. ”

Dragging me off the main path and into some low trees, he released his hand from my mouth.

But I didn’t even get to scream before he jerked me around and rammed me by the throat up against the trunk of a palo verde, the bark raining down on my hair and face as I wheezed.

Even in the weakening light, his few remaining teeth glowed yellow as they neared.

“That is, until now.”