Page 53 of Never Lost (The Unchained #3)

“I did,” Wheatley said. “From one of Erica Muller’s associates, in fact—a former fugitive, one my own father tried to put away back when he was at the agency.

But beyond that, I’ve seen evidence with my own eyes that the system is broken, that the line between free and slave is an accident of fate.

You’re living proof, man. That evidence you gathered—without it, we’d be investigating and probably charging the wrong man. ” He looked at Keith.

“Yeah, and look where it got me,” I muttered.

“Look, I’m under no illusions that it was easy for you.

But you saved their lives, your master’s reputation and future, and probably Langer’s conglomerate, or most of it.

White Cedar is fucked, of course, but Orbital Dynamics will live on.

Langer’s shares will eventually go to his lenders, and the board will appoint somebody else as CEO. ”

“Yeah,” Louisa cut in. “Making billions for everyone at the top, while he kneels here in chains. How is that justice?”

“Loulou, what are they teaching you at that school?” Keith muttered.

“That said,” Wheatley continued, ignoring them both, “I know it’s your own future you’re thinking about now, and I don’t blame you. Did you know Mr. Wainwright-Phillips has been fighting nonstop around the clock since you got thrown in here to get you back?”

I blinked. “He—he has?”

“Yes,” Louisa said, her hand on her father’s arm. “I couldn’t believe it either. But he has.”

“And now, it’s my turn to apologize because it was me and my colleagues who were preventing that from happening.

I couldn’t risk anything happening to you while I bought myself time to get back on the job.

It’s also why you haven’t been re-chipped.

Oh, and by the way, whatever happened to your chip is none of my business,” he added pointedly.

Louisa looked as relieved as I felt. Whatever Wheatley knew or suspected about the breakthrough, it would remain safe—for now.

Idly, I wondered if Louisa had told her father about it.

In any case, he’d invested in White Cedar, so he had to at least suspect.

Not like it mattered with me in chains, and Langer—for all intents and purposes, anyway—dead.

“But now,” Wheatley said, shifting his focus back to Keith but still addressing me, reaching for some papers and a pen folded inside his suit jacket. “Your master can sign some paperwork right now and you’re fr—well, you’re out of here, at least.”

“Nice catch,” I muttered, watching Keith accept the papers and sign.

So that was it, then. I had my answer. I was going back.

To be sold, almost certainly. Keith desperately needed the money, after all.

Maybe not to a mine—he didn’t seem to hate me that much anymore.

After all, he could have just left me to rot.

But somewhere quiet and out of the way. An office?

Maybe somewhere I could still do science, if I kept on being lucky and good.

In other words, back to business as usual.

Before my mission to find Maeve. Before?—

“Stop,” Louisa said.

Keith did, pen poised melodramatically in the air.

“I want an answer now, Daddy. He wants an answer.” She met my eyes. “So give it to him. What happens after this?”

“I—” Keith sputtered as if he hadn’t known this was coming.

“You already lost Ethan, Daddy,” she said softly. “Don’t lose me. And you will if you don’t do the right thing.”

Keith took a huge breath, and the pen dropped out of his hand. “If things were different—” he began.

“If things were different, what?” Louisa prompted, not unkindly. “What would you tell him, Daddy?”

A long pause.

And then, to my utter disbelief, he answered.

“I’d—I’d look him in the eye and tell him to stand up,” he said.

We all gaped. And Keith was gasping, perspiring, like he was struggling to breathe. A religious epiphany could do that to someone, I’d heard. And if I were being honest, the moment was doing something similar to me.

“I’d tell them to take those chains off him once and for all. And—and I’d tell him that he never has to bow his head to anyone, ever again.”

The room went silent.

Even the handler looked stunned.

“Do it,” Wheatley commanded Tarrant.

Tarrant hesitated. But with me no longer in his custody, he had no choice.

Dazed, I held out my hands—for the last time?—as he went to work on no fewer than three different padlocks. One by one, they clattered to the cold concrete.

I rose from my knees, my joints screaming after being frozen like that for an hour.

And then, before I had time to process it, Louisa crossed the floor in a stride.

I watched as Keith shakily capped the pen and closed his eyes, like the scene before him was physically painful to watch.

And for him, it probably was—Louisa’s silky hand gently entwined with mine, her curves yielding to a body encased in the plain gray clothing of servitude.

And then, as if things weren’t bad enough for Keith, I kissed his only daughter, and it was not a chaste kiss.

After all this time? Oh, fuck, no. I gave her my open mouth with two weeks—make that twenty years—of deep, insatiable, pent-up need, and she returned it like the starving warrior she was.

“It’s okay, don’t mind us,” Wheatley remarked, arms folded.

“So then—” Louisa prompted, flushed and out of breath, her grip still firm and solid in mine, waiting for her father to regain his voice and sanity.

“I can’t afford it,” said Keith. “I’m sorry.”

I felt my body crumple along with hers, our shared swoop of hope crushed like a snowdrop under a truck tire.

Keith swallowed again, looking stricken.

“Loulou, the debts haven’t gone anywhere.

The legal costs from the White Cedar investigation only piled onto them.

His sale price was considerable, as you know, and there are administrative fees on top of that.

I can’t just make the money appear. Quite honestly, I can’t afford to keep him now and still keep the house, too. I—I’m going to have to sell him.”

Yup, there it was.

“The bracelet needs to be replaced within thirty days,” said Tarrant, who seemed weirdly gleeful now that things were no longer deviating from the routine. “And you’ll need to make an appointment at the regional slavery bureau to have him re-chipped. We don’t handle that here.”

In my arms, I felt Louisa’s shoulders start to rack. I just squeezed her, as weak as I felt. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, I thought, all while mentally beating the fuck out of myself for ever daring to hope it wouldn’t .

“It’s okay, m?i léift ,” I whispered rapidly, desperately brushing her long curls back from her ear, not sure she could even hear me and definitely sure I didn’t believe it. “I’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“Look, man,” Wheatley spoke up, “you deserve better than this. You really do. Botched con aside, you obviously have a gift—maybe a few gifts.”

Keith broke in, clearly tired of being the bad guy when, for once, he was trying not to be. “I told you if I?—”

“I understand, Mr. Wainwright-Phillips. Really,” Wheatley said, holding up a hand and addressing me again. “Actually, I suspected all along this would be the situation, which brings me to the whole reason I’m here.”

“Which is?” I asked. Please , no more reversals. Peace was all I prayed for as I clung to Louisa, the peace to keep my arms wrapped as protectively around her as I could get them, for as long as I could keep them there. As if I’d never get another chance. Which I might not.

“The truth is that your case has gained some attention,” Arlo—no, Agent Wheatley—said carefully. “There were… interested parties at the federal level.”

I stared at him. “ Interested parties ?”

He hesitated. “Your involvement in the mine collapse has raised a lot of questions. Not just about you, but about how you managed to slip through the cracks. The lack of a chip. Your intelligence. Your connections. And, well,” he said after a long pause, “partially to get them to quit asking questions, I suggested we repurpose you. Well, ‘hire’ was the word I used. ‘Repurpose’ was theirs.”

“What?” I looked at Louisa, then her father, but they looked as confused as I was. “Paid?”

“Well, a stipend. Your real payment will be your freedom, once your contract is up,” said Wheatley.

The words didn’t hit the way he probably thought they would. Freedom. The idea was so foreign, so distant, it may as well have been another language. One of the ones I didn’t speak.

“Mr. Wainwright-Phillips, rest assured you’ll be compensated by the government for our use of the boy,” he continued.

“And I should mention that this is a one-time offer, one that not everyone gets. Frankly, it was a pretty hard sell on my part to get the top brass to let me offer it to you at all, given your… well, history.”

My head was spinning. No more reversals, I’d said, but this… “So I’d be a cop?”

“Not a cop. Regulations prevent us from accepting slaves or former slaves as cops. You’d be a consultant.

On forensics, foreign intelligence, that kind of thing.

Maybe even some undercover work, eventually.

And after some training, naturally. In any case, I promise we’d find a way to use you that takes advantage of your gifts.

However.” Wheatley paused, and even before he said the next part, my stomach fluttered.

“You’d have to agree to have no contact with your owners, former owners and their families, or anyone from your past life, as long as you’re in this job.

For security purposes, we need to ensure that you’re loyal to no one but us.

It’s nonnegotiable. Break the rules, the deal is off, and then God knows where you end up. Simple as that.”

Louisa’s face, unsurprisingly, went sheet-white.

“And my family?” I asked weakly as the understanding that this wasn’t a joke started to sink in, little by little.

“Your family, too.”