Page 6 of Shadow Waltz
“How'd you get out?”
“I didn't get out. I got bought.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but they were true. “Spent three years with a collector in the Hamptons who liked his boys young and broken. When he got bored, he sold me to someone else. When that one died, I ran.”
He was quiet for a long moment, processing what I'd told him. “How many times?”
“This'll be number four,” I said, testing the zip ties around my wrists for the hundredth time. “But I'm done being anyone's pet. This time, I'm burning the whole thing down.”
He laughed, and the sound was like broken glass scraping against concrete. “That's what they all say. Hell, that's what I said when they grabbed me the first time.” He traced the faded track marks on his forearms with one finger, like he was reading braille. “But you learn to survive it, or you don't.”
I studied his face, looking for cracks in the resignation, for any sign of the person he'd been before this place got its claws in him. There was something fierce still burning underneath all that exhaustion, a pride that hadn't been beaten out of him yet.
“How many times for you?” I asked.
“Three. Different owners, same ending.” He met my eyes, and I saw that fierce pride burning bright. “HIV positive, queeras hell, and still breathing. They think that makes me worth less. Joke's on them, though. I'm worth exactly what I say I'm worth.”
Something cracked open in my chest when he said it. Not weakness, but recognition. Here was someone who refused to be erased, even when the world kept trying to wipe him off the map. Someone who'd found a way to hold onto himself in a place designed to strip away everything that made you human.
It reminded me of Cass, of the way they'd held their head high even when they were coughing up blood on that subway platform. The way they'd smiled at me like I was worth saving, right up until the moment those men in suits dragged them away.
“What's your real name?” I asked.
His smile was the first genuine thing I'd seen all day, bright and beautiful and absolutely devastating. “Miguel Santos. And you're not 'Lot 17,' are you?”
Saying my name felt like rebellion, like reclaiming a piece of myself they couldn't buy or sell or brand with their fucking stickers.
“Ash,” I said, and the word tasted like freedom on my tongue.
“Ash,” Miguel repeated, like he was testing the weight of it. “That's a good name. Strong. You gonna burn this place down when you get the chance?”
“That's the plan.”
Miguel's grin widened, and for a second I could see who he'd been before all this, before the streets and the needles and the men in expensive suits who collected broken boys like trophies. “I'd like to see that. Maybe I'll stick around long enough to help.”
“You ever hear of anyone getting out? I mean really getting out, not just sold to someone new?”
Miguel shook his head. “Not from the big operations like this one. Small-time traffickers, sure, they get sloppy. But this?” He gestured around the prep room, taking in the expensiveequipment and professional setup. “This is corporate-level shit. They've got systems, protocols, backup plans for their backup plans.”
I'd figured as much. When I'd been young and desperate and stupid enough to believe in rescue fantasies, I'd thought someone would come looking for me. Police, FBI, some government agency that gave a damn about missing foster kids. But no one ever came, and eventually I'd stopped looking for white knights and started looking for ways to save myself.
The attendant finished her work and stepped back, giving me one last critical look. “Photography time,” she announced in a bored tone, like she was scheduling a dental cleaning instead of documenting human trafficking. She gestured toward a white backdrop that had been set up in the corner, complete with professional lighting and a camera on a tripod.
I should have kept my mouth shut. The casual way she'd ignored my earlier comments about escape and revenge told me everything I needed to know—either she'd heard it all before and knew it was just desperate talk, or she was paid well enough not to care what the merchandise said as long as they cooperated when it mattered.
My stomach lurched, but I forced myself to stand, spine straight as a blade. I'd learned a long time ago that showing fear was like bleeding in shark-infested water. It just brought more predators.
“Promotional photos,” the photographer explained as she adjusted her lens. She was young, maybe early twenties, with dead eyes and hands that shook just enough to tell me she hated this as much as I did. “For the catalog.”
Catalog. Like I was a fucking car or a piece of furniture. Eight years, and they were still using the same playbook, still reducing human beings to marketing materials for monsters with more money than conscience.
“Look at the camera,” she instructed. “Try to seem approachable.”
I looked at the camera, all right. Stared right into that lens like I was looking into the eyes of every sick bastard who'd see this photo later, who'd pass it around their private clubs and discuss my “qualities” over brandy and cigars. I'd been through this three times before, and each time I'd tried a different approach. Defiance, submission, blank indifference. None of it mattered in the end. They saw what they wanted to see.
This time, I bared my teeth in what might have been a smile if you squinted hard enough and ignored the violence behind it. Let them see exactly what they were buying. Let them know that owning me was going to cost them more than money.
The flash went off, bright enough to leave spots dancing in my vision. I imagined my photo being uploaded to some dark corner of the internet, reduced to a commodity in a market that traded in human misery. My body inventoried and priced like meat at a butcher shop.
The door burst open before the photographer could set up the next shot, and two guards hauled in a girl who couldn't have been older than nineteen. She was fighting them every step of the way, her bare feet sliding on the polished concrete as she tried to plant herself like a tree they couldn't uproot.