I pulled one of the pills from Dr. Mercia out of my pocket.
“Take one,” I said. “That’s what they’re there for.”
Ellie shook her head. “It makes me foggy. I can’t.”
What irritated me the most was that the other women didn’t have the same problems Ellie, perhaps because they weren’t fighting the voice like she was. It made me angry. Why should she have to suffer when she was trying to fight? Wasn’t fighting the urge to obey her fucked up programming hard enough?
Ellie walked past me, her gait staggering from the pain, but as she met the women in the hallway, Ellie linked arms with the short-haired woman from the woods, leaning into her. With all of the women next to each other, I realized that they were all Ellie had. No matter how much pain Ellie was in, both emotionally and physically, she still tried to help them. She still tried to trust me.
I couldn’t understand how someone could be selfless and trusting, even after everything she had been through. It didn’t make sense. She should have hated everyone around her, should have been running as far away as she could, never speaking to another person again. But she still wanted to help. And that, among other reasons, made me want to protect her, to give her a space where no one could hurt her ever again. Not even me.
I hovered behind them, listening from the doorway.
“So you’ll get to sleep in here. Private rooms,” Iris said, then patted the door. “But know that once you step foot into the hallway, there are cameras. And you will be watched.” She cleared her throat. “The Adlers have security throughout the club, as well as the parking lot and the surrounding woods. There’s actually a ratio of four to one. So, you know, you can’t leave the premise. At all.”
“You’re refreshingly straightforward,” one of the women said.
“I’ve learned the hard way about keeping secrets from friends,” Iris said, tilting her head. “I’d rather you know exactly what’s going on.”
My chest tightened. Was it stupid of Iris to be telling them the truth? Besides Ellie, each of them was wearing restraints and couldn’t run away. And with our extra security watching the perimeter and the interior of the Dahlia District, there wasn’t a chance that they would get very far, even if they didn’t have cuffs.
“You’re really just here to help us,” Ellie said, her voice quiet, but reassured.
“Right,” Iris said. “I want to help you.”
Iris showed the other women to their rooms, and Ellie helped one of the women—I think her name was Billy—settle in. She brushed Billy’s hair, then spoke to her in a quiet voice. Billy’s forehead had the same pained expression as Ellie’s, and I wondered if Ellie had convinced her of the truth too. That we weren’t the real enemies. Perhaps Billy was fighting it after all.
Ellie’s light brown hair dusted her shoulders, her bright blue eyes choppy and full of pain, but lurking behind them was the urge to fight for what was right. She stroked her friend’s arms and hair with a gentle touch, trying to give her comfort in a world that must have been terrifying. Ellie was beautiful, but she was strong too, stronger than she knew. Even when the world tried to control her, tried to bring her down, Ellie had fought hard for her family.
A pain swelled in my chest. I knew I wasn’t helping Ellie. I was part of the problem.
Iris appeared at my side, staring at Ellie inside of the room too. I rubbed my hands together, then turned away, heading back to the kitchen where my brothers were waiting. They were in a heated discussion, and because I couldn’t be bothered to care about what they were talking about right then, I went to the kitchen sink and splashed my face with water. The sounds of women in the dorm rooms steadily increased in volume. A few of the entertainers came to the kitchen to see what was going on, what Derek and Axe were arguing about, missing the fact that there were cuffed women occupying the once-empty bedrooms.
It seemed simple here. The club wasn’t full of dead men butchered to pieces like it was out there.
Iris leaned against the counter, then crossed her arms. “You’re pretty into her, aren’t you?” she asked.
I raised a brow. It was such a seemingly simple question. But coming from Iris, someone I barely knew, it meant a lot more than that.
“So it’s that pathetic already,” I scoffed.
“No, actually,” she said, dropping the bitter tone from before. “She seems like a good woman. It’d be hard not to fall for someone like that.”
That was only the start of it. There was much more to Ellie than what Iris could see from the surface.
“So what’s the problem?” Iris asked. “Besides the attempted murder and all.”
I shrugged. It was hard to explain. Had I met Ellie before the Skyline Shift experiments, she might have been exactly what I was looking for. A woman untarnished by the world, who had a dirty mind and a will to fight.
But now, I would never be able to trust her to be faithful to my family, to be loyal to me. She had been conditioned to kill me, and I would always have to sleep with one eye open, waiting for a new trigger to set her off.
And in the end, I had forced her to be mine. My dreams of being her god seemed so insignificant now. There was no reason for her to be loyal to me.
“She’s not the problem,” I said. “I am.”
Iris shrugged. “At least you realize it,” she said. “That shows improvement, doesn’t it?”
I smiled; there it was, the Iris I had come to expect. She smiled at me though, showing that the comment was not an insult, but said with sincerity.
