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Chapter thirteen
I wanted to scream, to shout,“You can’t own people,”but it would have been fruitless. They had already moved on to the next girl. My only hope was finding a way to get the fuck out of here… alive.Who the fuck were these people?How many of them were there? What happened next?
A hooded figure emerged from one of the many hallways and grabbed me by the robe. The blood from my cut immediately soiled the white silk. A silver mask with intricate carvings covered the man’s face, hiding his identity. It could have been Lincoln for all I knew. It wasn’t. My body would have recognized his presence. But it could have been.
I wished it was, wished that he’d somehow concocted a plan to sneak in and save me from this madness. Apparently, I had too much faith in chick-flicks and romance novels. In the real world, the hero didn’t swoop in and save the damsel in distress. In the real world, the damsel had to grab a sword and save herself.
The hooded guy yanked me out of the room. My bare feet dragged along the floor despite me trying to fight my way out of his grip. My fingers clawed at his forearms, making him grip my robe tighter, splitting it open in the front. Awesome. Now I was flashing anyone who decided to walk by—not that anyone would care. This was the kind of place where no one could hear you scream. And those who did, probably liked it. I stopped fighting him long enough to pull my robe closed.
He hauled me down a long hallway lit only by red-flamed sconces on stone walls—just like the ones in The Chamber—then outside through an arched wooden door. The cut Kipton gave me stung like hell when the night air hit it. I pulled my robe tighter to my chest as if that would help.
It didn’t.
I looked around for something, anything, that might tell me where we were. All I saw was the back of the church-like building, a gravel road, and trees.
A sleek black car pulled up, and the hooded guy opened the back door, then shoved me inside. He didn’t even bother making sure I ducked my head. Good thing I was paying attention. A second later, the man who stood up in the large circular room and claimed me—Grey, they called him—climbed in and slid across the leather seat, stopping when his thigh brushed mine. I flinched when the car door slammed shut.
He placed his hand on my knee. “Relax, little one.” His accent told me he wasn’t American. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
Little one. He phrased it like an endearment, but I hated it. My heart yearned to be calledSongbird, even though I had a feeling I would never hear that name again. Anger simmered in my gut. This man didn’t get to use nicknames in place of my name. He hadn’t earned that right.
“My name is Lyric.” Not that he cared. He thought he owned me now. In his mind, my name was whatever he wanted it to be.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
And I was supposed to believe that? He knew Kipton, the man who believed it was okay to force birth control upon an entire nation and then make anyone who threatened to call him out on it disappear. This man was one ofthem. Not to mention the fact that if he “owned” me, he must have justboughtme. Like a prize at an auction. I wondered how much I went for. Did he flinch when he wrote the check? Did I at least make a dent in his bank account? My mind screamed,“What was my life worth?”
I crossed one leg over the other, pulling my knee from under his hand, and leaned my forehead against the window. I had no idea where we were, but it was obvious I was no longer in New York City. There were no cars other than ours on the two-lane road, and even in the darkness, I saw the silhouette of hillsides in the moonlight. There were no tall buildings on the skyline, just the occasional amber glow of a light in a faraway window.
My chest hurt, and not just because of the cut. It physically ached, like a huge weight was on top of me making it hard to breathe.
I missed Lincoln.
I missed Tatum.
I missed my dad.
The pain etched on his face was something I would never forget as long as I lived. How did he not see me? Why didn’t he know I was still in there somewhere? I wanted to fight. I wanted to scream. I needed them to know I was okay. How long had I been gone? What were they all doing now? Did I have a funeral? How did you even have a funeral with an empty casket?
The road curved, bringing a large body of water into view. The waves were calm, too calm to be the ocean. It had to be a river maybe, or a lake. The ripples danced in the reflection of the moonlight. It reminded me of Crestview Lake, where I’d first met Tatum. Maybe we’d gone upstate. Maybe we weren’t too far from home.
I thought about waiting for the next curve in the road, for the driver to slow down just enough for me to open the door and jump out. How far could I make it? A wave of adrenaline burst through me at the idea that I might actually pull it off.
“Where are we?” I asked without looking over at the man sitting beside me.
“Edinburgh.” His voice was smooth, unmoved by my presence.
I lifted my head from the glass. “Edinburgh?” I only knew of one Edinburgh. I’d learned about it in ninth-grade geography.
“Scotland,” he added.
My eyes shot to his, hoping, expecting,prayingto find some hint of humor there. There was none. Instead, I was met with a deep blue intensity. How was he so calm?
The weight on my chest barreled through me, stealing my breath and sending my blood rushing to my head.Whoosh, thump. Whoosh, thump.My pulse was steady in my ears. Fear iced my veins—or maybe it was defeat.No.This couldn’t be real.
I glanced back out the window, and it all came into focus—the hillsides, the water, the houses spread far and wide.
Scotland.There was no escaping. There was no jumping out of the car and hoping to find my way back home.
