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“I’m so sorry. This must be so difficult.”
“It just feels like everything is falling apart. I was so certain of my place here with Seven and performing in The Menagerie. Ardelby Castle has been my home for so long. Only now…”
“Only now?”
“My life before here wasn’t good, Christy,” she explains, staring off into the distance. “I’ve lived in this castle for eight years. At first it was hard. Not because I was desperate to return home, I wasn’t, but because this place was so completely different to where I’d come from. I used to live paycheck to paycheck working as a stripper and a prostitute. When The Collector gave me the opportunity to live here at Ardelby Castle, I jumped at the chance. I wasn’t taken against my will. I don’t have any family looking for me. He didn’t pay anyone for me.”
“You came here voluntarily withhim?”
She nods. “It was either I keep living in a dingy, flea-infested bedsit in East London and selling my body for a hot meal, or moving here. What would you have done in my position?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? For making a decision to better my life?”
“No, for having to make that decision in the first place. I’m sorry you didn’t have people to look out for you.”
“I looked after myself the best I could. But one shitty decision led to another and I ended up trapped by my life. The only thing that made living bearable was my ability to dance. The Collector saw something in me that no one else had, and despite the fact I was scared shitless of him, that I knew he was a bad,badman, I was more scared of growing old and dying a worthless whore beaten down by life. When he offered me the chance to perform in The Menagerie, I took it.” She sighs, swiping a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I didn’t know.”
“Why would you? When we arrive here we’re stripped of who we were. I was happy to do that. I had no ties to the girl I was. I didn’t want to be her for a moment longer. This place is my home. I embraced it.”
“I hear abutin there somewhere.”
She swallows hard, swiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “I love belonging to The Menagerie. We may quarrel, and perhaps I’m closer to some of the Numbers than I am to the others, but we’re a family, however dysfunctional. It’s just that—”
“You’re beginning to see things a little differently?”
“In a way, yes…” Her voice trails off as she looks over at Seven. He’s sitting on the other side of the studio with a pair of headphones on studying a sheet of music in front of him. Apart from saying hello in greeting, he hasn’t looked up once since I arrived here two hours ago.
“What’s Seven’s story?” I find myself asking.
“When Seven was brought here, he tried so hard to escape. His past is completely different to mine, and I know he has a family out there who love him, whomisshim.”
“But he said that—”
“That being here was a good life?” She shakes her head. “He stays for me. He’s sacrificed everything for me.”
“You make it sound like he had a choice to leave.”
“Oh, we both understand that there is no choice. What I mean is that before he fell in love with me, he was willing to die rather than stay here. He would’ve fought to the death for his freedom, just like he would’ve fought Jakub instead of hurting me the other night. On both occasions he did neither because of me. I’ve kept him here.”
“You’ve kept him alive,” I counter.
“But at what cost? He can barely look at me now.”
“Have you talked to him about what happened?”
“I’ve tried, over and over again. He just clams up or gets angry. Not at me,” she says quickly. “He just can’t forgive himself.”
“What do you think will help?”
“Aside from killing Jakub, not much,” Three laughs sadly. “He feels like a failure, that he should’ve stood up to him.”
“If he had, Jakub would’ve killed him, killed you,” I say, hating that it’s the truth, but knowing that he wouldn’t have hesitated. I’m hoping the man he is now would think twice about forcing Seven to commit such an act, let alone even consider killing them both for refusing. I have to believe that’s the case, otherwise this path I’m following will all be for nothing.
“Iknow that. He does too. It doesn’t make any difference though.”
