Page 147 of Chancellor

I try to keep my shoulders straight under the stares of four thugs, who praise our bodies like we are cows at a slaughterhouse.

The first one unbuckles his belt as he takes a slow step toward me with a sly smile on his scarred face. The other guys lean on the wall or sit on empty crates, smoking and watching with an indifference that says they do this regularly.

“If you can take four of us—you pass the test and can work the streets of Bangkok. You fail—you are off to Cambodia.”

I’m sixteen. Helpless. In a shady basement. Stripped naked.

This was supposed to be an undercover operation.

They said we would be safe.

Where is everyone?

They said they’d come!

“This might be the most important night of you life,” the guy says with a scowl and unzips his jeans.

I open my eyes and inhale deeply, trying to calm my nerves.

It’s suddenly too bright.

Too hot.

Too loud.

I feel like throwing up because when I look around, the girls’ grins are just like those men years ago—knowing they inflicted the damage and will gloat if they do even worse.

That’s the lesson the Change taught us—you don’t have to be a criminal with a bad moral compass to destroy a person. You can be a pretty privileged girl dressed in Dior and smile watching the other person be humiliated.

Being a woman, you just never expect it from other women. A dozen of them.

I feel suddenly too vulnerable, for the first time in years.

Shame washes over me.

Everyone knows the picture was taken in Archer’s pool. No one could’ve taken it but him.

I find him in the crowd. Meet his intense gaze on me.

This is betrayal.

Or revenge.

Or some kind of fucked up lesson.

Whatever it is, I didn’t expect it fromhim.

55

ARCHER

I knowwhat will happen in a minute.

I watch Kat across the dance floor. Her face is expressionless—a bad sign.

The only person who is ever close to my phone is fucking Margot. And I’m sure it’s her doing. She has pushed it too far this time.

Marlow leans over to Kat, saying something to her as she clenches her jaw and shakes her head, then looks at me again.

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