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Hadria leans back, regarding me with a hint of amusement. "Really, there's no need for such distress. You've never truly been free, anyway. Your father's been using you as a bargaining chip your whole life. As far as fates go, yours could have beenmuchworse."
Her words hit hard enough to make me rear back in my chair. Because as much as I hate to admit it…
She's right.
I've been a pawn since I was a child.Mydreams were never important. I barely dared to look ahead to the future, because I knew—from an early age—that it would be bleak. I never even bothered to think about what kind of life I wanted to make for myself, because I knew…
I knew I never would.
And now I never will.
I slump down, defeated. What chance do I have against someone like Hades? For now, it seems I have no choice but to accept my fate.
But I swear to myself, someday Iwilltake my freedom. Hadria might think she owns me, but she doesn't own my spirit.
Mrs. Graves said that Hadria would do anything for the people she trusted. So even if it takes me years to earn Hadria's trust, I will. I'll get her to trust me enough to slacken off on her restrictions. And then I'll take an opportunity to escape, to get out of here, out of the city, thecountry. For now, I'll bide my time, play her game.
And one day, I swear it, I'll be free.
I've become grudgingly accustomed to the topsy-turvy lifestyle here at Elysium, but my forays into the garden each night still make me feel strangely adrift. The moon and starlight casts everything in an ethereal glow, emphasizing how far away I am from everything that was once familiar.
Tonight, a few nights after Hadria granted me permission to go into the grounds, I'm exploring west of the house. The estate is enormous enough that I fear getting lost—especially at night—so that I haven't ventured all that far away from the house, yet.
Even though I know I'm always under watch. The first night it was Lyssa, who I asked to hang back a little, at least let me pretend I was alone.
She did, after a deeply sarcastic comment. And since then, I've been allowed out to wander wherever I like, which means that someone, somewhere, is following me without my knowledge. But I appreciate the illusion of solitude, at least.
Not enough to thank Lyssa, though, since I know it must be her orders that keep the spies at a distance.
I run my fingers over the leaves of an olive tree, inhaling the earthy scent of the recently-turned flower beds nearby. The grounds are my only refuge in Hadria's busy fortress. Elysium is alive at night and dead during the day. In the darkness the estate thrives; there are comings and goings of Styx Syndicate members, and visits from people that it took me a few nights to realize were emissaries from other criminal groups, stern-looking men in dark suits arriving in sleek cars. Always here for meetings with Hadria in that war room of hers.
I've begun to glimpse a world of secrets, of transactions made in the dead of night. And I've started to identify her inner circle.
Lyssa, with her wild blonde hair and unnerving smile, is Hadria's most trusted lieutenant. She takes a perverse delight in taunting me whenever our paths cross. "Enjoying yourself, Suzy Sunshine?" she'll ask with a smirk. I say nothing, unwilling to show weakness, but the truth is, Lyssa scares me as much asHadria—more, maybe, since Lyssa seems to lack the same self-control that makes Hadria so perfectly poised and ice-cold.
The man with the missing fingers, the one who carried me from the car to the steps of the house on the first day I arrived, is another of Hadria's lieutenants. I think he's called Ricky Half-hands, though that seems cruel to me. He's guarded but polite if he ever happens to catch sight of me, giving me a gentlemanly nod. I like him more than a guy I've heard called "the Taxman," who I thought at first must have been an accountant. But he's one of Hadria's senior mercenaries as well, it turns out, and I try to avoid him. He looks at me so coldly, not like Hadria, but as though I'm an object of interest kept in a glass case. Something valuable…but still an object.
The last of Hadria's inner circle is another woman, an ice-blonde who speaks with an accent—Russian, maybe? Definitely Eastern European. I don't know her name, but most of the time I see her, her clothes are stained with blood.
So I guess she's effective at what she does.
Others around the mansion treat me with caution, as if I'm a bomb that could detonate at any moment. Hadria's hulking house guards watch me with suspicion. Angie, the maid who sometimes turns over my room, offers me tentative smiles and speaks kindly to me, but always shuts down any conversation beyond small talk. Other staff members sort of absent themselves as soon as I walk into a room, so that I'm starting to feel invisible sometimes.
And Mrs. Graves is somehow simultaneously motherly but distant, and most of the time when I ask questions, she goes conveniently deaf.
But these uneasy dynamics with everyone reveal Hadria's absolute authority. No one dares overstep her rules regarding me. Hadria oversees this empire with an iron fist, commanding…and feared.
But I can see, too, that she's loved by some. Loved by Lyssa, certainly, with a fierce loyalty that surprised me at first. Mrs. Graves speaks of Hadria with deep affection and, sometimes, reverence. Maybe it's not so surprising. My own feelings about Hadria remain complicated, after all. Unease grips me when I'm in her presence. But a traitorous fascination still lurks beneath the surface.
I'm drawn to her strength, her self-possession. She moves through this world with purpose…
Unlike me.
When she first shut me up in here, I was certain she would hurt me. But apart from my confinement, she has done nothing bad to me. I barely see her, in fact. The dinner was the last time I was in her presence alone. Since then, she's stopped by only once or twice to inquire after my health—exactly like that, formally inquiring after my health—and only when Angie or Mrs. Graves are there.
I might cling to the hope that she'll release me someday, or that I'll find a way to freedom, but Hadria seems content to keep me for now. She's collected me, almost, like one of the weird modern art paintings and sculptures dotted around the place.
And in the meantime, I've become nocturnal, like everyone else under her rule, and I wander the moonlit gardens like a ghost.
