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But the woman on the steps has lost at least twenty pounds since I saw her in June. Her intimidating biceps bulge over bat-wing flaps of loose skin. She missed a button when she pulled on her shirt. We must have woken her. It’s four in the morning.
She’s secured her khaki pants with a slash of fabric to keep them from falling over her hips. It’s not until I step into the foyer that I realize she’s using one of Master’s ties as a belt.
“Alix,” she says. “You walk? Where is car?” She glances at Trap, like she’s just now realized he’s not the man she expects. “You! Where is Master?”
Her voice rises in panic. For three long years, I hated the way she enforced Master’s laws. But something about the terror on her face snags a hook deep inside my gut.
I’m trying to think of a gentle way to tell her, but Trap doesn’t hesitate. “He’s dead,” Trap says.
Ursula’s hand flies to her mouth. “Nein!”
Trap pushes past her like she’s a moth-eaten curtain. “Yourmasterwon’t be coming home again,” he says.
His mouth twists on the title. He doesn’t know Master’s power. He doesn’t understand why Ursula crumples to her knees.
“Please,” she says, reaching for the hem of my emerald dress. “You leave with Master. He take you to party. He tell me dress you like the pretty one, the lady from the movies.”
Her words are tumbling, faster and faster. Trap looks disgusted, but all I feel is pity.
“I wait for him,” Ursula says. “For him and you, both. I keep house clean. I pay electric bill and gas. Water too. For Master, so house is nice when he come home.”
Trap starts to say something, but I rest my hand on his arm. “Thank you, Ursula,” I say. “You’ve done a good job. Now go back to sleep. I’ll tell you everything that happened when we eat breakfast.”
“I make you good breakfast,” she says. “Master likes all his girls eat big meal. I make bacon and potatoes. Toast with lots of butter. We have no egg, but I make you good, good breakfast.”
“Thank you,” I say again. “But go to sleep now. I want to walk Trap through the house.”
Ursula frets, but she shuffles off to her room behind the kitchen. Trap waits until she’s gone before he says, “What the fuck is this shitshow?”
“This shitshow was my life.”
He shakes his head like he’s waking from some bad dream. But I know the nightmare is only beginning.
“Let me show you around,” I say.
We start on the third floor. I show him Master’s bedroom. Ursula has kept everything exactly the way it was the day Master drove us down to Dover. His clothes hang in the closet, shirts sorted by color, starched and ironed until they practically stand on their own.
I open the panel built into the back of the closet. I show Trap all of Master’s toys—the paddles and the riding crops, the restraints made of leather and steel, the dildos meant to hurt, and the butt plugs designed for maximum penetration.
“Holy shit,” Trap says. But he doesn’t understand. Not really. Not yet.
I find the glass-faced device that Master used, still resting on its charger where he left it when we drove to the freeport. I palm it, and I say to Trap, “Let me show you where I lived.”
We walk down to the second floor. My fingers find light switches automatically. My feet remember that the third step from the bottom squeaks. Master will beat me if I make noise while he’s sleeping.
I know the house is empty, except for Ursula. I know the other women were sold off long ago. But I see Rayna in her bedroom, offering half the chocolate bar hergadzhebrought her just this afternoon. Simona is lying on her bed, applying bright blue nail polish even though she knows she’ll have to cover it with pink before Ursula calls us for dinner. Lilyana laughs when we pass by, delighted to see me, promising to tell me all the stories I’ve missed while I’ve been gone.
“Here,” I say, when we reach my room. “This is my bed.” I gesture toward the mattress. “My closet.” My matching blue smocks still hang there. Those are my only clothes, of course. Master doesn’t believe in underwear. No bras. No panties—just like tonight, while Trap and I sat in the window at Nourriture. Like tonight at Kynk.
I reach for the black plastic band I stored on its charger before Master took me through the gates. It’s heavier than I remembered. The clasp feels more secure as I fasten it around my wrist.
“Tap it,” I say, passing the palm-size screen to Trap. A display springs to life, a schematic diagram of the house. “Pick a room. Any room.”
Scowling, he drops a finger on Library. My wrist buzzes, and I laugh. “That’s too easy. I can get there in thirty seconds. Forty-five tops. I was never punished for being late to the library.”
“This is fucked up,” Trap says.
I nod, because he’s right. “Let me show you the ground floor.”
