Except I can’t exactly sit down yet. “Are you…going to stay and watch?”
He gets a funny look on his face, almost embarrassed. “Just until you finish. Then I’ll take the tray back upstairs.”
I cock my head. I’m curious about him, but he sets me at ease. Completely unlike Ivan. “Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t question orders.”
Unease twists my empty stomach. That’s how it was in Harmony Hills, even if we called them counsels instead of orders. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Luca. And don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.” His brown eyes soften. “Or touch you.”
I believe him, and that is the only reason I can sit and take a bite. And oh, that bite. The juices are still warm on my tongue, the steak more tender and wonderful than anything I’ve ever tasted. I catch Luca looking at me—looking at my lips—and my eyes widen.
His cheeks tinge red, and he turns away. “Where did you come from anyway?” he asks quietly. “Not from around here.”
“Far away.” Maybe not that far in miles. A hundred dollars didn’t last long, but I might as well be on the other side of the world for how different all this looks—and how lonely I feel. “Your boss,” I say softly.
“What about him?” Reserved. Wary.
Afraid?
“He’s kind of…” I stammer, because I barely have the words for what I need to ask. “Can I trust him?”
That earns me a soft laugh. “Trust? I’m not sure anyone can know him, much less trust him. But if you stay in Tanglewood, you’ll hear the stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“The kind that get told around campfires. Horror stories.”
“Those aren’t real.”
“He is.” The corner of Luca’s mouth turns up. “The money that he puts in my account is real enough.”
I can do anything I want with you.
The things he would do to me would be real enough too.
* * *
The first time I ever rode in a car, I was eight years old.
A woman with kind eyes came and took me away. Mama had a strange look on her face, like she was trying to be brave, so I tried to be brave too. Even though the building scared me. And the people scared me.
They put me in a room with no windows. A camera was set up in the corner, watching me. I looked anywhere but at the shiny black lens. A doll slouched against the bench on the floor. Her hair was red. Building blocks climbed each other in the corner, every color of the rainbow. Who could play at a time like this, away from their family?
My heart beat a little faster, just looking at them. These were toys that hadn’t been made in Harmony Hills, that hadn’t been sanctioned by Leader Allen. I knew how wrong it was, and that made me want to do it more. I fought with myself for what felt like hours until the woman with kind eyes came back in. She had another person with her, a man. He smiled at me but stood silently in the corner while the woman asked questions.
How do you like living in Harmony Hills?
Who watches you?
Does anyone touch you? Where?
I answered all the questions as best I could, so I could go home. I like it in Harmony Hills. Mama watches me. No one touches me, not ever.
They weren’t lies, not really. Most of the time I liked my life, but I didn’t have a choice. I knew the woman wasn’t really offering me one. And Mama did watch me most of the time, except when she was praying with Leader Allen. It took a long time, because her soul was so dark. At least, that’s what Leader Allen told me.
The woman asked me that question a lot of times, using words in different ways so I would understand. Giving me a hug or giving me a bath didn’t count. The way Leader Allen put his hand on my head when he was testing my faith, that didn’t count either.
That was the day I learned that there was another kind of touch that might happen to me.
The next time I ever rode in a car was a bus that took me from Harmony Hills to the farthest place I could go. A city called Tanglewood.
“Come,” Ivan says, and I don’t hesitate. There’s nothing for me in the basement of his business. This is like the room from before, with no windows. No toys on the floor, but I understood them now for what they were. Distractions. A kind of test, like the files on his desk. And probably there was a camera somewhere in the room, watching me. Seeing if I passed.
I follow him up the stairs, my gaze trained on his shoes. They shine, even in the dim light, and they make a harsh sound with every step. My shoes are blackened and completely silent. I’m his shadow as he leads me out a back door into the night.
Luca follows us to the car and opens the door.
Both men watch me expectantly. When I don’t move, Ivan cocks his head. “In.”
In. Just that, a short command. Like I’m an animal to be put in her cage. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home,” he says.
That’s what the woman said too, when we left the room. She drove me back to Harmony Hills, and he isn’t taking me there. He’s taking me somewhere strange, somewhere new. It isn’t my home. Even so, hearing the word soothes me.
Because right now I don’t have anywhere to go.
I climb into the back of his car. From the outside it looks like a regular car, except maybe a little more shiny. A little more smooth. From the inside, it’s completely different. Nothing like the gray bus I came here on, with its plastic bucket seats and cracked window. It’s nothing like the car the woman with kind eyes drove either, where she buckled me into the back and gave me a juice box.
This car doesn’t even have seat belts, just incredibly soft seats. It’s like running my hands over a cloud, and I do it again and again until Ivan sits beside me and I force my hands to still. There are buttons built into the sides of the car and a little panel in front of us with a screen. And a dark glass wall separating the front and the back.
Luca climbs in behind the wheel, and then the car glides forward.
I’m quiet the rest of the trip. So is Ivan.
Maybe he’s thinking about work. But I know he’s thinking about me. I can feel his attention on me even though he faces the front. His profile looks stark and forbidding, shadows stretching over his face, not quite covering him. I try to shrink myself, to become invisible. I hold my body very still. It’s something I have a lot of practice with, in prayer.
Forgive me, for I have sinned…
Chapter Five
We reach Ivan’s house too quickly. I’m not ready to face what will happen to me here. Not ready to face that I’ve ended up in this position, at another man’s mercy. Wasn’t I supposed to get free? Isn’t that why Mama risked everything?
Except a hundred dollars in cash and a brochure from the bus company didn’t get me very far.
Deep inside, where I don’t usually let myself feel, something sharp and hot burns. Frustration. Anger? Mama would know how to survive in the city. She lived in one before she went to Harmony Hills. Why didn’t she teach me what I would need to know?
Why didn’t she tell me about men like Ivan?
It doesn’t matter now, because Luca opens the car door. I have no choice but to step outside and look up, up at the never-ending glass and concrete. It doesn’t look like a house. It looks like a sculpture.
It almost looks like a church.
“No calls tonight,” Ivan says, and Luca nods, wordless.
Luca holds the car door open for Ivan and then myself. Lights are set in the wall, high up, so the whole room is bathed in a pale light when we first arrive. Ivan touches a switch, and they grow brighter.
“This way,” he says, leaving me behind.
I almost run to catch up, afraid to be left in this cold land of silver and white. It’s winter, but not made by nature. Made by man. I don’t know why anyone would make something so cold, but maybe Ivan wanted to see his reflection. Maybe he wanted to freeze.