Chapter 28 Memory
Becker waved her hand. “Your profile is being shopped around. If you’re chosen for more than an interview, you’ll do your best to keep him happy. It’s unlikely to happen, but should you be lucky enough, you’ll either end up married or kept. More than likely, you’ll be thrown back into the candidate pool multiple times until the Society has decided you’re used up.”
She glanced over her. “You’ll need to be examined for fertility as the Society will be expecting children, if it gets to that point.” She smirked. “But it’s more likely that you’ll be spayed, for convenience’s sake. Much less traumatic than taking Plan B, don’t you think? If that’s even still an option.”
How the fuck… was she supposed to reply to that?
How… fucking dare she?
How—
Her thoughts fizzled and sparked, short-circuiting in the surging flood of memories. She struggled for something to say, something to ground her.
“I’m not a fucking dog.”
Becker chuckled. “I suppose not in the strictest sense… They never did find that collar, did they?”
Lydia stared at her. Hands twitching, reaching, wanting to bash her face into the table, but she couldn’t hear the projector. Couldn’t even make out whatever else the woman said. She felt it biting into her neck, choking her. Expensive leather pulled tight, making it impossible to breathe, impossible to think or see.
She refused to reach for her neck, rub away the phantom ache or sensation. She refused to let Becker see that weakness, but the look in Becker’s eyes said she had already revealed too much, and Becker enjoyed it.
And if this fuckery was the Society’s sales pitch… being what amounted to a hole to fuck might end up being the lesser of evils among her choices. The tremor she tried to hide burrowed into her guts and took over her heart. The edges of her vision swam and darkened.
She was going to throw up all over this bitch’s desk, and she probably wouldn’t even stay conscious enough to enjoy it.
Becker shoved a folder across the table and dropped an envelope on top.
“You’ll move into initiate housing within the week with the others chosen for the new pool and adhere to the requirements of a candidate, if you know what’s good for you, down to the color of your panties. If you’re successfully chosen by a member or an initiate who will be kept, your mother will keep her job. If you manage to be chosen to be kept, your brother will be exonerated if the member wishes, and so long as you toe the line, your grandfather’s shack will remain his.”
Lydia’s eyes widened and burned. The rattle of a jail cell and the judge’s final words echoed through the back of her mind.
Ms. Becker jerked her chin at the folder and envelope.
“Be sure to read that carefully and arrange your schedule accordingly. You’ll get more instructions soon.”
Lydia swallowed. “And if no one wants me?”
She smiled. “Then, I suppose you’ll be throwing more money down the drain, then won’t you? Though you may have a bit more of it to waste.”
Lydia got to her feet, breathing in deep, furious breaths, shaking with rage. This fucking bitch. If they were anywhere else. Becker looked positively gleeful. She probably reveled in the forced restraint, barely holding Lydia back.
“Don’t ignore my calls, Ms. Zembayashi. I don’t like to have my time wasted.”
She snatched the folder and the envelope off the table and kicked the chair out of the way as she stormed out. Becker’s laughter followed her out and made her want to punch her stupid face in. But the rage and terror, the disgust and nausea, building, churning, and clawing through her blinded her and shoved her in a half-running stumble down the hall until she reached a corridor she didn’t recognize. It was quiet and empty. She yanked an unmarked door open, struggling to breathe around the panic. Her bag slid to the floor. The folder and envelope followed. The world spun. Bile burned the back of her throat over her tongue and splattered into the nearest trash can.
The scent of skin, male laughter, and panic clogged her throat as she emptied her stomach in thick, splattering gushes. Her eyes watered as her body jerked and fever swelled up her neck into her hairline.
The heat turned frigid as images of a night not long enough ago filled her mind. Pain radiated through her pelvis, jarring, shoving, forcing its way in. Her wrists hurt. Sobs wracked her body, but she could feel it. Her pinch of nerve, every scrape and unnatural pressure.
The thick, sticky copper on her hands. The slickness between her thighs and the burn of her grandfather’s twenty-year-old cream carpet. The stains would never come out.
No matter how she scrubbed or how much peroxide or bleach…
The scent of it still clogged her nose, seeped into the couches that were no longer there.
The stains wouldn’t come out of them either.
The hallway mirror.
The broken dining table….
The china cabinet that had been her grandmother’s…
Gone. Crashed, dashed, destroyed. Decades of history destroyed.
She shuddered, trying to picture the wood flooring that was there now, unearthed from beneath the carpet, cleaned and resurfaced years later. The cream carpet was no longer there, yet she could feel it, hear the squelching wet.
The bookshelf had replaced the antique cabinet. Was it black or some polished brown? She couldn’t see it.
Just the vague gray outline where the cabinet had been before it had been knocked over, and all the precious memories had gone spilling onto the floor.
Slowly, the pain vanished, swallowed up by the darkness. She couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t see or hear anything but the laughter whirling around her head.
The bite of a knife…
The bruising fingers…
The burn of carpet…
The pain, indescribable, inescapable pain and weight…
She pressed her nails into her palms and wiggled her toes, but nothing came.
Her phone chimed, warning her to head to the dispatch area. She had to work, had to move, had to go.
Couldn’t stay here.
Had to run.
To go.
To work.
Save Quillan.
Save Quillan.
She pushed herself to stand and turned, resting her back against the wall, trying to stop shaking and breathe past the burning in her throat. Closing her eyes dropped her beneath uncanny animal panting in her face. Short panting.
A dog’s panting, mingled with liquor and weed.
A beast in a black mask scented with musk and vanilla and sweat.
A monster dipped detergent that was too expensive to be used for someone in their neighborhood.
She dropped to her knees, dragging her bag close to her. Her hands found the knife, mace, brass knuckles combination and gripped it so tight, she felt the seams of where the metal’s mold hadn’t been a perfect seal biting into her hand. She had to pull it together. Mints for the taste. Water for the burn. Mask for the smells. Sunglasses for… for…
For—
“You get paid to lurk in parlors, too?”