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Before I can even comprehend the full horror of my situation, I’m tearing the place apart. Searching the walls. Underneath the counters. The vents.

Things my father used to do.

By the time I have finished, it isn't only listening devices I have retrieved, but cameras too. The shockwaves have taken control of my entire body now. My heartbeat thrashes in my ears. My fingers tremble, and my lungs struggle to take in air.

It isn't the agency.

It can't be the agency.

Right?

But if not them, then who?

The cameras were in my bedroom. In my fucking bedroom. Where I changed. Where I... touched myself.

Oh god.

I think I'm going to be sick.

CHAPTER SIX

LUKE BOUGHT a plane ticket for this evening, but when I get to the airport, they tell me that I’ve been rescheduled to an earlier flight. I assume that it’s also his doing. He probably thinks if I put it off any longer, I will lose the courage to go back. To smile for the cameras and pretend.

The flight is short. The ride to the hotel is short. Everything is happening too fast, and I’m right where I don’t want to be again.

I feel sick. So, so sick.

I find myself wishing the power in the building would go out, and I’d get stuck in the elevator, just for the peace it would give me.

I’d welcome the blackness. I’d welcome it with open arms. But I have no such luck.

The elevator goes up without a hiccup. The keycard I had from before works without a hiccup. And everything in the hotel suite is as it was two days ago.

Only it’s not.

Because this time I catch sight of Luke across the room, fucking Megan over the sofa.

His eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s dripping with sweat. It isn’t until the door falls back against my foot that they hear me.

Both of them freeze. Megan smiles. Luke looks horrified. And then angry.

He shoves Megan away.

He’s already zipping up his pants and preparing to give chase as I flee to the elevator bank. I press the button frantically, but there isn’t time. He’s coming down the hall. So I make a run for the stairwell, but I don’t reach it.

Luke snags me by the arm and whirls me around.

“It’s nothing,” he tells me. “Isabella, please. I don’t even think of her. I only think of you.”

I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“That doesn’t make it better, Luke,” I tell him. “I don’t want to know what you think of. And I never want to see that again. It’s disgusting.”

“Disgusting?” he repeats. “Is someone jealous?”

God, the man is so conceited that’s the only possible explanation that would make any sense to him. There is no arguing with him, so I get straight to the point.

“I want my own room. One where I’m the only person who has a key.”

He laughs, and it’s cold.

“Yeah sure thing, baby. How do you plan to pay for that? An IOU? It’s a long wait until your check is cut.”

“You’re a pig.”

He tries to drag me back down the hall, but I pull away from him and stand my ground.

“I’m not kidding, Luke. Either you give me my own room, or I go home. I don’t care about the money anymore. You want to sue me? Go ahead. I’m not as stupid as you’d like to believe. There are ways out of this contract.”

His jaw works and his eyes narrow as they fix on my face. I’ve never called his bluff before. But I really don’t care anymore. He can bankrupt me. Ruin my life. Tell the media whatever he wants. I refuse to cave on this.

“You want a world tour?” I gesture back down the hall. “Then take Megan.”

“Megan isn’t the goddamned winner of American Star.”

I cross my arms and refuse to budge. The tension is almost too much. But I can’t do this anymore. I legitimately cannot take one more second in that room with the two of them, and I think Luke knows it.

He slides a hand through his hair and sighs. Then he turns on the charm. The same charm he used to get me into a contract with him in the first place.

“Fine, baby. Fine. I get it. You’re pissed. You need to cool off. I understand. I fucked up, okay. I fucked up. I just… I want you so much.”

“It’s never going to happen, Luke.”

My words roll right off him. He refuses to believe it.

“It will,” he says. “Just give it time.”

“Hotel room,” I tell him. “I want it now.”

“Okay.” He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just tell the front desk to charge it to my account.”

I turn towards the elevators, and Luke takes a step towards me.

“Don’t follow me, Luke,” I warn him. “Not tonight.”

For once, he listens.

I ride the elevator down to reception and check into a new room on a different floor under Luke’s account. It is quiet and simple.

I lock the deadbolt behind me and turn the shower to scalding hot, stripping off my clothes before stepping into the spray. I stay there until it goes cold. Until my eyes are red and my skin is raw, and my feelings are numb.

I’m exhausted when I brush my hair and put on some face cream. I’m bare. Naked- emotionally and physically. I don’t know how long I stand there staring at myself in the mirror. Hating the reflection of the person staring back at me. Wishing that girl never had any aspirations at all. Wondering if what they say about her is true. Wondering if her father is still alive. If anything will ever be good again.

I snag a pair of shorts and a tank top from my bag and pull them on before dragging myself to the bed.

I may not be able to count on the power in the building going out, but I welcome the blackness that sleep will provide.

CHAPTER SEVEN

RIVER BITES into his apple and peers at me over the shiny red skin, chewing silently while he thinks loudly. He is seeking out signs of weakness in my eyes.

“Any word yet?” he asks.

“There is no need for pointless conversation,” I tell him. “If I’d had any word, you would already know.”

He shrugs. Takes another bite of his apple.

“Well, perhaps this is all by design then,” he muses.

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps there are more enemies in the woodwork.”

“Again,” I tell him. “This is something I’ve already considered.”

“Yes.” He leans back in the chair and props his foot up on his leg. “Perhaps there are many, in fact. We can never really know for sure, can we?”

He smirks, and I do not indulge him with a reaction. Psychological warfare is River’s favorite leisure time activity. Usually, he can entertain himself for hours with subjects less intelligent than him. But that has never been the case with me.

“I’m going to move soon,” I assure him.

/> He shrugs again. Finishes off his apple.

“I didn’t even mention her.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Maybe you have nothing to worry about,” he says. “Maybe they won’t come after her.”

“Your games don’t work on me,” I tell him.

But he is grinning because I am reacting as I told myself I wouldn’t.

River reads me too well, sometimes. He knows I’ve been putting it off. But he doesn’t know why, and he’s made it his mission to get to the bottom of it.

“All I’m saying is that it seems you’ve moved on,” he says. “It’s like you don’t even remember the cage. It’s like you don’t even remember the animal they turned you into.”

One single word.

The cage is all I need to hear to bring back those visions. I close my eyes and recall the suffocating weight of death in my chest. Those memories flash through my mind in rapid succession.

The waterboarding. The torture. The hallucinogenic drugs and the interrogations. My body still bears the scars of those years. The years that I spent in the secret program made especially for children like me.

Children predisposed to murder.

I was exactly the target they sought out. When they took me from the asylum, it was a simple matter of what my file said. That I had killed my mother. The perfect subject.

I remember those words. Those were the last words I heard before they assigned me a number. A number that meant I was no longer part of the human race. A number that would become my only identifier in the darkest pit of hell. And when I had finally reached the end of my contract… when I was finally able to come home… vengeance could no longer be mine.

I open my eyes to meet River’s. The resolve that wavered before is unhindered now. He smiles because he knows it too.

“Can you just imagine it though?” he asks. “The expression on his face when he learns of all the ways the student has surpassed the teacher?”

I can imagine it. I have imagined it many times.

“If you don’t think you have it in you though, I’d be happy to volunteer,” River offers. “I’m not as well-versed in torture, but I think I’d do a bang-up job of it.”