Money is a form of freedom. Dancing and nakedness and music are freedom too.

He crouches in front of me, and something about our positions now makes me feel young. He’s still holding the arms of the chair, and my hands are clenched in my lap. His eyes meet mine, but he’s down low. I feel small and helpless. Trapped.

“You could ask me to pay you,” he says, a strange note in his voice. It’s like he’s coaxing me. Like he’s telling me what to do. “If I gave you enough, you’d be able to get a nice hotel room. Maybe you could keep me coming back for more.”

There are too many shadows here, too many vines ready to grab me. If he paid me for sex, I’d be just like my mother. And I have no faith in my ability to keep him coming back for more. “I want to work.”

He puts his hand on my knee. Just his hand. Not very high. It’s an innocent touch. Any one of the elders might have touched me this way. Leader Allen definitely has.

It doesn’t feel innocent. It feels dangerous, a snaking vine.

His expression is severe, but his voice is soft. It’s a contradiction, just like him. “I would give you pretty jewelry and pretty clothes. My own little doll to dress up.”

My breath comes faster. His words don’t sound like an offer. They sound like a warning. “No.”

“You’d rather fuck a hundred men than just one?”

I flinch. I’d rather keep running so that nothing can ever tie me down, no one can hold me down, ever again. “I don’t want to…don’t want to fu—I just want to dance.”

Surprise flicks through his eyes, turning them almost silver. He draws back, considering me. He has me trapped, but he’s no longer in my face. I sit very still under his regard. I have sat for hours during prayer, unable to move, unwilling. If I even stretch or look up for a second, it would prove my unworthiness. I would have to start over and face my punishment after. I can wait forever for him to decide.

“No,” he says softly.

My hopes fall. If he doesn’t let me stay, I’ll have to go back into the streets. Fear is a cold band around my chest. You’d rather fuck a hundred men than just one? I might find out tonight.

Bile rises in my throat. “Wait.”

“You’ll come home with me. If you still want to dance once you’ve had time to think about it, once I’ve had time to think about it, then we’ll see.”

“Oh,” I whisper, something hot and scary flowing through my veins.

“And you’ll do exactly as I say, whatever I decide.”

His words make me cold, and I shudder. This is just like Harmony Hills, isn’t it? I left there because I didn’t want to live like cattle anymore, because I didn’t want to be caged and bred and then shot when I was no longer useful. I shouldn’t like being ordered around, not when I’ve risked so much to be free, but it’s a wild relief to hear he has a plan for me.

My mind flashes with glitter and lace. With confidence and color. “How will I know how to please the men out there if I’ve never…done that?”

His eyes glow with a dark promise. “You won’t please them by knowing, little one. You’ll please them by not knowing.”

“I don’t understand.”

A flicker, almost a smile. “Men like to teach you things. That’s what gets them off.”

And I know he isn’t talking about the men out there. He’s talking about himself.

He wants to teach me things.

The knowledge sinks inside me, imprints itself on my bones where I can’t ever forget. “Okay,” I whisper.

“You’ll wait here for me,” he says. Not a question.

I take in the dimly lit basement a little more slowly this time, from the stark lightbulb to the dark stains on the concrete floor. It’s like a jail cell, and without even scripture to justify it.

Before I can answer him, he’s gone. The door closes behind him with a clash of metal.

A beat passes, and then something scrapes on the other side of the door.

I’m locked inside.

Chapter Four

There is no clock inside the basement. Time passes in breaths, one after the other.

A breath to sit and stare at the closed door.

A breath to stand up.

A breath to approach the desk.

Ivan is terrifying, and I’m completely at his mercy. It’s a risk to look through his stuff. It’s a risk not to look through his stuff, now that I have the chance.

I don’t know what I’m dealing with here. Why does he want me? The stories Leader Allen tells ring in my ears. The outside world is full of heathens, of sinners. It’s full of violent men who want to drag me into an alley and rape me. Is that what Ivan wants?

Men like to teach you things. That’s what gets them off.

Most of the papers are printed from a computer. I can’t understand what they say any better than if they were written by hand. There are some words I recognize, words that are in prayer books. Thanks. And help. And girls. Buried in one paragraph I find the word hell. The words I know are sprinkled like morning dew on grass, tiny windows that don’t help me understand the whole.

In a beige folder I find a stack of images. There are women posing, most of them without shirts or bras.

Some of them without panties.

I know it’s wrong to look at them—wrong to have them—but I linger anyway. I look at their eyes made dark with blue and purple and black glitter. I look at their lips painted every shade of red. I look at the hair between their legs, trimmed into a neat shape or missing completely. I’ve never even cut the hair on my head, much less the hair there. I didn’t know that was possible.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

Would it hurt? It seems like it must hurt. Then my hand is gently pressing against myself, right there, over my shift, protective and terrified and curious.

The scrape comes from the door again, and my hand snaps to my side. My face heats with shame that he would come back and catch me this way. I slam the folder shut, but some images slide out anyway.

The door swings open.

It isn’t him. Disappointment rises in me, unwelcome and grim. Why would I look forward to seeing him? He might end up hurting me.

I remember the cold glint in his eye, the promise.

Oh, he’ll definitely end up hurting me.

Instead it’s the guard who had been standing outside the basement door when we came in. I’d barely gotten a glance at him, enough to know he was big and tall and strong. He’s dressed in all black, which adds to my impression of him as some kind of soldier. The only break in the image is the steaming tray of food he’s carrying.

He sets it on the desk and eyes the photographs peeking out from the folder.

The folder that I’m holding down with my palm flat, as if I can keep the strange feelings it inspires locked up tight, far away from me.

He raises his eyebrows. “I won’t tell on you for snooping.”

“If?” I may be new here, but I already know everything comes with a price. This isn’t so different from Harmony Hills, under all the lights.

He grins, looking boyish despite the fact that he’s obviously armed and dangerous. “If you eat your vegetables.”

I glance down at the tray he’s holding and see a feast. All that is meant for one person? I’ve never even seen a plate that large, and it’s piled high with food. There’s a steak with the juices still sizzling and mashed potatoes, the butter almost completely melted, and emerald-green broccoli. I haven’t eaten since dinner in the Great Hall last night, and my stomach grumbles loudly.

He gestures to the tray. “Come on, eat. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

He’s right, so I round the desk and head back for the plain wooden chair. No way I’m sitting in the big leather swivel chair. I’d probably get struck by lightning or something.

Except I can’t exactly sit down yet. “Are you…going to stay and watch?”