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He cringed. His hand twitched, but he stopped
short of touching the spot behind his ear again. “It hurts, Misha.
It’s getting stronger.” His lip trembled, but he held strong. “I
hate it.”

“I hate it too.” I took his hand and drew him
nearer, but he stopped short of coming into my arms. “What’s
wrong?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you were mad at
me.”

“Why would I be?”

He shrugged, not as indication that he didn’t
have an answer, but as if he had no way of putting it all into
words. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“You went through so much to get me out, and
now…”

He looked so small. So fragile and broken and
scared. I couldn’t do much, but I could at least reassure him in
this. “I’m frustrated,” I confessed, pulling him into my arms and
resting my cheek against his hair. “I feel like we’re trapped. But
it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

He nodded, settling against me, and I held
him, kissing his curls, rocking him gently as the breeze from the
open window played over our skin. I tried to keep my thoughts pure.
To prevent the blood from flowing toward my groin, but I failed. I
wasn’t surprised when he stirred, his hand moving to the buttons of
my pants.

He gazed up at me, resting his hand against my
erection. I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning.

“Let me,” he said softly.

But all I could think about was Gideon bending
Rhianne over the dinner table. When I closed my eyes, I saw Ayo in
his inert state, eyes utterly void of life, reaching for me with
his limp hand. I thought of the program, pushing him to please
me.

“No,” I said, as gently as I could. I pulled
away, not letting him go, but putting an inch or two of space
between us.

“I know what it’s like,” he whispered, “to
feel so much desire, so much arousal, and so much pleasure, but to
not go all the way. I know how much you must need it.”

I winced at the truth of his words. It had
been too long since I’d allowed myself to climax. The last time had
been with Donato, and that realization brought its own wave of
guilt. But Ayo’s words had hit their mark. Goddess yes, I wanted to
come, but not like this. Not with the taste of my vomit still
burning in the back of my throat, and Rhianne’s cries echoing in my
ears.

I kissed his forehead. I pulled him into my
arms again.

“It’ll be that much sweeter when the time is
right.”

He sighed. “I suppose,” he said. And then, in
a tone I’d never heard him take, “Just hope you don’t bite your
tongue and black out in the process.”

I stood frozen for a moment, stunned. “Are you
making a joke?”

“Trying to,” he said, against my chest. “It
didn't come out so well, did it?”

And yet, it had. I laughed, suddenly feeling
lighter than I had in days. The chip couldn’t produce humor —
Gideon had told me that himself. And in one clumsy attempt, Ayo had
proven to me that he was more than the bit of magic in his brain.
He’d proven to me, once again, that my instincts were
right.

He was worth saving. He was worth whatever it
took to make things right.

I rested my cheek against his unruly curls,
smiling.

“It was perfect.”

The bed Gideon had given us was the finest I’d
ever slept in, the mattress deep and soft, and I fell asleep
immediately. Something roused me later in the night. I was
disoriented. I rubbed my eyes, trying to get my bearings. It took
me a minute to realize what was wrong: Ayo wasn’t with
me.

“Ayo?” I said, sitting up. We’d drawn the
curtains before we went to bed, so the room should have been dark,
but the bedroom door stood open, allowing a wedge of light from the
hallway to fall across the foot of the bed. I climbed out of bed
and crept into the hallway. “Ayo?” I called, although I kept my
voice low. I didn’t want to wake the whole house.

I caught him halfway down the stairs. “Ayo,” I
said, taking his arm. “Come back to bed.”

“I have to go.”

“We’ll go tomorrow.” Although I’d been saying
that for two days. “We can’t go now. It’s the middle of the
night.”

He nodded blankly, seemingly unconvinced, but
he let me lead him back to our bedroom. There was a single armchair
next to the bed. It was damn heavy, but after a minute or two of
effort, I managed to shove it in front of our closed door, where
its weight would work to my advantage. If nothing else, it would
slow him down. Hopefully he’d make enough noise trying to move it
that he’d wake me.

We got into bed again, and I pulled him close
to me, holding him tight. “Stay with me. Please.”

“I will.”

“You need to fight it.”

A tremor ran through him. “I’m
trying.”

Twice more, he tried to escape after I’d
fallen asleep. Both times, I was awakened as he attempted to move
the chair from in front of the door. The third time, he tried the
window. I woke to find the curtains pulled back, the room grey with
moonlight, and him kneeling on the sill, leaning precariously over
the edge of the window box to stare down.

My heart hammered in my chest. I barely dared
move for fear he’d leap.

“Ayo?”

He didn’t turn toward me. He didn’t take his
eyes away from that empty space between our window and the ground.
“I think I’ll have to jump.”

I tried to keep my voice calm, even though
alarm flared in my brain. “We’re two floors up.”

“Would it be better to land in the bushes or
on the sidewalk?”

“Neither. It would be better to come back
inside.”

“I can’t. I have to go now.”

“Ayo—”

“I might even be able to hit the grass, if
I—”

“Ayo, look at me!”

He did, although his eyes seemed strangely far
away. I took one cautious step toward him. Then another. I held my
hand out to him. I was afraid to touch him, for fear he’d jump, but
equally afraid to leave him out of my reach. “Come back
inside.”

He scrunched his nose in confusion and touched
that spot behind his ear. “Inside?”

“Away from the window.” One more step and I
was able to touch him, one hand on his back, the other on his arm.
“Please?”

My touch seemed to wake him from whatever
dream he’d been trapped in. He blinked at me, then turned back out
the window, as if he couldn’t remember what was behind him. He
recoiled sharply from the sight, almost falling into me in his
haste to get back into the room.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“What’s going on?”

“You wanted to jump.”

“Jump? But I…” He winced, clapping his hand to
the side of his head as if to hush that trigger that pulled him
south. “Holy Goddess, Misha. I could have died.”

“I know.”

“It hurts. It hurts so much. I’m losing my
mind!”

He broke into tears, and I held him, fighting
my own aggravation. Even now, the hook kept tugging. I could feel
him struggling with it as he cried, sometimes huddling against me
for comfort, at others trying to push me away in order to escape,
mumbling over and over again, “It hurts. I have to
leave.”

“Shh,” I soothed, trying again to hold him
against me, even as he fought to break free. “I know it’s hard, but
you can’t go. We have to stay here.”

“I’m trying!” He shuddered as another sob ran
through him.

I rubbed his back, making soothing noises. I
wondered if this was the first time he’d ever felt pain that wasn’t
tied to sex, because whatever the Dollhouse had trained him to do,
it was clear that there was no pleasure associated with the hook in
his brain.

His sobs finally subsided into soft hiccups,
and he sighed against my chest. “It’s easing up now, but it won’t
last. It’ll be stronger when it comes back. It always
is.”

“We just have to last until
morning.”

We fell silent for a moment. I thought maybe
he’d fallen asleep, but then he spoke again. “Tie me
up.”

“What? No, I can’t do that.”

“Please, Misha. I think it might help. If I
can’t leave, then my brain has to stop, right?”

He looked up at me hopefully. Moonlight fell
across his wet cheeks. His eyes were red and swollen. I had to do
something, but I wasn’t sure tying him would help. Then again, I
had no other solutions to offer. I was exhausted, and it felt like
it was only a matter of time before he escaped. If we could only
get through the night, I felt sure there must be a solution. I’d
talk to Gideon again. I’d beg him to operate.

“All right,” I sighed. “I guess it can’t hurt
to try.”

I used our clothes, because we didn’t have any
rope in the bedroom with us. I used my shirt to tie his ankles
together, and his slave drape to bind both of his wrists to the
post at the foot of the bed. He could still lie on the mattress if
he wanted to, although he was reluctant. He chose instead to sit on
the floor. “It’s better if I stay awake,” he told me. “If I fall
asleep, the hook makes me move before I’m fully
conscious.”

“Then I’ll stay awake with you.”

I settled into the armchair against the door,
determined not to sleep, although I was yawning again within
minutes.

“Tell me about you,” Ayo said quietly. “I
don’t know anything, really.”

It was a strange realization, but true. It
felt like we’d been through hell together, and yet I’d never really
told him how I’d come to be working as Donato’s whore.

I talked for close to two hours. I told him
about my mom, although I left out the horrid details of her death.
I told him about Anzhéla, and about growing up on the streets,
about learning to pick pockets. Part of me was ashamed to have to
confess to being a thief and a spy. But I wouldn’t lie to him. I
wasn’t sure how much he heard anyway, through the pain of fighting
his program.

Eventually, he went quiet. His breathing
became soft and regular. A glance showed me that he’d fallen asleep
with his head laying on his bound hands.

I settled deeper into the armchair, determined
to stay awake, hoping we’d weathered the storm.

I didn’t mean to sleep, but in the end, I did.
I woke again in the wee hours of the morning to the sound of
knocking. Not a hurried knock, like on a door. But a slow, steady
thump.

Thunk
.

It wasn’t dawn yet, but the sky was definitely
lighter than it had been.

Thunk
.

“Wha—?” I sat up quickly, rubbing my eyes,
sure I’d find Ayo gone, but he was still there, tied to the bed. He
wasn’t asleep though.

Thunk
.

He was rocking slowly back and forth, slamming
his forehead violently against the wooden post of the
bed.

Thunk
.

“Ayo!” I dropped to the floor and grabbed him,
but not before he’d managed to bang his head again on the
unforgiving wood.

Thunk
.

“Ayo, stop!”

I turned him away from the bed as much as I
was able with his hands still tied to it. Even in the low light, I
could see the swelling starting on his forehead. A thin trickle of
blood ran down his brow. His eyes seemed cloudy and
distant.

“It hurts,” he whispered. “It hurts so much. I
have to make it stop.”

“Oh, Goddess,” I swore, cradling him in one
arm as I fought to unbind his wrists with my other hand. “You’re
bleeding.”

He shook his head weakly. “The hook,” he said.
“Make it stop.”

The knot finally loosened and his hands came
free, but to my dismay, he immediately used one of them to hit
himself, slamming the heel of his palm against the bruise over his
right eye.

“No!”

“Make it stop.”

I swallowed my tears of frustration, fighting
the urge to scream and cry. I had to think.

What could I possibly use against the
Dollhouse’s program? And the answer came:

Another program.

I choked on the lump in my throat. I’d sworn
never to use one of their foul triggers, but I couldn’t sit here
and watch him beat himself to death against the bed post. I held
him in one arm, and with my free hand, I reached up. I took a
handful of his hair. If this worked, I’d be locked into using his
pain programming in order to stop him from going mad. The thought
of it made me sick, and yet, what else could I do? I steeled myself
for whatever was to come…

And I pulled.

He spasmed. He moaned too, but it was a
terrible, choking sound. Something that might have held a hint of
pleasure, but not enough. I pulled again, checking his groin,
watching and listening carefully for signs of arousal.

Nothing. No hint of an erection. No sound but
his dreadful whimpering.