Succession (4 page)

“Never thought you couldn’t. The marks on you confirmed that. I’m guessing your current master treats you better?”

I smile, thinking of Cash. “Yeah. He’s good to me. He’ll get me out of here soon.”

Sy is quiet for a moment, long enough that I wonder if he’s fallen asleep.

“So it’s like that,” he says, finally.

I wait, wondering what “like that” means.

“The pretty slave boy, in love with his master, waiting for him to swoop in and rescue him,” Sy muses, clarifying his earlier statement. “And here I am, a poor substitution.”

“It’s not like that,” I protest. Actually, it kind of is exactly like that, every goddamn word, and I feel ungrateful just thinking that about this man who’s trying to help me.

Sy lets it go. “So, what’s your darling master in for, then?”

I’m happy for the change in topic. “Conspiracy to commit treason,” I tell him, aware of exactly how pretentious it sounds. “Yours?”

“Murder.”

I can feel Sy shrug, and I hope it prevents him from feeling me shudder.

“A white-collar criminal. Fitting. You’re confident he’ll get off?”

“Completely.” I’m amazed by how much faith I really do have in Cash. “He’s been through it before. It’s political. He’s trying to re-design the whole re-education center system, which doesn’t make him very popular. But his information is solid, it’s released already. I know he’ll get out. And he’ll come and get me.”

“You don’t have to convince me. I just hope he comes for you soon. This isn’t the type of place you want to spend a lot of time in.”

“No,” I answer, wondering how my master retrieving me fits into Sy’s plans. Nobody is that generous. “How long have you been here?”

“About eight months. My master won’t be coming for me anytime soon. I watched him kill the man he’s on trial for killing. They can’t make me testify against him, but they can make me testify against others in our organization. If he gets out before the detention fees become too much and they sell me, he’ll beat me to death to stop that from happening. Hell, if he doesn’t, one of his associates will probably buy me and do the same.”

I’m quiet for a moment, processing this. Am I some sort of guilt thing, a last salvation before he gets killed?

“You probably don’t want to hear sob stories from some criminal’s slave. Hopefully you’ll be on your way to your penthouse pretty soon.”

“Yeah,” I agree, entirely unsatisfied. “I appreciate your help.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says, tightening the blankets around both of us. “I’m just sorry about what I have to do to keep up appearances.”

It hasn’t been all bad. “Did you at least enjoy the blowjob?”

He laughs, making the whole bed rumble. “I didn’t like forcing you, but yes. God damn, you are good with your tongue.”

I smile, feeling strangely proud of my talents. “I’m glad I could put it to good use.”

“Go to sleep, pretty boy,” he says, the nickname taking on an entirely different tone than it has all the other times he’s said it to me today. “They like to wake us up early. Tired is compliant, after all.”

He hasn’t answered all my questions, but maybe he doesn’t need to. Cash will come for me soon enough. I try to get comfortable, missing the pillow-top mattress that Cash and I share, the soft sheets, the nice pillows, the way his body feels pressed against mine. I’ve tried to hold it together today, disappearing into my own thoughts and fantasies enough that I feel like a zombie, but lying here in the dark, I can’t escape. I press my fist against my teeth to keep from crying out or making too much noise, but I can’t help the sobs that wrack my body, making the bed frame start to squeal. I can’t help the sinking feeling of aloneness that threatens to consume me.

I feel an arm wrap around my waist, and I fight it for half a second before clinging to it. I don’t know this man or what he wants, but he’s kind and safe. With Sy’s arm wrapped tightly around me and his unfamiliar, undemanding body pressed against my back, I finally cry myself to sleep.

Chapter 3
Imprisoned

By the time I’m booked into the state prison, I’ve earned a few bruises. They stick to the places where they won’t be seen, jabbing me in the ribs and pulling too hard on the handcuffs, but I don’t bother to complain. I resisted arrest, too concerned about Sascha’s safety, the safety of our project to worry. I should know better; in today’s world, something as simple as arguing with an arresting officer is grounds for getting killed or at least tased. Actually fighting back should have gotten me killed. Someone wanted me alive, but I was too distracted to notice.

From the moment they came to take Sascha, his safety was all I was concerned about. My mother’s plan had worked perfectly; so distracted by my need to go to him, to save him, I left the house without a second thought. The last time I left her alone with him, she had tortured him, brought in his rapist to help her get answers from him, humiliated and terrified him. The next time we engaged with her, she had me whip him, betraying him when he had worked to defend me, to save our project. When she seized him from my house, I was blind with rage. The bitch took a move directly from a cliché spy story and I fell into it, clueless.

I struggle to memorize the way he felt in my arms, holding him close, right before they took him.

It didn’t dawn on me that I had been taken advantage of until I was at the courthouse, demanding that my slave be returned. While no state process is speedy, the level of runaround I was given trying to straighten things out was excessive. By the time it hit me, there were officers everywhere, armed and unarmed, and I wondered if it was only my notoriety that saved me from being shot and disposed of when I resisted.

Last time I was arrested for this very thing, I was far, far calmer. Scared for myself, I could manage to behave accordingly; scared for Sascha, I lost my mind. I have to find him.

The booking process is similar to last time. They read my rights, collect my fingerprints, take a series of photos. My identity flashes across a processing screen, the name “Cashiel Michaud” appearing as though it was given to me at birth. I watch with disdain as my belongings are stripped from me, replaced by a bright orange jumpsuit. I say as little as possible, eager to avoid incriminating myself or doing something else utterly stupid.

“I want my lawyer,” I mutter, furious that it has come to this.

“I’ll bet,” one of the officers comments, shuffling me along a gloomy hallway.

“I get a phone call. I’m a goddamned citizen. I have the right to speak to my lawyer.”

The officer doesn’t reply, just keeps walking. We arrive at a small cell, well-secured with laser bars that can burn through flesh and bone if they’re set right. I don’t protest when I’m shoved inside, uncuffed, and left behind the buzzing technology.

They leave me alone in my cell for two days. An armed guard brings me food three times a day, and when I ask why I’m being secluded, he shrugs and mentions something about uprisings and riots and danger. He won’t elaborate, and I am left frustrated, trying to figure out what is happening, both in this prison, and wherever Sascha is at. A part of me isn’t even sure if he’s alive.

On the third day, I’m informed that I have a visitor. I’m hoping that my lawyer will be waiting for me in the private room that I am taken to.

When I see my mother, I’m glad that I’ve been handcuffed again. I would strangle her with my bare hands if I could.

“Mr. Michaud,” she starts, giving me a fake, professional smile.

The guard pushes me to sit in the chair across from her, cuffs me to it, and leaves without a word.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Now, Cashi, is that really the way you want to talk to the one person who wants to visit you?”

I seethe. “I want my lawyer. Or my business partner.” Or anybody except my mother. Not only is she the cause of my problems at the moment, she’ll have nothing to do with solving them. I need someone who can get me out of here, someone I can use. Kristine Miller is an impediment.

She shakes her head. “Your lawyer made a statement this morning that he knows nothing about your project and wants nothing to do with it. Oliver is refusing to comment on anything, even whether he’s truly in business with you or not. And I thought you might want news about your pretty little pet.”

I pause. I do want news about Sascha, but every time my mother gets involved with him, it goes badly.

“How did your evaluation go, Ms. Miller?” I ask, pretending we’re just business rivals. If she wants to ignore our history, I can only assume it’s because she’s meeting her own needs or protecting her image in the event that our conversation is being recorded. I want to expose her history with me, let the world know what she’s done to me in the past, but it would damage my case as well. I’ve had plenty of time to think in the past few days and I know I need to be cautious, especially where my mother is involved.

“It got interrupted,” my mother admits, a frown deepening on her face. “It seems that someone made the decision to release a vast amount of incriminating research. That same someone was taken into state custody just as you were being arrested.”

I smile. We hadn’t planned the release, but it makes sense. Sascha has always been a step ahead of my mother, often a step ahead of me as well. His action contributed to my arrest, but it was inevitable, and worth it. Obviously, my mother’s plans were interrupted by this action as well. Sascha is smart, sometimes too smart for his own good, but today I’m just pleased that he was smart enough to come up with this. I know he did it at considerable risk to himself, and I’m sure he’s miserable wherever he’s being held. But I also know that he can survive, especially if he’s out of my mother’s reach. She wouldn’t be here, taunting me about him, if she had the authority to actually do anything to him.

“Have they told you anything about what’s been happening out there?” my mother asks.

“No. Nobody’s talked to me at all. I assume I’m being held under some sort of terrorism charges.”

“Terrorism, treason, something of that sort. You’ve been naughty; they’re trying to make an example out of you. You’ll get a trial eventually, but for now, the state is far more interested in shutting down any and all information about you. You’ve created quite a stir with your little research project.”

“Where did he release the research to?” I ask. I hate engaging with her, but she’s sharing information. I know it’s a ploy to get me to talk, to try to trust her, but I don’t have any other options.

“Everywhere he could,” Kristine replies, looking extremely irritated by the fact. “And the few places he didn’t reach, someone else passed the message along. Congratulations, Cash, you’re the most notorious man in the country right now.”

I smile widely at that, only to have the smile slapped off my face. My face burns, and I taste copper where the inside of my cheek grazed my teeth. For a moment, I feel like I’m ten years old again.

“Do you realize you could spend the rest of your life in here for this?” she demands.

I just shrug. It’s unlikely, but if it happens, it’s done already. “I thought you’d be happy about that.”

My mother gives me a confused look, like she actually cares about me. “Cashi, I never wanted you to suffer. I just wanted you to behave. To fall in line. To uphold your responsibility to this country… and to our family.”

So it seems we do have a private room.

“Besides, you aren’t the only one at risk of going down as a result of this idiocy. It’s bad enough that the Miller System will likely be destroyed, but your research makes some particularly incriminating accusations about me. Some of the statements you prepared—that your pretty little pet released—they point to me, personally. They say I covered it up, that I was hindering our nation’s progress all along! You say that I tried to foil international development just to promote my own image.”

“You did,” I remind her of the truth. For more years than I can remember, my mother has been hiding results, paying off key players, and doing things like getting me put in jail. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s done it to others as well. “Did you really think it would never come back to haunt you?”

My mother purses her lips, looking like she’s just eaten something sour. “When they ask what happened, you need to tell them that you released the data. Don’t let on that it was the boy.”

I give her a curious look. “Are you that set on pinning this on me?”

My mother shakes her head. “It’s nothing to do with that. If they think Sascha acted alone, he could be euthanized, permanently seized as evidence, accused of behaving above his status. They’ll discredit your research, say it was interfered with by one of the Demoted.”

I consider it. What she’s saying makes sense; from anyone else, I would consider it good advice. But it’s not anyone else. It’s Kristine Miller, the head of the Miller System, the woman who let slaves raise me and then tried to destroy me from the moment I had independent thoughts.

“You brought a man who raped my slave to torture him,” I remind her. “You coerced me into beating him. You kidnapped him and did god knows what to him. Why in the hell would you want to help him now?”

She laughs, a tinny, evil sound that makes me shudder. “Oh, Cash, I don’t care about the slave. I care about what I always have—my legacy.”

I can’t tell if she’s talking about me, or the Miller System.

“My business is going down,” she admits. “You’ve finally done it. I pushed you to it, and I’ll feel that guilt forever. But you… your new system, it just might work. And as much as I hate to fail, I’d like the comfort of knowing that I created something bigger, better, grander.”

I just stare at her in disbelief. She has some sort of angle she’s playing, I just can’t figure out which one it is. She doesn’t care about me and she doesn’t care about Sascha. This is either another scheme, or she needs something from me.

“Besides,” she says, giving me a nervous look. “You’ve made a lot of awful accusations in the information you released. A rephrasing, a reinterpretation of the data… it might help my case.”