Chapter 3

Two in the morning. The guards had just changed shifts.

Crouched in the cage, I counted off forty minutes in silence.

The moment the footsteps in the corridor faded, Cara turned her back to me and crouched down.

"Step on my shoulder."

I used her shoulder to reach the vent, working the loosened screw free with a hairpin, one slow turn at a time.

When the last screw dropped, every girl around me held her breath at once.

I pushed the metal cover aside and crawled into the duct.

"Once I'm out, I'll call the police."

Cara's eyes went red.

"Crawl left. Turn right at the second fork. You'll hear the waves there. It should lead to the deck."

The duct was narrow and cold. All I could do was drag myself forward on my elbows.

I don't know how long I crawled before a thread of light finally seeped in ahead, the sound of the waves growing clearer with it.

I moved faster and pushed half my body out through the opening.

The next second, a hand clamped hard around my ankle.

"Caught myself a rat!"

The patrolman hauled me back out of the duct.

I hit the deck and screamed for help right away. But before I'd made it more than a few steps, several guards had me pinned.

Phineas came at the news.

He looked at the state of me and actually laughed.

"Little sister, didn't your big brother tell you to behave?"

"Phineas, you'll get what's coming to you."

"As long as the money lands in my hand, what do I care what's coming?"

He took a pair of electric clippers from one of the guards.

The switch clicked on, and the buzzing pressed close to my ear.

I understood what he was about to do and started to struggle on instinct.

Phineas held my head down and ran the clippers straight through the hair above my right ear. A thick fall of it dropped onto the deck, and laughter went up around us almost at once.

He tossed the clippers aside and bent down to warn me.

"Run again, and I'll break the legs of whoever helps you."

Jayden walked over and signaled the guards to drag me off.

"Mr. Stephens is arriving early tomorrow."

"If he doesn't want you, I'll hand you off to the men on the ship."

Someone in the crowd suddenly spoke, low.

"That girl looks kind of familiar."

"Especially the scar on her wrist. Looks a lot like the one Mr. Stephens is hunting for."

"Don't talk nonsense. If it were really her, who'd dare keep her locked up in here?"

My breath caught.

But Phineas already had a hand over my mouth, dragging me into the lockup at the bottom of the ship.

Once the iron door shut, there was nothing left around me but darkness.

I felt along the wall, and my fingertips brushed a stiff piece of paper.

A gilded invitation someone had thrown away.

It read:

"In honor of Mr. Stephens's arrival, the twenty-third."

There was no signature beneath it, only a single gold embossed motif.

I traced it slowly with the pad of my finger.

A stylized letter S.

Three years ago, Finn Stephens had a pair of black cufflinks made.

One was engraved with a J, the other with an S.

Joanna. Stephens.

And that cufflink with the S was sewn, right now, into the lining of the clothing against my skin.

I clutched the invitation, and the heat rose slowly behind my eyes.

He really had come.