You Are Mine Little Sister (by Syra Tucker) novel Chapter 147

RALI

I woke up in the clinic. Thin pillow, thinner blanket, the ceiling a flat white that made my eyes ache.

I laid on my back and counted the hairline cracks overhead, wondering what would've happened if the girls had taken it further.

Their hands were still on me in memory: fingers snagging, nails raking. I could still hear their insults biting deeper than teeth as they beat me into something smaller than human.

I'd come back to my room at dawn, bone-tired after spending the whole night with a client and found them waiting. They pulled me inside, accused me of 'stealing the good ones,' and piled on.

'You keep getting all the good guys. Let's see if they still do after a quick face edit.'

They didn't get to finish. Someone yanked them off me before the 'edit.' Honestly, part of me wished they'd managed it; a ruined face might have bought me the mercy of being overlooked.

The door clicked. Josephine slipped in, shoulders hunched, eyes already glassing. She's the only one here I let close to the word friend. She treated me like a person, not a threat I never asked to be.

"I can't believe they did this to you. They keep acting like any of us choose to be here on our own. I have a sick mother who believes I'm dead 'cause I've been missing for a year. I can't even see her to know how she's fairing 'cause I've been trapped here. Nobody wants to be here. We didn't choose this life."

I tried a smile and touched my ribs. Heat flared under the bandage. "At least, y'all have someone to miss."

Her face fell as the meaning landed. She reached to straighten my blanket twice, her hands fidgeting with nothing left to fix.

Sometimes the blank inside my head scared me more than any man here. I didn't know a single thing about my before; just that a dangerous man was obsessed with me. Even with him, I couldn't remember what we were—if we were. What about my family? Were they looking for me, or did I disappear so clean the world never noticed?

Seven weeks since I opened my eyes to this place, and living had felt like drowning: lungs burning, arms moving, surface always an inch out of reach. And every time I thought I was close, someone pressed a hand on my head and pushed me back under.

"You know," a solitary tear leaked sideways as I tipped my gaze to the ceiling. "I wish I never met him. Although, Blayne once mentioned he forced his way into my life. Still, I wish I'd fought harder. I wish I'd fought for me."

"Rali," she gave my hand a small squeeze and it felt like a tiny flame had been tucked under my ribs. I sniffled and kept my gaze to the ceiling. "You really need to stop blaming yourself over and over for it. Actually, The Torturer was someone a lot of people liked. Only the bad men like the ones we've been facing here had issues with him. They were so scared of him they ran away when he went about killing their kind."

I glanced over just as her eyes dimmed with sadness.

"If he were alive, I'm sure he'd come save you a long time ago. I'd have been saved as well. Been home to my mother."

The thought of seeing him again only dragged bile up my throat. "I don't need saving from him. If he were still alive, I'd have killed him myself."

I attempted to free my hand from hers, but she held tight.

"Rali..."

The door opened. When our eyes found Blayne, she released my hand and jumped back at once.

I tried to swallow, but it felt like a river stone was stuck in my throat. God please. Not the Ash Twins. Not them.

"You'd better take today and stitch yourself together, Rali. Because tomorrow they'll be coming for you, and it won't matter if you still bleeding from any fucking spot."

My heart misfired into a drumline, my fingers went pins-and-needles, and the room tilted as if the floor had made a decision to abandon me. I tasted copper; I tasted fear.

It had been over a week since the Twins touched me. Over a week since I'd been treated worse than something you drag by a chain. I'd kept slipping their net by inches and luck, but luck was a stingy god, and I'd always known it would stop tithing. I just wasn't ready for the bill to come tomorrow.

I thought that was the worst news Blayne had come with. Turned out I thought wrong. He went on to deliver a news that made my thoughts turn suicidal.

"There's also something you should know about the Twins. They offered to buy you. Offered good millions and even gave me an open cheque to name whatever else I wanted.” He smiled, the kind of smile that counted money by the vein. "But you remain my greatest asset, Rali. I've been running this..." he glanced around. "secret parlor for years, and what you've earned me in six weeks, I didn't make it in two years."

His words crawled under my skin and started sketching scenes I'd been trying to burn: their hands, always too many, their ugly laughter bouncing off the walls, the stink of smoke and sweat varnishing my hair while my body became a room everyone walked through without knocking. Bottles clinked, cards slapped tables, and those ugly guttural sounds I could never scrub from my ears.

And the whole time, it was Blayne's pockets getting fatter, of course.

Breathing stopped making sense. My chest locked, and I had to pry my lips apart just to coax in a thin, mean slice of oxygen.

"So, I refused their offer," he went on. "I couldn't sell off the precious Torturer's woman. But I did agree to rent you out for two years. That's all they'll get from us. Two years and you're back."