He wanted to buy me.

He wanted to hurt me like Alrik, Tony, and Monty.

He has tickets to the same auction I was sold at.

Bastard!

Would I never be free to just be me? To be a girl walking down a street without worry of being kidnapped and sold?

Clutching the bronze genie lamp, I glanced at the wooden book that accompanied it. A wishing book.

Don’t I already write wishes to No One?

I sat cross-legged on my bed (even though it hurt my hips) and stroked the notepad to my imaginary friend while eyeing up the wood-bound gift Elder had purchased.

You don’t write wishes, you write confessions.

There’s a difference.

Ever since the awful incident where Elder almost killed yet another man to keep me safe, then brushed off the confrontation and bought me this innocuous figurine, we hadn’t spoken. He’d marched me back to the Phantom with both him and Selix glowering at every shopper and peering into every shadow.

By the time we boarded, my nerves resembled chewed up spaghetti and Elder was no better. A grunted goodbye was all I earned before he vanished to his quarters, leaving me to dwindle off to mine.

For the past hour, I’d sat clicking my pen’s nib open and closed, open and closed, trying to decide if I should write a secret to No One or indulge in a wish to Elder.

Guilt sat heavy at the thought of using Elder’s gift over a lifetime of spilling my soul to No One. But it didn’t stop me from cracking open the wishing book. No One had been there for me in my darkest moments. Perhaps it was time to let Elder be there in my future.

He was going to kill him.

My heart wrapped itself up in warm blankets before I recalled his face when the offer of ownership was first discussed.

He’d contemplated giving me up.

He’d been both saint and sinner and I hated that. I needed him to be either good or bad, commendable or corrupt. How could I decide what I felt toward him if he was human? Humans weren’t perfect. But I expected Elder to be.

My pen came down, a whisper of a wish formed, but a loud clanking noise interrupted.

My head wrenched up, my nerves still shredded into strings thanks to that asshole in Morocco.

It’s the anchor.

My heart didn’t listen, whizz-banging in terror.

We’re leaving.

Abandoning the wishing book on the bed, I traded the pen for my genie lamp and headed across the suite. By the time I made it to the door and down the corridor to herald the lift, the clunking anchor chain had spindled, and the noise stopped.

A more familiar rumble followed—the cranking of massive engines waking from mechanical slumber to chug us far away. Away from men with penny-bulging pockets to buy a life to torment.

Thank God.

Stepping into the lift, I glowered as the mirrored walls reflected not me but the scene of Elder stripping me yesterday. Instead of the heated fear from him caressing me, my skin crawled.

Had that been a test?

Had he pushed me to see if I was ready? For all his talk of not touching me…had he run out of patience?

When that man asked for my price tag—

My insides hurt, remembering yet again the way Elder sighed before exploding. For a second, his body language relaxed in relief.

He lingered over the chance to be rid of me.

And why shouldn’t he? I was a thorn in his unblemished kingdom, pricking holes into whatever peace he valued.

He should get rid of me.

I wanted to get rid of me most of the time. Just because I was stuck fighting my way back to health, bound to fixing every fault before I could live again…it didn’t mean Elder was obligated.

He can do what he wants with me. I’m completely at his mercy.

More nerves quaked at how flimsy my existence was as I stepped off the elevator onto the top deck and padded barefoot on the polished, silky wood. My fingers never let go of my genie lamp. Elder had bought me clothes and kept me fed, but it was the first thing I’d been given that was frivolous and unnecessary to survival—apart from my origami gifts.

It’s mine.

An intense need to keep it close enveloped me. It was such a new possession, but I was in love with it as much as I’d been with my Minnie Mouse watch my dad had given and my murderer had stolen.

Squinting in the russet aging sun, I spotted him.

He stood at the front of the yacht. The telltale sweet smoke wisped around his head as he faced out to sea. His back remained taut and tense, his shoulders locked in stress. He didn’t look around as I moved toward the side, drinking in the departing scene of Morocco at sunset.

The dusty city changed from every-day colours to drenched in orange and sienna. People moved like ants in the distance, and even now, a faint smell of curry and exotic spices carried on the breeze.

I kept Elder locked in my peripheral, watching but pretending otherwise. I wanted to judge him—to read his thoughts, to understand my stability in his life. Was he rethinking keeping me? After saying no to Dafford, did he think about the possibility of selling me to another who he approved of?

Navigating the harbour, the captain slowly opened up the engines, speeding us farther and farther from the man who’d reminded me that the world was no longer a safe place, no matter where I lived.

England, America, Morocco—each was tainted by evil running unrepentant over good. How did anyone stay decent when self-obsession and lawlessness seemed to favour the bold?

Was that what happened to Elder?

Had he once been a normal son, brother, and friend—then lost sight of his goodness and embraced bad instead?