Ivy and I were lured into a nightmare disguised as a vacation, sold into a high-end trafficking ring south of the border. For three thousand dollars a night, any man could own us. By the time the Feds and the Blackwood family’s private security kicked down the doors, I was the establishment’s top earner, sitting atop a wealthy client, counting a stack of cash with trembling hands. My best friend, Ivy Blackwood, wasn’t so lucky. She was found in the basement, visibly pregnant and in a permanent vegetative state. The Blackwood family put a five-million-dollar bounty on the head of the broker who sold us. But I, the only witness who knew the truth, chose silence. Ivy’s mother knelt on the marble floor, begging me to speak. I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. The detectives grilled me for hours. I gave them nothing but dead air. Ivy’s brother—my fiancé, Roman Blackwood—finally snapped. He threw me onto the Neural Projection Stage. "Ivy is living a fate worse than death, and you’re protecting the monsters!" "To think I ever loved a piece of trash like you... it makes me sick." "Today, the Neural Interface is going to drag the truth out of your skull, and I’m going to send you and your accomplices straight to hell." But when the truth finally flooded the screens, Roman didn’t scream. He fell to his knees, silent. 1 Roman chose the Crestview University stadium for my public execution. It was our alma mater. It was also where we first met. The arena, capable of holding ten thousand people, was packed to the rafters. Everyone I had ever known was there. Close relatives, old friends, professors, down to the delivery driver I’d tipped once and the woman who ran the diner down the street. Roman had invited them all. I covered my face, instinct screaming at me to run. But Roman’s hand was a vice on my shoulder, pinning me to the chair. I couldn’t move. He gripped my throat. Those eyes, once warm with the promise of forever, were now cold, hard flint. "Nora, do you even know what shame is?" "I’m asking you one last time. Who sold Ivy?" His grip tightened. My face burned, oxygen fleeing my lungs. I teetered on the edge of consciousness, but I kept my lips sealed. The Blackwood family swarmed me, a tide of expensive fabric and raw fury. "You heartless bitch! Ivy and Roman gave you everything, and you protect the people who destroyed her?" "She was born for the gutter! Probably enjoyed it down there! That’s why she won’t talk!" Hands clawed at me, tearing my clothes, exposing my scars and skin. Flashing cameras blinded me, my humiliation broadcast on the massive Jumbotron above. "Look at her! Let the whole world see what a traitor looks like!" Roman loomed over me, a needle the width of a pinky finger poised at the base of my skull. His gaze cut deeper than the metal ever could. "The Neural Interface does more damage to the brain than a lobotomy." "It’s going to hurt, Nora. Imagine childbirth, then multiply it by twenty." "And every dirty, secret memory you have? It’s going to be played out in 4K for everyone to see." "This is your last chance." The thought of those dark, grimy months in the compound made my pupils dilate. My body betrayed me, shaking violently. "No... don’t look," I whispered. "Roman, please. Trust me. You’ll regret this." For a second, hesitation flickered in his eyes. Then he glanced at his mother, her hair turned white overnight, and the hesitation hardened into disgust. "Regret?" " The only thing I regret is pulling you out of that hellhole." "I should have left you there to rot." The metal pierced my scalp. It plunged deep into the neural tissue. The pain wasn’t just physical; it was existential. It shattered my consciousness. I couldn’t even form the words to beg. I just opened my mouth, and a sound that didn’t belong to a human tore out of me. The crowd went wild. "She deserves it! That toxic snake deserves every second!" On the giant screen, the static cleared. My memories began to play. The first scene flickered into view. Ivy’s hospital room. She looked like an origami figure, fragile and paper-thin, except for the swollen mound of her stomach. The doctor, looking grim, delivered the news. "Her brain activity is minimal. The chances of her waking up are statistically zero." "And... given her physical state, a termination is too risky. She has to carry the child to term." Ivy’s mother collapsed onto her daughter’s chest, wailing. In the memory, I stood by the window, eyes dead, staring at nothing. The Roman on the screen exploded. He grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me to the bedside, slamming my forehead against the cold tile floor. "Why? Why won't you tell us?" "What did the Blackwoods ever do to you? Did I not love you enough?" "Nora, do you even have a heart?" The crowd in the stadium roared their approval. "The Blackwoods are saints. Their daughter is a vegetable, carrying a rapist's baby, and they can't even abort it." "Nora isn't human. Look at her. Her best friend is gone, and she doesn't shed a tear." "She’s probably jealous. That’s why she let it happen." Ivy’s mother, fueled by the crowd, rushed the stage. Her nails raked down my cheek, drawing blood. She grabbed the control lever of the extractor and jammed it forward. "My Ivy will never wake up! Why should you get to live?" My scream echoed off the stadium walls. Blood splattered onto Roman’s pristine trousers. He turned his face away, his voice icy. "Widen the search parameters. I want the truth." The surge of electricity forced a jump in the timeline. The screen shifted. Roman was dragging me into a condemned warehouse in the bad part of the city. He stripped me and hoisted me up by my wrists. The room was filled with homeless men, eyes hungry, hands filthy, reaching for me. Roman’s eyes were bloodshot. He squeezed my jaw, forcing me to look at him. "Nora, who is he? Who is worth dying for?" My body in the memory was vibrating with terror, but I clamped my jaw shut. "I don’t know." That broke him. "Since you miss the whorehouse so much," he spat, "I’ll give you a taste of home." Someone handed him a cigarette. Through the smoke, his voice was a jagged blade. "Give her to them. A dollar a turn. No refusals." "Whatever she earns, buy Ivy’s favorite irises. Send them to the hospital." The images that followed were the stuff of nightmares I had tried to bury. I clapped my hands over my ears, desperate to block out the sounds of my own degradation. Roman pried my hands away, laughing darkly. "Oh, playing the victim now, Nora?" "You’re the last person on earth who deserves pity." "You’re protecting a criminal. You earned every second of this." The audience ate it up. "Look at her, trying to manipulate us with a sob story!" "Ivy is a living corpse! Her parents are destroyed! Nora got off easy!" "She was the top earner down there, remember? Maybe she liked it." "If she won’t talk after all that torture, maybe she is the mastermind." "Has to be. If not the boss, then a willing partner." Ivy’s mother, hearing the crowd, lost what was left of her mind. She slapped me, a sharp crack that silenced the front row. "Crank it up! Burn her brain if you have to! Dig it all out!" The technician looked pale. "Sir, she’s already at critical levels. If we push the voltage, she could be left permanently disabled..." "She’s already broken," Roman said, his face like stone. He reached over and turned the dial to the maximum. "She deserves it." The current hit my brainstem like a lightning strike. My body curled into a fetal ball. Warm liquid spread down my legs. As I lost control of my bladder, a new memory ripped onto the screen. A dark, damp room. A heavy iron chain around my neck, chafing raw skin. Two guards were beating me, trying to force me into a private room with a new buyer. When I refused, they placed a phone book on my chest and hammered it with fists—maximum pain, no bruising. A gasp from the stands. "I know that trick. It hurts like hell but leaves no marks." "She looks like a victim there... how could she be an accomplice?" "Don't be stupid," someone shouted back. "She’s curating these memories! It’s a manipulation!" Roman’s fingers trembled as they closed around my throat again. "Still protecting him?" "You think showing me this makes me soft? You’re delusional." "You’re a monster, Nora." The memory shifted violently again. The screen showed me in a dressing room, applying heavy makeup, wearing barely enough silk to cover my shame. The stadium erupted. "See! She is a whore!" "Took a few beatings and then happily sold herself!" I shook my head frantically, trying to dislodge the memory, but the machine was relentless. The scene changed. Ivy. She was pinned under three men. She was screaming, her skin a map of bruises. The leader of the gang covered her mouth, looking at me with a dead-eyed smile. "I don't run a charity." "This one’s sick. She can’t work." "Either you earn her keep, or we throw her to the dogs." In the memory, I threw myself over Ivy’s body. "Please! Get a doctor! I’ll do it!" "I’ll work! I’ll pay for everything! Just don’t hurt her!" The montage accelerated. Me, swallowing my vomit, smiling at men who smelled like rot. Me, dragging my broken body to the boss, begging on my knees. Not for freedom. For better antibiotics for Ivy. The stadium fell into a stunned silence. "She... she sold herself to save Ivy?" "That’s not the behavior of a criminal." "Jesus. The Blackwoods are torturing the woman who saved their daughter." Ivy’s mother shrieked, shaking my shoulders. "Fake! It’s all fake!" "It’s CGI! It’s a lie! If she cared about Ivy, she’d give us the name!" "It’s a sympathy play! Look at her, she’s alive, isn’t she? My Ivy is gone!" The crowd, fickle as the wind, turned back. "Ungrateful trash!" "Rot in hell, Nora!" Roman’s face was gray. He stared at the screen, then screamed at me, a sound of pure desperation. "Who is it?! Who is worth betraying me? Betraying Ivy?" "I gave you everything!" "Why isn't it you in that hospital bed?!" He wiped a tear from his cheek and turned to the doctor. "Don't stop. More power." "We don't leave until I have a name." "Mr. Blackwood," the technician stammered. "Her vitals... she’s going to brain-dead..." "If she’s protecting a slaver, she’s better off dead." Roman grabbed a second probe and jammed it into the base of my neck. The machine whined, a high-pitched frequency that shattered teeth. My body thrashed, galvanized by the electricity. The memories began to strobe. My childhood, abandoned by my parents. The orphanage. The scholarship. Meeting Ivy. Becoming sisters in everything but blood. Meeting Roman at Ivy’s sweet sixteen. Falling in love. The images swirled, but the name—the face of the villain—was missing. The technician threw up his hands. "Her will is too strong. Her subconscious is locking down the core memory. I’ve never seen resistance like this." I looked at Roman. My vision was blurring, tunneling. I tried to speak, but my tongue was heavy lead. To him, my silence looked like mockery. He laughed, a brittle, insane sound. He grabbed the technician by the collar. "Do whatever it takes." In the front row, a young woman—an intern who had always looked at Roman with hungry eyes—stood up. "The body has a failsafe. If the pain threshold is breached, the mind loses control of the blockade." Ivy’s mother stopped crying. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of rusted gardening shears she’d found in the stadium utility closet earlier, manic in her need for a weapon. She handed them to Roman. "Ten fingers connected to the heart, isn't that what they say? Cut them off. Let's see her keep secrets then." "We owe this to Ivy." The stadium held its breath. Then, a chant began. Low at first, then thundering. "Truth! Truth! Truth!" "Do it, Roman! Stop the traffickers!" Empowered by the mob, Roman’s eyes steeled. He walked to the chair. He took my hand—the hand he used to hold during movies—and caressed my thumb. Then he took the rusted shears. "You brought this on yourself." "You could die a thousand times, and it wouldn't be enough." The metal crunched through bone. I didn't scream. I convulsed. My body jerked like a severed wire. Blood sprayed, hot and metallic, painting the floor. "You..." I choked out, the words bubbling through blood. "You will regret this." Roman looked at me, dead-eyed, and jammed the shears into the open wound. "The only thing I regret is not seeing you for what you are sooner." "You destroyed Ivy." One finger. Two fingers. Roman Blackwood cut them all off, one by one.
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