Charlie puts his fork down. “What?”

“Take the probes out of him.” Her eyes flicker to my chest, barely long enough for her to glance at the small, metal barbs attached to wires that are digging into me. I’ve always heard the more muscle you have, the more it hurts being shocked with a Taser. I have no idea whether that’s true or not, but I can confirm it hurts like a motherfucker. My whole body feels like it’s still charged. Lacey’s fingers work quicker as she grows more anxious—I can see it building in her eyes. Like she’s an object of intense curiosity, Charlie studies her every movement with a scowl on his face.

“What the ’ell’s wrong with you now?” he snaps.

“You’re hurting him. You need to stop hurting him.”

“I ain’t stoppin’, sweetheart. I’m gonna ’urt ’im some more, and you are going to sit there in silence, and you’re gonna pay attention. You’re gonna ’ave to ’urt people, too, if you’re going to make it in this world, Lacey.”

A single tear dangles from the tip of one of Lacey’s eyelashes. It wobbles, and then falls and hits the table. Still no blinking. She’s standing on the precipice of a very high cliff right now and she’s about to go over the edge; I’ve spent enough time with the girl to know her inside out by now, and she is not in a good place. None of us are in a fucking good place, but Lacey isn’t equipped to deal with this kind of stress.

“I won’t,” she whispers. “Just let him go.”

The old man snorts, leaning closer to the table. A blind man could see Lacey isn’t quite right, that she’s mentally struggling to deal with what’s happening around her, but not Charlie. No, her own father refuses to see it. He reaches across the table and slaps her across the face, so hard he splits her lip. Lacey cries out, clutching both her palms to her cheek, her eyes spilling over with tears.

Taser or no Taser, I can’t let that go by without reacting. I don’t even think about the consequences. I jump up and lunge, reaching for the fucker sitting opposite me. I want my hands wrapped around his throat. I want to throttle the fucking life out of him. I want—

White lightning ripples through my body, way stronger, way more intense than the taste I got earlier. Someone screams. My head hits the table, and then I’m falling. Falling to the ground. I can’t see through the pain. Can’t breathe through it. Can’t think through it. All I can do is hear…

Hear the screaming.

That old saying, the bigger they are, the harder they fall? That saying is true. Zeth goes down hard. His head impacts with the corner of the table as his body seizes and locks into a rigid stance, and he topples sideways, unable to put a hand out to break his fall. He takes a second knock to the head when it hits the ground.

“StopstopstopstopstopstopSTOP!” Lacey repeats the word so that it runs into itself, digging her hands into her hair. I slide off my chair, pain singing out loud and clear as my knees hit thin carpet. I grab hold of Zeth’s arm, trying to figure out the best way to help him. I can touch him without being shocked, so long as I don’t touch him in between where the two probes are biting into his skin. However, I can’t touch the actual probes themselves otherwise I’ll be hit with the full force of the current, too. Fuck. Fuck! What the hell am I supposed to do?

Hands grab at me from behind, firm and rough, dragging me back. I flail my arms and legs, trying to wrestle free, but I feel like I’m sinking underwater with a lead weight tied around my ankles. There is nothing I can do to free myself.

“Stop! STOP!” Lacey screams.

“Fucking whore.” O’Shannessey’s face is suddenly in mine, shoved right up close. “You’re gonna regret the day you ever stopped us from taking the girl.”

I try to twist my way out of his grasp, but O’Shannessey clearly isn’t going to let that happen. It’s not a move I’m proud of, but I do the only thing I can think of: I bite him on the forearm he’s using to try and choke me with. He howls in pain, but even then he doesn’t let go.

Zeth’s boot heels bounce up and down against the floor with the force of the shock being administered to him. I need to stop it. I have to. Just as I’m about to make one final last-ditch attempt at pulling myself free, I hear a sound that freezes the blood in my veins. A gunshot. I instantly go limp. A pair of polished black Italian leather shoes appears in my line of sight. The room has fallen deadly silent. I hear Charlie’s knees creak as he bends down between Zeth and me. The tick-tick-tick of the Taser as it does its work. My labored breathing rasping in, out, in, out in quick succession over my teeth.

“Women who get caught up in my world never tend to make it out alive, Dr. Romera. Celia, the Duchess… and so many girls I don’t even know the names of that I’ve sent down to California to be sold by Perez and his Neanderthal flunkies. They all die.” He looks at me, then—cold, dead eyes. Not an ounce of humanity within them. “You all die. Eventually.”

I lash out with my foot, but O’Shannessey gives me a short, sharp jerk—a warning. Behave. “What about Lacey?” I spit. “She’s your daughter. You’re dragging her into this and you don’t even know her. She’s not—”

“Perfect. I know. She is not perfect.”

I wasn’t going to say that. It hurts me that Charlie does say it, because Lacey is perfect. She’s just also very traumatized by the shitty hand life has dealt her. I fire her a quick glance over my shoulder, and the blonde woman is on her knees, arms up by her head, protecting herself. Her eyes are fixed on Zeth; she’s silently crying. The table we were sitting at a moment ago is on its side, contents smashed or strewn all over the floor.