The Aviary Read online

  This is my grand opening.

  I swallow back the panic threatening to cleave me in two. Be still. Be brave. I have to make this good. If I don’t perform well, will he sell me off to the next highest bidder? Worse, if they love me, will I become the Swan the way my mother became the Unicorn? It scares me to think how easy it might be.

  I search for Sky, but can’t find him because there are too many faces.

  Instead, I remember the time we snuck out of the lake house after midnight. Sky walked two miles with me through the woods to the old Sycamore tree swing.

  I embrace the same feeling of childlike glee I had then.

  And I pump my legs to swing.

  Even from this height, I can hear the pleasured voices of the men. I must force the retch down when I consider how many will imagine me in their escorts’ places.

  My dress becomes the tail of an enormous cloud swinging behind me, long enough for its edges to skim the water. I should be cold until I realize the wind easing around me is strangely warm. But this is still one gigantic display case just like all the others. I don’t know why I expected anything but an illusion. Luc would never allow my exhibit to be outside.

  The sound of snapping alerts me. Somewhere, far above me, something is happening to the cable. The people, not thirty feet from me, must see what is happening because alarm strikes their faces.

  After another crack, the swing dips, the last cable breaking. The swing drops, and my body sails through the air.

  12

  G i F t o f t h e S w A n

  Turns out that silly memory is exactly what I need.

  Chilly water engulfs me. White sheaths of fabric pirouette around my vision. I am grateful the water is so deep. So grateful because I don’t want to surface. From somewhere above me, I can hear shouts of mayhem. But down here, it’s peaceful, quiet. Calm. Down here, it’s another world beneath the Aviary. A magical one. So, I hold my breath just like I’ve always done growing up.

  I swim deeper.

  The dress threatens to drag me back, to return me to the air, but I deny it. I rip off the gloves, then swim more. All at once, the optic crystals come to life so they wreathe my body in a soft glow. Underwater, I can see both my legs, white shimmery stalks. My hair is like glorious silver serpents coiling and twisting around me.

  My lungs start to ache. But not burn. Not yet. I skim my arms through the water until my hands connect with a thick pane of glass. No. I pound one fist against it. Heat siphons the air inside my lungs. I fan one hand along the glass. As I do, I make out bodies behind it. Dozens upon dozens of men and their Bird escorts stand there, watching me swim.

  I choke on the liquid slipping into my mouth, close my eyes, and fit my feet together, pushing the water down with my hands in an attempt to rise to the surface, lungs constricting with the need for oxygen. As I near the surface, an arm reaches down into the lake. Since my lungs feel like a thousand pillows are smothering me, I accept the hand waiting for me. So pale and nowhere near Sky’s brawn, Luc’s generous muscles are still enough to yank me out of the water and into the boat beside him.

  “You were glorious.” After he situates me, he stands, perfectly balanced in the shifty boat, and stretches out his arms. Loudly, he declares for all to hear, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Swan!”

  The air explodes into a thunder of endless claps and cheers. Once I have stolen a few more breaths, I look behind me and see the monstrous voxel-image lighting up the starry night background of the exhibit. There is a projection of my performance from the swing—my swan dive—and of me swimming beneath the surface.

  It was all staged: the cable snapping, the swing giving way, my plummet into the depths of the water. And they are still watching me.

  Amidst the applause, Luc lowers a hand to my chin and tilts it up to his face. “You don’t need to stand. Simply raise your neck to look to them. They adore you.”

  Slow and stunned, I twist to see the hundreds of people gathered to watch my exhibit. All I do is stare, wide-eyed and terrified. Another sensation crawls inside my skin, multiplying like a bacterium. Adoration. It takes all my willpower not to tip the boat and drag Luc down to the depths with me. I want him to feel the whirl of emotion I am right now.

  As they applaud, I find myself reacting to it. I’m supposed to revel in this, but I can’t latch onto anything but revulsion. Instead, my lightning hinges on this moment, fuses with the cheers of the crowd. I hate him even more for this. More than anything, I hate myself for loving this sick and twisted performance.

  I continue to shiver long after Dove undresses me, removing the Swan from my skin and clothing me in a white nightgown. She orders dinner, which appears through the little door in the kitchen, delivered via hover-drone. Just after, Luc appraises me once before checking something on his arm interface.

  I am only faintly aware when his words squeeze their way into my fogged mind. “Your blood pressure is a little elevated, but you will recover well.”

  The nightgown is soft and light, but I shiver because my long hair is damp and cold. Slowly, my itchy fingers regain their warmth. And I try. I try so hard to raise my fist to Luc’s jaw, to strike him.

  “Now, Swan.” He catches my feral attempt to harm him. His hand is warm compared to the ice that is the rest of him. “You need to save your strength.” When he rubs his thumb against my lower lip, I try to bite it. He taps my nose in response, then wags his finger in front of my eyes. “Follow me.”

  Fully ready to accept my punishment, I think about the marks on Sky’s back and my stomach rolls. I want to share the burden, the pain, with Sky. If he was punished, I should be punished, too. This will make us stronger, unite us.

  After taking an elevator to a separate wing and down a back corridor, Luc inserts an electronic card key into the slot and opens the door in front of us. Inside, the room is dark. Luc closes the door behind him, snuffing out any hallway glow.

  “What is this place?” I ask, stiffening at the sudden darkness.

  I hear the sound of one click. Light pours forth—not into this room, but the one right below me, which I can see through the glass floor.

  Once I see what’s taking place in the room below, I quickly look away. But it’s too late to undo the images; they will be forever stamped into my memory.

  Another click, and I hear them. Moans rack the room, a low growl here and there, winded breath, shuddering gasps, a whimper, yells building momentum, an occasional scream. The whole floor is glass, and through it, I can see the private client rooms. Hot breaths from their mouths steam up the glass under my feet.

  I back up against the wall as far as I can, but I can’t escape the glass. Even with my eyes squeezed shut, I can’t escape the noise.

  Above the sound streaming in through the room’s speakers, Luc approaches. “I come here to monitor the appointments if I suspect any wrongdoing on the part of a client or one of my Birds.”

  I lunge for him. “You sick, demented—”

  Luc seizes me by the arms, pulling me close, pressing the full weight of his chest against mine. “Consider this a gift. Tonight, you will remain here as a witness to what I’ve been keeping you from. Perhaps when this is over, you’ll understand how lucky you are that I have not yet allowed you to take clients of your own.”

  No, because he’s waiting to sell me to the wealthiest bidder.

  “All night?” I whisper, trying to block out the awful sounds.

  For a moment, Luc hesitates, and I feel hope he might change his mind. But then his face hardens. “All night. I will come for you in the morning.”

  “Please don’t do this, Luc.” It’s the first time I beg him. The first time I pinch my eyes together, summoning tears. It’s the first time I find myself clinging to him like a blood-starved leech.

  His eyes seem to swim for a moment, but then he turns away, clearing his throat. “I’ve told you before, Swan, Luc is too personal,” he says, his voice catching. Finally, he moves to face me again.
“You must learn to call me Owl or Director Aldaine. I’ve invested a great deal in you. You must learn control, governance. My intention is not to break you, only to help you to understand that certain actions bear consequences.”

  I sob just a little, hearing a long, languid moan below me. “Please! I’d rather take a beating than this.”

  A muscle jerks in his cheek. He seems furious at the notion.

  Suddenly, he levels with me, bends with brows low, his words solidifying like ice. “Out of the question.”

  He doesn’t tell me goodnight when he leaves, locking the door behind him.

  Overwhelmed by all the near-deafening sounds around me, I scramble to the switches on the wall, but they don’t turn off. My eyes survey the room. No table, no chairs, no objects. All bare of anything but the glass and the bodies beneath it, bodies that will twist and bend and moan and scream all night long. Even if I could fall asleep, I know the sounds will haunt my nightmares. I will never forgive him for this.

  The only things that bring me comfort or distraction are my memories—one in particular.

  “It’s not your fault,” Dad had told me after he and Mom convinced me that I wasn’t hemorrhaging—that I didn’t need any sort of stitches.

  “You’re growing into a beautiful girl, and we love that,” he’d said. “But you have to be careful. You have to watch how you dress and what you watch.”

  For years, I remember feeling angry. Angry because girls were raped every day, and it didn’t matter what they wore. Ridiculous because I didn’t want to dress like museum girls even if it seemed…fun. I was more comfortable in loose clothing. No, I was angry because Sky could leave the hotel rooms without permission or anyone watching him.

  “Sky must watch where his eyes wander and how he treats women,” Dad had argued. “It will be different because he is different.”

  I started wearing longer skirts after that day. Peasant blouses to hide my breasts, but it didn’t help much. Eyes still devoured me wherever we traveled, which showed me how little my wardrobe mattered to them. The fact I had an extra X chromosome was enough.

  Sky stopped watching television because everything showed skin and parts now. He started reading more.

  When I hear another moan, I crumple into a ball, covering my ears with my hands. Still, I hear the heavy breaths that crawl from the speakers and squeeze their way past my fingers. Instead, I try to imagine my mother’s voice above the speakers. Remember how she picked up the frame with the butterfly trapped behind the glass. I caught it in a bottle when I was nine, but it died. Since I wasn’t willing to part with it, Dad decided to pin it in a glass frame for me.

  I hear my mother’s voice.

  “So many girls are like this butterfly. They feel dead inside, but they look beautiful on the outside. Some are trained to smile. To look pretty from birth. Others are forced or manipulated to look that way. The last thing we want is for you to be stuck like this. The last thing I want is for my own daughter to feel trapped, to be trapped like I was in the Temple.”

  A scream startles me. Ear-splitting from the speaker volume. I peek through the threadbare gap in my fingers at the source. All I see is the girl’s face. Neck arched back, mouth beaming as her head rocks back and forth, but her eyes are just vacant. Emptier than a winter bird’s nest.

  I cover my eyes again.

  Dad once worked at a graphicker studio. He explained how they took photos of girls to put in their digital galleries. Every time they did, she was no longer free. He said the electronic frames of screens flashing pictures still haunted him even after he found my mother. Because those girls were still stuck there in that gallery behind their screens.

  “You can never lose the memories,” my mother had told me in a soft voice.

  “It was like having a monster inside me, Serenity,” Dad finished. “Once it got its claws in me, I wasn’t satisfied. Just had to feed it more and more. Your mother was my saving grace. But I never want you to become some monster’s fantasy.”

  All these girls are fantasies. They’re not just exchanging skin. They’re exchanging blood and flesh and bits and pieces of their souls. Feeding the monster of desire over and over again even though he’ll always starve.

  I spend the night sobbing, my gut wrenching, trying new ways to twist my body away from the sounds and movements of the client rooms below.

  I don’t open my eyes again for the entire night.

  13

  T h e T o U r

  As promised, Luc comes for me in the morning. It feels like days since last I saw him. Even though the client rooms are empty now, the sounds from last night still swarm inside my ears, like dying bees stinging me again and again. I hadn’t looked once after I saw the girl’s face.

  Sleep deprivation, combined with the whirl of noises confusing my senses, forces me to yield when Luc unfurls me from the fetal position, then hoists me upward. When he realizes I’m dead on my feet, he picks me up and carries me. In his arms, I feel my armor weakening.

  I don’t hold on to him. Instead, I curl back into myself. I press my face into his chest because the sound of his heartbeat helps to quell the awful sounds in my memory.

  “Mmm…” I murmur when he shifts to open the elevator.

  He tilts his head against mine to whisper, “Shh… you’ll rest today. You can join me at dinner.” Luc is a mess of conflict because while his body language has softened like the ice there has thawed, his mouth is twisted into a grimace.

  I don’t struggle when Luc gingerly places me inside my bed, then covers me with blankets. Sleep comes quickly, but at some point, I must’ve thrown the covers off because I wake up later feeling cold, but free all the same.

  I fear for my daughter every day. She can’t have a normal life thanks to him. And I worry if the Temple were to ever discover her, that she would become like me. She has too much of me—and too much of her father—in her. I see his ferocity in her eyes, in the way she moves and the way she talks. But I see my longing in her, too. I fear she will want it. Like me.

  I close the journal. Her words befuddle me because my father’s never been fierce. Just the opposite. Even more controlled than Sky. Even after my mother escaped with my father, she didn’t come out whole. Over the years, I know she’s tried her hardest to shed her Penthouse skin and forget the Unicorn, but much of it is still stitched into her. Only my father can kiss the seams, help her forget their pain.

  It’s almost time for dinner, and I see Luc enter the room out of the corner of my eye. I don’t look at him. Instead, I focus on the fish in the tank.

  “You enjoy the water,” he says.

  Each fish flits like moving stained glass. “How perceptive of you,” I snap, wishing I could pour my poisonous words down his throat. But I also remember his touch, more gentle than fawn fur when he’d carried me to bed, when he leaned his head against mine, when he’d whispered a goodnight against my lips.

  With a smile, Luc folds his hands behind his back. “I had my suspicions, but your rather intoxicating swan dive last night confirmed it.”

  “It wasn’t fair, the way you threw me in that exhibit with no warning about what would happen.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be fair.” He draws my hand away from the tank, cradles it in his before raising it to his face so his lips can rub against the back of my palm. “It was supposed to be effective. Just like your punishment.”

  I don’t want think about that. “Was my exhibit well received?”

  His smile spreads into a grin. “You soared where others merely flapped.”

  Something twists in the pit of my stomach, two different emotions vying for dominance. One feels like I’m treading water with a boulder attached to my neck while the other has me straightening into the prim pose of pride, which is the inner voice of the Swan tempting me.

  I remind myself that to avoid farther punishments—for me and for Sky—it’s safer to play along. Stop fighting. Just endure.

  I take my place at Luc�
�s side at the dining table. All the Birds compliment me on my illustrious debut the previous night—all except Nightingale, of course, who continues to regard me with crow-like eyes. Halfway through dinner, I realize I’m picking at the food; I have no appetite. I’m also not used to eating with so many people.

  Just then, a fork, quicker than a bird pecking at seed, nabs one of my sand-dollar-sized crab cakes. Brow raised, I turn to my left. Where the chair was empty the other day, there is now a girl—a child. Her curls remind me of my own as they wildly ravish her body to her hips, but they are copper, like coins gilded in the sunlight. A fresh-yet-snarky smile illuminates her face when she stuffs the cake—whole—into her mouth before sticking a crumb-covered tongue out at me.

  “That would be Finch,” Luc says, motioning with a sweeping finger to the girl. “She’s a hatchling. A trainee. Finch,” he scolds, wagging a finger with a teasing smile on his face, “Remember your manners at the table, dear. You should know it’s not very polite to stick out your tongue or steal food from others.”

  Enchanted, I scoot my plate toward the girl in offering. “Here.” I’ve never seen a child up close, but I love her nose—small and white with a splatter of freckles like a cinnamon-glazed macadamia nut. She’s skinny, more skeleton than flesh. Greedily, she jabs her fork into my offering, then swallows it in clumps.

  During all my years, I’ve never gone hungry. My parents have seen to that. If for some reason we missed a meal, Sky always figured out something. I wonder where this girl came from.

  As if reading my thoughts, Luc leans over and murmurs in my ear, “A recent acquisition. A carnival owner tried to outbid me at the Glass Districts for her.”

  I try not to cringe at the statement. With the birth rate plummeting lower and lower, children are a prize indeed, especially young girls. They are a commodity for anyone.