Benjy.
Chapter 11
He’d cut his hair. It had always hung past his ears, but now it was cropped close, making his jaw look stronger.
Benjy was also cleaner than I’d ever seen him before, and the clothes he wore could easily have come straight from Knox’s closet.
I had thought they would find him a job far away from here, or assign a guard to watch his back. But Benjy, here in Somerset, in the same house as Daxton and Augusta, who would happily kill him to get me to cooperate— This was Knox’s idea of protecting him?
I was halfway across the room before I stopped myself.
He didn’t know it was me. I was a stranger to him, but he was the same Benjy I’d known all my life. Even the way he walked was the same, his steps full of purpose and direction. But there was something in his expression I didn’t recognize. Exhaustion, maybe, or resignation.
“Benjamin,” said Knox. “This is my fiancée, Lila. Lila, this is Mr. Benjamin Doe.”
My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, and it took me a moment to speak. “Hi, Benjamin.”
He offered me a smile and a polite nod, but there was no happiness behind it. “Miss Hart. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“You, too,” I said faintly, unable to tear my eyes away from him. He took a stack of books from Knox’s desk and set them down on the coffee table. “How—uh, how long have you worked for Knox?”
“Benjamin started today,” said Knox. “I thought since he and I will be working so closely together from here on out, you two should be introduced.”
I itched to walk to the couch and sit beside him. “Did you just take your test?” I said, trying hard to keep my voice even.
Benjy nodded, but he didn’t offer any information other than that. I looked at Knox, and he finally met my eyes.
“Mr. Doe is a VI,” he said. “Quite admirable for someone with his background.”
I blinked rapidly. No matter what happened to me, he would have a chance. He wasn’t stuck in the life I would have had if I’d stayed a III.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Celia,” said Knox. “I will return shortly.”
As he passed me on his way out the door, he leaned in toward me. To my horror I thought he was going to kiss me in front of Benjy, but instead he whispered, “Tell him.”
And then Benjy and I were alone. My hands shook, and I had to cross my arms to hide them. I knew I had to say something, but with the way Benjy was hunched over his work, he didn’t seem the least bit interested in me.
He had to know, though. I couldn’t let him go on thinking I was really dead, especially not with the danger he was in by being here. He’d have a better chance of protecting himself if he knew. Daxton and Augusta had stolen my entire life out from under me; I wasn’t going to let them take Benjy’s, too.
Stepping toward the couch, I cleared my throat, but he still didn’t look up. That didn’t make any sense. No matter how moody Benjy felt, he was always friendly.
“So.” My voice sounded hoarse. “How do you like it here so far?”
There were probably a thousand other things I could have said—including spitting out the truth—but I didn’t know how to tell him. I needed him to look at me, even if all he saw was Lila.
“It’s nice, thank you,” he said. When it became obvious he wasn’t going to say anything else, I gathered my courage and sat on the couch near him. I was tempted to reach out and touch him, but I clasped my hands together in my lap.
“Benjy?” I said, dropping Lila’s uppity accent so I sounded like myself. He froze. “Could you please look at me?”
When he did, his eyes were rimmed with red. “I’m sorry, Miss Hart. I don’t mean to be rude. You remind me of someone I used to know.”
I hesitated. The longer I waited to tell him, the more I would risk him being angry with me when I finally confessed. He was obviously upset, and this wasn’t a game.
“I remind you of Kitty Doe, don’t I?” I said. “She was your girlfriend, and she disappeared on her seventeenth birthday.”
Benjy looked away. “She didn’t disappear. She was killed.”
I set my hand on his arm. “No, she wasn’t.”
“Yes, she was,” he said, but he didn’t move away from me.
“No,” I repeated softly. “I wasn’t.”
My heart hammered as I waited for him to react. He was still for several seconds, and the silence overwhelmed me, threatening to destroy everything if we both stayed quiet. Maybe he hadn’t heard me right.
“Benjy, please. I know I look like Lila, but it’s me.”
He jerked away as if I’d burned him. “Don’t,” he said sharply. “I don’t know how you know about her, but if this is some sick joke—”
“It’s not.” I faced him, this time keeping my hands to myself. “Listen to me—I don’t know how much time we’ll have before Knox comes back or someone else shows up, so please let me tell you what happened.”
He said nothing, his body rigid and his expression guarded. Taking his silence as permission to continue, I took a breath and told him everything that had happened since the night of my seventeenth birthday. How Daxton had bought me and offered me a VII, how they’d killed Tabs and Masked me to look like Lila, the lessons Celia and Knox had given me, what Elsewhere was and how Daxton had forced me to watch Nina die—everything except the deal I’d made with Celia and what had happened at the club with Knox.
By the time I finished, Benjy was staring at his hands.
It took him several moments to speak, and when he did, it was in a shaky voice, as if he was struggling to keep himself under control.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he said.
“How do I know this isn’t some prank?”
I bit my lip. The dozen different ways I’d come up with to prove who I was vanished, and all I could think about was that day at the market after I’d been marked with a III.
“On my birthday, you gave me a present,” I said. “It was a purple flower from a vendor selling perfumes. A violet. You said—you said they never gave up, like me.”
I saw a spark of recognition in his eyes, and I pushed on.
“The first time you kissed me, it was the middle of January, and you were trying to teach me how to read for the zillionth time. It was a kid’s book about a spider, and you were trying to show me how the patterns in the letters formed words. You were so excited when I read it back to you that you kissed me.” I smiled faintly at the memory. “It wasn’t until you tried to show me with another book that you realized all I’d done was memorize the first one when you read it to me.”