Soulprint by Megan Miranda Read Free Book Online Page A

be to the person I am instead. When he showed up last year, he seemed closest to me in age, though I know he must’ve been at least eighteen. Maybe it was the way he didn’t distance himself, lacking the formality, or the way he smiled when he thought no one was looking—but it’s true, I missed him.
    I miss the person I thought he was for the first three weeks of his assignment. I miss the guard I thought I knew, even though it was all a lie.
    But he was not there to help me then, and he is not here to help me now. I am sure of it.
    I need to get out of this sewer.
Now
.
    â€œDominic,” I say, leaving off the Ellis, the part that makesit seem as if he didn’t lie, not entirely. “Nice to meet you,” I say, and I grit my teeth together and force my lips to smile.
    He laughs, which sounds strange in this place full of stale, standing water. “Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure we met good and official in your room last year.”
    Cameron looks at me, and heat rises to my cheeks, even though there should be no reason for that to happen. I want to defend myself. To tell the truth. But I don’t yet know this person, and I have to remind myself of that. Because there’s something odd about clinging to someone’s back for several hours while you escape from the only place you’ve ever known—it tricks my mind into thinking that I
do
know him, or that he knows me, but that is not the case.
    Dominic Ellis wanted something from me, and now he has me. Facts are weapons. So is silence. Right now, the silence lingers dangerously throughout the room, but I can’t grasp onto its source. Whether it’s Dominic. Whether it’s Cameron. Whether it’s me.
    â€œI’m ready,” I say when the tension starts to feel dangerous. If Dominic expected something more from me, some apology, some begging, then
he
has made a mistake. “Where to?”
    â€œWhat?” he asks. “No
thank you
?”
    My gaze slides away from his, because I’m remembering the Ellis I knew before. He comes closer, reaches out like he’s about to touch me. I try to keep the discomfort off my face, but he must notice because he grimaces, his hand hovering beside my arm. “You’re welcome, Alina.”
    â€œYou’re wasting time,” Cameron says, and Dominic giveshim this look that makes me truly understand the dynamics of this group. “I mean,” he starts again, “she needs to move. And I need to wait for Casey.”
    Dominic tilts his head to the side. “You’re not waiting for Casey.”
    â€œI’m not doing
anything
until—”
    â€œI am fully aware of what you will and will not do for her. Which is exactly why
I
will wait for her. And why
you
will escort the lovely Ms. Chase to Point B. You will go straight there. You will get her there, and you will keep her there, until I arrive—as a function of this contract. Do you understand?”
    Cameron doesn’t look much younger than Dominic. But he nods before looking away.
    â€œAnd,” Dominic adds, “you will not listen to a word she speaks. Are we clear?”
    I slide my feet into the sneakers that they have left for me, but there’s a gap between my heel and the back of the shoe. “Sorry,” Dominic says, like he didn’t just talk about me to Cameron as if I were a thing instead of a person. “We didn’t know your size.”
    I misjudged him. I hate that I misjudged him.
    I hate most of all that he’s the one who freed me.
    Cameron and I stuff our wet clothes into a plastic bag, which he then places inside a canvas bag that he slings over his shoulder and across his chest. He looks instantaneously carefree, like the kids on TV shows who talk effortlessly, who smile effortlessly, who laugh effortlessly.
    He gestures toward a metal ladder, and I step onto the firstrung. “It’s an alley,” he says. “And the street