The fourth time I had to put up with him started out like the recent ones, with the Gardener coming to me and explaining that Avery had asked permission for some time with me, but that he had his limits, just like the last two times. It was the Gardener’s way of being comforting. We still couldn’t say no, because that displeased him, but he thought it was reassuring to know that Avery couldn’t hurt us without repercussion.

The fact that the repercussions could only happen after we’d been maimed or killed was less than reassuring, but he never seemed to connect those dots. Or maybe he did and just dismissed the concern out of hand. After all, this was the man who genuinely seemed to believe that he was giving us a better life than what we’d had Outside, that he was taking care of us.

So, not particularly comforted, I obediently followed Avery to his playroom and watched him close the door, took off my clothes when he ordered me to, and let him lock me into the restraints on the wall, let him tie a blindfold too tightly around my head. I’d moved on to Poe’s prose by that point, because it was more challenging to memorize when it didn’t rhyme, and I dusted off as much as I could recall of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and prepared to silently recite it.

Unlike the Gardener, Avery didn’t believe in preparation or foreplay, didn’t care about making us ready or at the very least lubing us up, because he enjoyed causing us pain. It didn’t surprise me that he went right to it.

A quarter of the way through the story, it did surprise me when he pulled out without finishing. I could hear him at the far end of the room, where he stored most of his toys, but even as time passed he didn’t come back to me. Gradually, though, I became aware of a light smell. I couldn’t identify it, something like stale coffee or a pot on the burner after all the water’s boiled away. Finally I could hear his heavy footsteps against the cold metal floor as he came back, then oh fucking God the pain as he pressed something into my hip that burned and tore. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, the agony so tight it pulled everything in me to a single point and tried to shatter it.

I screamed, my throat clenching around the sound that tore through it.

Avery laughed. “Happy anniversary, you arrogant bitch.”

The door slammed open and he spun away, but even after the tool was drawn away the agony remained, stealing all the breath from me as my scream finally choked and died. There were sounds in the room, but I couldn’t make sense of them. I gasped and tried to suck in air, but it felt like my lungs had forgotten how to work.

Then hands fumbled at the cuffs at my wrists and ankles, and I flinched.

“It’s me, Maya, just me.” I recognized the Gardener’s voice, felt familiar hands tearing away my blindfold so I could see him. On the floor behind him, Avery sprawled inelegantly, a hypodermic quivering in his neck. “I’m so very sorry, I never thought . . . he’d been so . . . I’m sorry. He will never, ever touch you again.”

The tool was on the floor next to Avery. When I saw it, I bit my tongue to keep the nausea from overwhelming me. The Gardener got the last of the bonds unfastened and I nearly screamed again when I tried to take a step.

He swept my feet out from under me and hefted me into a cradle carry, staggering out of Avery’s playroom and partway down the hall to the infirmary. He nearly dropped me on the narrow cot so he could punch Lorraine’s call button. Then he knelt beside me, clasping my hand in both of his and telling me over and over again how sorry he was, even after Lorraine came rushing and panting into the room and set to work.

On the plus side, I didn’t have to deal with Avery for a long time after that, and his playroom was completely dismantled. But. His father couldn’t deny him completely—the Garden was nearly the only leash he had on Avery—so he still had his other ways to hurt the other girls. Silver lining and all that bullshit.

He doesn’t want to know. He really, truly doesn’t want to know, and he can see that same wish mirrored in Eddison.

But they have to know.

“The hospital didn’t say anything.”

“You all dragged me here before the hospital could do the rape kit they’d intended.”

He takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out on almost a whistle. “Inara.”

Without a word, she stands and folds the sweater and tank tops halfway up her stomach, exposing other burns, cuts, and the bottom edge of a line of stitches on her side. The button on her jeans is already undone, so she tugs down the zipper, then reaches to her left side and hooks a thumb through the denim and her green striped cotton underwear, pulling them down just enough for the agents to see.

The scar tissue is bright pink and thickly ridged along her hip bone. Only the edges of the wings are faded to pale pink and white. She gives them a crooked almost-smile. “They say everything comes in threes.”

Three butterflies for a broken girl: one for personality, one for possession, and one for pettiness.

She fixes her clothing and sits down, pulling a cheese Danish from the box that got forgotten in favor of the homemade cinnamon rolls. “Any chance I could get some water, please?”

There’s a tap from the other side of the glass in answer.

Victor thinks it’s probably Yvonne. Because it’s easier when you have something to do.

The door opens, but it’s a male analyst who sticks his head in, tossing three bottles of water to Eddison before closing the door again. Eddison hands one to Victor, then unscrews the cap on another and puts it in front of Inara. She looks at her damaged hands, at the ridges on the plastic cap, and nods, taking a long drink.

Victor reaches for the picture of the boy and lays it prominently on the table. “Tell us about Desmond and the Garden, Inara.”

She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. For a moment, the spread of pinks, reds, and purples across her face looks like a mask.

Almost like a butterfly.

Victor shudders, but he reaches across the table to gently pull her arms down. He keeps his hands over hers, careful not to put too much pressure on the burns, and waits for her to find the words. After several minutes of silence, she turns her hands under his until she can lightly clasp his wrists, and he returns the grip.

“Desmond didn’t know the true nature of the Garden for a while,” she tells his hands. “Maybe a long while, by the way of things. His father made sure of that.”

The Gardener didn’t give an access code to his younger son right away. For the first couple of weeks, he escorted Desmond through the Garden, controlling what he saw and who he spoke to. Bliss, for example, was one of the later introductions, after the Gardener had a chance for several long conversations with her about what was and was not appropriate to show or tell his son.

Desmond wasn’t shown the criers or the suck-ups, and those of us he was allowed to interact with received a dress with a back.

Bliss hurt herself laughing when she found hers neatly folded outside her room. Lorraine was the one to deliver them, and for a moment she seemed so satisfied. She didn’t know that Desmond had discovered the Garden, didn’t know that this was temporary.

She thought we were sharing her punishment, her exile.

The dresses were simple but elegant, like everything else in our wardrobes. He knew all our sizes and had probably sent Lorraine out to get them—regardless of her panic attacks at the thought of leaving the safety of the Garden—but we had them so fast there couldn’t have been another way. Still black, of course. Mine was almost a shirt, sleeveless and collared with buttons to the waist where it disappeared under a wide black stretch belt and became a swishy skirt to my knees. I secretly loved it.