“But she’s asleep,” he says suspiciously.

“Then she won’t feel any pain, will she?” I tell him with a smile.

“Her mother agrees with your parents about this?” he asks, his tone dubious.

“We all just want to keep her safe,” I say, avoiding his question. “You understand the pressure of being who we are.”

Sighing, he nods then takes the case and places it onto the mattress beside me. Opening the lid, he pulls on a pair of latex gloves, lifts out the sealed sterile syringe and removes the packaging. “Same place as you have yours?” he asks.

I nod, pulling her hair up off her neck and moving to the side as Dr. Harris steps closer to her. He wipes a patch of skin right at the base of her hairline with an alcohol wipe, before bringing the syringe to her skin and carefully inserting the needle into her. She grimaces a little in her sleep, but doesn’t wake as he depresses the plunger and the nano is planted beneath her skin.

Carefully, he pulls the needle from her neck and then puts the syringe, wipe and glove into a disposable waste box he has in his bag. Returning to the bed, he picks up the scanner from the box, turns it on and runs it over her neck. When the scanner beeps, he turns it in my direction, showing me the screen that confirms the chip is active and working.

“Thank you, Dr. Harris,” I tell him. “Please make sure you send your bill to my father’s secretary and wish Amelia good luck with her scholarship application.”

The older man smiles, then packs up his bag and leaves without another word.

Smiling down at my beautiful little bird, I run my finger over the patch of skin on her neck, feeling the tracking chip that’s barely the size of a single grain of rice. We were all fitted with one when a plot was discovered to kidnap me, Clay, Evan and Hunter when we were ten.

Our families are rich and powerful, a combination that attracts those who seek to take advantage of what they thought were our parents’ weak links. The one beneath my skin has never been activated, it’s only there in case of an emergency. Little Bird is mine and the nano in her neck will ensure that even though she might think she can fly free, she’ll always be tethered to me. I’m her gilded cage, the lock and the key all at once and no matter how far she tries to run, she’ll never be able to hide.

I sit with her for a while, stroking her hair and watching as her chest moves up and down as she breathes. Eventually, I reluctantly get up and leave, pulling the door to her room closed behind me as I step into the hallway. Taking my cell from my pocket, I dial her mother’s cell number that Clay gave me as part of the information he’d found out about her.