Two Days Later
I looked over at Spring, sitting so stiffly at the dining room table. Her eyes were filled with so much pain it made my heart hurt. This was all my fault. Her long brown hair hung low as her head bowed. Every movement had to hurt.
It had only been two days.
She was the youngest of us all. Sonny had shared their ages with me one day out of the blue. It was during one of our evening encounters. I hated the fact that she would be here long after we were all gone. Winter would be the first of us to be auctioned off.
With her birthday smack dab in the middle of her season, her fans would have to wait until she completed hers. He said fans paid more if anticipation had time to build. I shifted my gaze to the redhead. Her green eyes were dull from all she’d seen and experienced.
The only two times her eyes really filled with anything else were when she lost herself in the music and when the dogs were involved. The dogs were never a good time. I shuddered and felt eyes on me.
Summer.
Hers shifted the moment I met them. And inside them was the same emotion I was feeling. Guilt. I’d give anything to tell her I didn’t blame her for being here. He simply used her as he did everything around him. As more time passed, it changed us.
Summer used to have hope shining in her eyes, but she’d lost it long ago. Winter flinched at loud noises and was more and more withdrawn. Mischa was dying right before our eyes. The man holding us was a psychopath, and the scariest part was that Sonny would one day take over for him.
I hated the son more than the father, if that was possible. The way he breathed. The way he smelled. Even the way he chewed. Every day that he was home from school, while Winter attended language classes for Italian, I was excused. I’d grown up speaking it at home, which allowed time in my day.
Time that Sonny occupied whenever he was home.
In so many ways, my experience was different from the other girls, and I’d never see the auction block. Not if Sonny had anything to say about it. I honestly had stopped trying to find the positives, so the saying ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t’ held little hope for me.
It was hard watching the Collector, and sometimes the Mask, sexually torture and abuse X from a two-way mirrored room. It was worse when it was mere feet in front of you in the same room. Or in the same bed.
Sonny liked to make sure I watched.
To see and hear X crying that close, knowing what was happening to her was my fault, haunted every aspect of my dreams. She was nothing but kind, loving to a fault, almost. I had no way of knowing if she was like that with the other girls behind closed doors, but when we were alone together, she would brush my hair, braid and style it in various ways.
My fingers tightened around the fork in my hand.
What I wouldn’t have given for a sharp knife.
Ivan King, who was like a brother to me, had one.
A large one. A sob reached my ears, and with it came more guilt.
The crashing crescendo of classical music filled the dining room.
Hot tears fell down my cheeks, matching the ones racing down Mischa’s.
I didn’t know how much longer I could do this.
I stopped praying after the first public beating she was given.
God couldn’t hear me anymore, and if he did, he wasn’t answering.
Two nights ago, she did the unthinkable and spoke to me through the wall separating our rooms. It was my worst night here by far.
Between the ages of eleven and twelve, I developed.
One night I went to bed flat as could be, and the next day my school uniform button had gaps.
The day on the playground made it impossible to ignore.
And the day my period stopped…I couldn’t go there.
My future crashed down on me that night. That was why I was crying.
That was why Mischa tried to comfort me.
The night her voice and light knock reached me through the thin walls, I wanted nothing more than to say, Isabella.
My name is Isabella. Instead, I cried harder.
The memory resurfaced, and a chill coursed through me, becoming a tremor until my body shook violently.
As much as I didn’t want to, I slipped down the spiral of memories.
Autumn
“Autumn, don’t cry. I’m here. You’re not alone,” she said.
Despite the foolishness of it, despite knowing the walls had ears and punishment always followed, I was drawn to her presence. I slid off my bed and crossed the few steps to the wall where it sounded closest.
The wall was cold against my back as I sank to the floor, one hand still clutching my stomach. The other was pressed against my leg. The thick pad in my underwear shifted. I hated the way it felt. I hated that my body had changed without asking me.
“What is your favorite song? Maybe I could sing for you. My mama used to sing to me every night.”
I couldn’t answer. Silence was the only thing that had kept me safe here. Silence meant survival. Silence meant no one else got hurt. In my mind, I pictured her small hand lifted toward the wall, palm flat, waiting for mine. I almost raised it.
Almost. Instead, I pressed my spine harder against the wall and said nothing.
When I didn’t answer, she whispered, “It’s okay, if you can’t think of a song. I know a really good one. It was one of mama’s favorites.”
There was a breath—shaky at first—and then she sang. Her voice was so pure and clear. It slipped through the wall like light under a door. The first notes of Amazing Grace were angelic, just like she was. It carried a warmth I wasn’t prepared for.
It conjured up images of bedtime and being tucked in. It carried a sense of safety and love that was authentic and special.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…
The words wrapped around my ribs and squeezed. I pressed my fist to my mouth, but the tears came anyway. They slid hot and fast down my cheeks, dripping off my chin and onto my nightgown. My throat burned with the effort of holding it in.
Every note she sang scraped against the places inside me that still remembered my mother’s arms, my brother’s laughter, the way my father smelled on a Sunday morning before church.
I couldn’t breathe. The second verse broke me. My shoulders began to shake. I bit down harder on my hand until I tasted blood, trying to smother the sob that clawed its way up my throat.
She sang on. I couldn’t stay by the wall and keep quiet. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled back to my bed, grabbing my pillow and pressing it over my face. I buried my mouth into it, screaming into the cotton so the sound wouldn’t carry.
My chest heaved. My stomach cramped. The salt of my tears soaked through the fabric as I tried to breathe around the sobs tearing out of me. There was a slight tremble, as she sang for me.
And when she got to the end, she started once more. Each time it was softer than the last. And I hated that I hadn’t answered her. I hated myself for being a coward and letting her be brave alone.
I couldn’t stay on the bed any longer. I walked back over and slid down to the floor and pressed myself against the wall again, needing to be close to whatever warmth still existed in this world. It felt colder now, but I imagined the outline of her small body on the other side.
I imagined her sitting with her knees pulled, her head resting on them. My sobs wouldn’t stop this time. They came harder, uglier. I tried to swallow them, but they slipped out in broken sounds I couldn’t control.
“Autumn?” she whispered.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“It’s okay,” she said as if I had answered. “Please don’t cry. I’m here for you.”
My shoulders shook harder. There was a small pause, then softer still. “What is your real name? I bet it’s pretty, like you are. I’ll give you mine.”
There was another pause as she waited for me to speak. “My name is Mischa Natal—”
Her voice cut off. Not trailed off. It didn’t fade. It just stopped.
Silence didn’t follow, although I wished it had. Silence would have meant she remembered the rules and decided, for once, to obey them. No, the sounds that came next were nothing short of violence.
The door slammed open on the other side. The sound cracked as loudly as if the wall didn’t exist at all. A sharp crack followed. Then another. The unmistakable sound of skin striking skin.
My entire body went rigid. He was there. The Mask. Of course he’d seen, heard. The cameras were always on. We were foolish. Two stupid little girls pretending to be normal.
“I’ve told you a hundred times that girl died long ago,” the Mask raged.
Something hit the floor. Spring. I clamped my hands over my ears, but it didn’t matter. The sound carried. His fury was like invisible hands sliding under the door and wrapping around my throat.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Mischa whimpered.
Her voice sounded tiny. Distant. Like it was being pressed into the floor. Muffled.
“You’re not sorry. You’re not ever sorry. Why can’t you be like the others? Hmm?”
Another slap followed by a sharp, loud cry.
“They all behave, and you never do. I should just kill you because if I don’t, your owner surely will. It’s time for you to learn another lesson.”
I heard fabric rip, and I shook my head, fearing the worst. But it was his last words that destroyed me entirely.
“This will be the last one I teach you, so help me God.”
Last one. The words hollowed me. My breath stopped. My mind painted the scene instantly. Her small body unmoving, his hands around her throat. Her brown hair fanned out against the floor. The swan on the carousel forever empty.
This was my fault. If I hadn’t cried like a baby about getting my period. If I had been stronger. The guilt changed shape inside me. It wasn’t sharp anymore. It was crushing. A weight pressing down on my chest until I wanted to run and hide.