Chapter 2 – Present Day
ELSIE
PRESENT DAY
The air has changed, the chill wafting through it, autumn leaves scattered across the ground, orange, yellow. Dying, yet still, they’re beautiful.
“What do you think they’re going to do with us today?” Kayla asks, huddled against me shoulder to shoulder on the other side of the first floor as we stare out the window.
Vito and Giuseppe are stationed at the door on the opposite side. Faro has them guarding day and night. They sleep here with us, so even as we close our eyes, we aren’t safe.
I think about running away probably every single day. But where could I go where they wouldn’t find me? After the beating, it took me a week to recover, then I was back to working.
The only good thing about getting hurt that day is that Keith doesn’t come around anymore. Hopefully he’s dead. Maybe Faro offed him for messing with his plaything. We make him good money, and he doesn’t like the men messing with his source of income. His men are just as disposable as us.
“I don’t know.” I throw my arm around her back and pull her tighter against me. “Wherever we go, we’ll survive it. We always do.”
“But what’s the point of surviving? We’re not living, Elsie.” She speaks the words I’ve been keeping to myself. “Have you ever thought about…” Her face drops, eyes poking holes into the floor.
“Don’t,” I say in a low tone. “I don’t want you to even think it.”
But I’m a hypocrite, aren’t I? I was just thinking of dying myself. But to hear her say it out loud, to imagine her gone…
“Can you make me a promise?” She looks to me now, dark brows tightening, moisture building in her hazel eyes.
“Depends on the promise.” I don’t look at her anymore. Because I know what she’s going to ask.
“Come on, Elsie. Please. Just say you promise,” she strains.
I can hear the tremble of her voice, and it causes my heart to race. Seconds drift by, and in them, I’m breaking, because how can I promise that? But in the end, how can I not?
“Okay. Whatever it is, I promise.”
“Well, now you’re being ridiculous,” she sighs on a flicker of a laugh, just a smidge of the fun, carefree Kayla I once knew.
My God, the dreams we had. The world ours. Now, we’re faced with making promises of the end instead of the beginning we once dreamed about.
“Fine.” I force a smile, peering over. “What am I promising?”
“That if I come to the point where I beg you to kill me, you’ll do it.”
With a stuttered inhale, I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s one thing knowing what she’ll say and another thing actually hearing it.
“Kayla…” I suck in a deep, exhausted breath. My heart…it physically hurts.
“I’ll do it for you, Elsie. If you want it. I’ll do it for you. We can’t go on this way anymore,” she whispers. “I can’t take another day of it.”
She sniffles, and I force my tears back.
“They take and take,” she silently cries. “We have nothing left to give them. I’d rather my parents find my body than wonder what really happened.”
My chest pounds with an aching so raw, I’m barely able to hold on to my emotions.
I don’t want to think about my parents. The pain they must’ve been living through all this time, wondering every day who has me.
Wondering if I’m hurt. Dead. It’s what I’m going through, not knowing what happened to Jade.
“Okay.” I let out a shaky sigh, staring out at the pale grass right out our window.
It looks like it hasn’t drunk anything in a while—that yellow-tinged death that grass gets. They mow it, though. Have to keep up with some kind of appearance. Just in case, I guess.
“Okay?”
The questioning way she asks that has me turning to her.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll kill you, Kayla. If you’ve ever had enough. If they’ve crushed you to the point that you can’t go on another moment, I’ll be there. I’ll take away the pain.”
Her lower lip trembles, eyes shimmering with her anguish, before we’re both facing the window once again. The sun is shining brightly across our faces, yet the weather has that fall chill to it, like it can’t decide if it prefers the cold or the warmth.
“What the hell are you two doin’?” Jordan appears behind us, a hand on her hip, her jet-black hair in a high ponytail, those ashen eyes assessing us.
“Just looking,” Kayla answers lowly, eyes flicking to her.
“Is that against some house law?” I snicker, facing Jordan and popping a brow.
“Don’t be a bitch, Elsie. I’m just lookin’ out.” She clacks closer in her five-inch nude stilettos. She must be entertaining soon. “If they catch you where you’re not supposed to be, they’re gonna fuck up your ass like last time.”
“Thanks for the concern, but I’m sure they know where we are by now from the cameras.”
If those two idiots are even looking at them. Vito and Giuseppe are too busy playing video games on their phones all day to really focus on the cameras they can watch through their cells.
My attention reverts back to the window, looking at that pale blue house across the street, where the addicts gather at night.
Jordan can fool the other girls, but I know she was the one who once told Vito I thought he had a small dick. He pulled down his pants and shoved his nasty thing down my throat just to prove how wrong I was. Then he did to me what Keith did to Kayla.
There’s no other way they found out. I whispered it to her. She tries too hard to be everyone’s friend and pretends to care to your face. I don’t buy it. Her personality is as fake as her boobs, and there’s only one of those things I can’t stand.
“Okay. Whatever.” She clicks her tongue, the sound of her loud heels almost as annoying as her dry, scratchy voice—like nails scraping on a chalkboard. Makes my skin crawl.
“I can’t stand her,” I whisper into Kayla’s ear once Jordan is out of sight.
“Same.” She giggles, and I love the sound.
I miss laughing just to laugh. At the stupid things. At something funny someone says over lunch. It’s the dumb stuff I miss. The small things one doesn’t realize matter until they’re torn away from you.
I miss music and singing. The morning rays of sun hitting my face on the lounger by the pool at my house. I miss coffee and the fresh chocolate chip waffles Dad used to make.
We get old pancakes from a box here. Some of the boxes have been expired for months, but we still eat them, or we starve.
Nine straight years of the same disgusting pancakes.
If I never eat another one, I’ll be thrilled.
I used to love them once upon a time. Now I can’t even recall what that felt like.
We barely eat as it is. Pre-made salads in a bag for lunch and dinner. No dressing. Sometimes we get tomatoes or cucumbers. Or they buy a whole chicken, and we take turns making it. They got us a turkey once. Apparently it was Thanksgiving.
Holidays. That’s another thing I miss. My family gathered at the table, food overflowing. My grandma and her famous mac and cheese. I actually remember the recipe. Too bad I’ll never get the chance to make it. I miss the laughter too.
It always comes back to that. Laughter. I don’t even realize the tears have lost their will and tremble down my cheeks, leaving a path of hidden pain and dark secrets.
“I know.” Kayla’s deep breath falls over my shoulder as she leans her head against it.
Because she does know. I pull her to me, tightly holding her close once again.
A friend. At least I have one in this cruel world. The other girls don’t even have that.
Silently, we watch the leaves fall for a few minutes more until a dark blue SUV pulls up, stopping right outside our window.
Kayla and I jerk our heads back. No one comes here except the Bianchis or Chad, and that’s not their car.
“Who the hell is that?” Kayla whispers with fear slinking up her tone, and the panic crawls up my spine like a deadly hand.
The driver’s side door swings open and out comes a man, tall like an Adonis, his body built for war, his face carved with sin and lurking danger. A thick scar slices across his right cheek, eyes so dark, it’s as though they carry hell within them.
His hair is longer at the top, hanging over one side of his forehead in a swoop, black strands hitting his thick eyebrow. He marches away a few steps before he pauses, his black wool coat hitting his knees as he fixes the collar, a silver ring on each of his middle fingers.
A large hand runs through his strands, forcing them back as he reaches into the pocket of his black pants. When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he opens the back door, and I see a cell phone in his grip now.
His eyes snap up, and they instantly catch mine. My stomach roils, like I’ve been caught doing something bad, but I don’t cower from his gaze. His entire face is sculpted with sharp edges, the kind of man one would describe as deadly attractive, yet fearsome too, an aura of command around him.
He keeps staring, holding me there as though daring me to disobey. I’m unable to move, and I’m not sure why. And I don’t like this feeling.
His stubbled jaw clenches, the hollows beneath his angled cheeks appearing deeper the harder his penetrating gaze sinks into mine. The sheer power hovering around him should scare me, but it doesn’t.
“Oh my God. Why is he looking at you like that?” Kayla whispers. “W-we should go.”
But I can’t seem to move an inch.
Who the hell are you?
His brows dip inward for a mere twist in time before he tears his attention away from me, turning his wandering eye toward the door leading into the house. And as he does, I catch sight of that thick, pronounced scar across his cheek yet again.
As though knowing I’m staring and wondering how a man that looks like a walking threat ever got hurt that way, he catches me with a glare, chest expanding roughly. He sharply slams the car door, stomping away toward the house as though I’ve offended him.
As he disappears out of sight, with my eyes on his SUV, a dangerous idea takes root. Maybe the universe is finally throwing us a bone. This may be our only chance. We have to take it. If we don’t, we could regret it for the rest of our lives.
I grab Kayla’s hand.