Page 7 of Lost & Found

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 Winter flinched at loud noises and was more and more withdrawn.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…