by Redding, Mae
“I know it’s not worth much, Hector, but… I am so sorry.”
“Miss Jade, don’t apologize, you have done nothing beautiful girl,” he said, as he wiped at my tears with cuffed hands.
“I haven’t done enough and too much at the same time.”
“No, this is not you. This is them!” He leaned close and whispered as he spoke. The intensity of his dark brown eyes caused an ache in my heart as my tears continued to spill onto his shirt. “Be strong girl, you will need to be.”
“I am so scared, Hector… I have nothing left!”
“Yes you do! It’s okay to be scared, but remember, it’s only a reaction… don’t let it hinder you. You’ll do amazing things if you control it.” Hector’s eyes burned fierce with intensity. He wouldn’t allow me to think otherwise.
“What can I possibly do, that won’t make everything worse.”
“When the time comes, you will know. You are stronger than you realize. Don’t ever forget it, little Jadeite!”
The sound of Hector’s voice calling me by my nickname he gave me when I was all of three ripped painfully at my heart. Jackson pulled him to his feet and shoved him out the door. I stood quickly and ran after him. “Hector!” Guards restrained me and placed me back in the chair.
“What are you going to do to him?” I asked Morrison as I whirled around angry.
“You will know soon enough.”
“Where’s Kane!” I demanded.
“I can’t bring him in yet. He hasn’t led me to the others he’s working with, to Kennington. But I don’t think it will be much longer. That’s a bonus of having you here. You’re keeping him angry. He’s slipping up… it’s only a matter of time now and I’ll be there when he falls.”
“Can I go now?”
“Not yet… When is your seventeenth birthday?”
“In April.”
I answered, fearful of why he wanted to know, I wrung my hands nervously then wiped angrily at the tears on my cheeks as he shifted back in his chair. His eyes stared intently at me with contemplation while he took another drag off his cigarette and blew it my direction. Unable to hold his glare, I glanced towards the window, as his intimidation crawled under my skin.
“Seven months from now. I guess that’ll do.”
“What?”
“You and Damian will be married on your seventeenth birthday… You’ll get his mark then.” Morrison’s stiff calloused demeanor changed as he placed his cigarette in the ashtray, his head tilted slightly to the side as he looked at me. I shifted, uncomfortable in my seat as he stood. He walked towards me, each step echoed against the hardwood floor.
“You’re quite the fighter, aren’t you, Jade?”
He didn’t try to hide the sudden intrigue in his eyes as he grasped my chin in his hands and forced me to look at him.
“Your fierce innocence interests me.” His brows furrowed as he studied me. My heart hammered wildly in my chest as the knot in my throat threatened to cut off my air. “You remind me of…” His voice trailed off. “Someone.”
“My mother?”
“Yes… she was beautiful, you look like her.”
Warm tears clouded my vision, I blinked as one rolled down my cheek.
He stood there pensive, deep in thought as if considering something, then, as if never present, he replaced the look by his familiar steely glare.
“You can go now,” Morrison said, as he returned to the plush leather office chair behind the desk. He looked down at his papers with an indifferent affect. He didn’t give me a second thought.
I stood quickly and walked out of the office. I tried to keep the shock off my face as I passed Rubin in the hallway. His lecherous gawk caused me to shift uneasily beneath my skin. Each breath I took forced, slow and measured as I ignored his glare. I barely made it to my room before I burst into sobs, leaned against the back of the door and slid down to the floor. Marry Damian!
A disturbance outside drew my attention from the horror spent in Morrison’s office. Absently, I wiped my tears and walked through the doorway to my balcony then peered over the side through the chain link fence. Fear surged through me as I realized the damage I caused. I became distraught at the sight of Hector blindfolded and forced to his knees.
“Hector!” I cried and grasped onto the fence. The wire cut into my fingers as I squeezed tightly. Men lined up, guns drawn as Hector awaited his inevitable fate. I screamed at the top of my lungs, causing my throat burn. “No! Please! Hector!”
“Ser fuerte poco jadeite!” Hector’s voice boomed through the courtyard just before deafening rounds of ammunition fired from their guns and drowned out my screams. Unable to look away, I watched helplessly as Hector’s body jerked involuntarily from the piercing bullets and fell to the ground. His words rang in my ears, “be strong little jadeite.”
The rough wall cut painfully into my arm as I slid down the concrete to the floor and sobbed. Thick heavy tears stained my cheeks and dripped onto the ground. I doubled over. The nasty burn of bile forced its way up into my mouth as I tried to force the image out of my mind.
***
Prickly goose bumps traveled up my arm as Damian grazed his fingers up to my shoulder. I almost felt his pervasive smile as I lay on the bed and faced the wall. With my back to him, he curled himself around me. I held my breath. With his face in my hair, he breathed in deeply. I felt the hotness of his breath on the back of my neck as he exhaled.
I ignored Damian’s advances as I allowed my senses to dull. His unwanted presence and the fear of his next move seemed minor compared to what I witnessed yesterday. With my mind altered, pain and numbness shifted back and forth through my heart and caused it to ache terribly.
Hector.
Tears welled suddenly then replaced by the dry tackiness they left behind. I closed my puffy red eyes and pretended to be asleep as I tried to imagine myself elsewhere. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t, everywhere my mind took me, it seemed to return to thoughts of Hector.
“Do you mind? He may not have meant anything to you, but he did to me. Can you leave me alone for a while, please?”
Damian’s hand slipped under the sleeve of my shirt and rubbed my chest where the mark was. It wasn’t tender anymore but I knew his hand was right over it.
“I’ll leave you to yourself for a while but don’t forget who you belong to, Jade.”
“How can I forget? Morrison, I belong to Morrison.”
“You belong to me! Not Morrison!” Instant anger resonated through his gruff voice and I knew I threw a low blow. He grabbed my shoulders and forced me onto my back to look up at him.
“Damian, this mark is Morrison’s mark, not yours.”
“That is only part of it, Jade. You will get the rest of it after we’re married. I know Morrison talked to you, your birthday, April seventeenth.”
“How do you know my birthday?”
“I know everything about you, Jade. And you will wear my mark soon enough. It will go right under this one.”
“Yeah Damian, key word. Under, underneath his.”
***
A week had passed since Morrison ordered Hector’s death and I still couldn't pull myself out of my grief. Death by firing squad was the maximum punishment for contributing to the rebellion, his way to justify cold-blooded murder and his own hostility and treasonous acts.
I sat on the patio and tried to make sense of everything. The cool breeze on my face seemed to clear the fog from my mind. I rubbed at my tired eyes. The weather had changed and I welcomed it. I desperately needed a change and the onset of autumn seemed to suffice for now. Instead of the usual green, the leaves along the mountainside had turned vibrant colors of gold, orange, and red. I pulled the blanket closer around my neck as goose bumps moved up my arms and quickly made their way up my neck. I wasn’t sure if they were from the chill in the air or the gunshots that sounded out in the distance.
Though the gunshots weren’t constant, they became more frequent and sounded closer
every day, but despite of their close proximity, became only noise in the back of my mind that I was barely aware of. I wouldn’t allow myself to wish too much for Kane to breach the perimeter. After what I did to Hector, I didn’t deserve a rescue but at the same time, I still hoped someday I would be.
I startled slightly, the patio doors creaked, as they slowly swung open. I became used to Damian's stiff hardened glare and felt his present before I turned to see him in the doorway. My eyes followed his large, overpowering frame as he moved towards me with an air of confidence that disappeared only in Morrison's presence.
“Enough of this, Jade. Stop your sulking.”
I tried to hold his gaze but the callousness in them caused me squirm inside and I finally looked away.
I tried to do what Damian demanded just to make it through another day without the presence of his brutal side. After a while, I predicted his response, his behavior and his routines. My moves became more deliberate and planned out. Even my thoughts became mechanical, which made sense, since Damian only saw me as a possession, a piece of property, something to be controlled.
“Okay, I'm sorry,” I said, as I forced a smile.
“It's getting old.”
His grey icy eyes, unreadable, hiding what went on in his mind. They possessed coldness, hardened by pain, maybe something from his past that he refused to acknowledge, forcing it back, hidden from everyone. Whatever the reason, it poisoned his soul and I felt a twinge of sadness for him.
“He's gone and it's over. Let it go,” Damian ordered.
“I'm trying. It's not that easy.”
He sighed as he sat next to me. “It gets easier,” he said, and I wondered what he meant exactly. I watched him. His tee shirt grew taut against the swell of his biceps and lean muscled back as he leaned forward and then rested his forearms against his thighs. With his brows furrowed, he stared out into the bright day.
It became increasingly difficult to judge him for his cruelty. I tasted only a bite of what it had to be like to grow up in this sort of environment. He couldn't have always been a cold-hearted abuser. He was a child once, maybe like Corby. His build was strong with striking, dominant features and even though it was Gage's face that I longed to see, it wasn't as hard to look at Damian anymore.
“There was nothing you could have done about it.”
His tone grew softer and for a brief moment, I thought I saw a sliver of sympathy. He wasn't always mean or abusive but his amount of sensitivity was extremely shallow and rare. For some reason, I felt this was his way to say sorry for my loss. He would never come out and say it. For Damian to say sorry would be to acknowledge he had a weakness, an admittance of being wrong and he would never do that. I forced a weak smile.
“How long have I been here?”
“Almost three months. It’s the end of September.”
“When can I go outside?”
He glanced back over his shoulder, sincerity I hadn't seen before surfaced in his eyes. “I’ll talk to Morrison about it.”
“Thank you.”
A fleeting smile grew faintly at his lips. “Maybe I’ll take you outside tomorrow.”
“I would like that,” I said, as I tried not to sound too eager and smiled back to thank him for his generosity.
“Let’s go inside.”
“You go ahead. I think I want to stay out and watch the sunset.”
Damian’s unusual casualness instantly turned dark, as if never present. “No… I said let’s go inside.”
I sighed and I looked up at him as he stood over me, my hopes for tomorrow, suddenly drowned by his weighted stare.
“Okay… But do you think we will be able to go outside tomorrow?”
“I doubt it.”
***
The sounds of gunshots ricocheted through the air, pulling me from my dazed stare at the window. They were closer than before but the kids hardly noticed them as they took turns reading around our little circle. They weren’t bothered by them at all and strangely, seemed to look forward to them, were comforted by them. The shots must have caused a bit of alarm for the woman because at that time, she walked briskly out the door and neglected to say when she would return.
Four-year-old Maya jumped in my lap when she left. Her small size fit comfortably. She looked up at me and smiled as she pulled my arms around her. Her tiny bony arms reached around my sides as she attempted to give me a hug. Starved for attention, I felt her body relax as I hugged her back. I rubbed the soft golden fuzziness of her buzzed hair, grown about an inch since we first met. She gave me a half-hearted smile. Her cute round cheeks disappeared into a pouty frown.
“You’re beautiful Maya,” I told her. I squeezed her tight as her hand wound through a strand of my hair and she started to twirl it around her little fingers. “You can sit with me until she comes back, then you have to jump off quickly, okay.”
Maya nodded her agreement as Lainie asked me a startling question. “Jade, are you pregnant?”
“What? No! Why would you think so?”
“Because, all the girls your age that come in here are pregnant. That’s what Brea, my sister says.”
I was stunned by Lainie’s question and even more stunned at how smart she was for being only eight.
“How old is Brea?”
“Thirteen.”
“Is she?”
“No, not until she’s seventeen she says, but Corby's sister was,” she said, as she glanced at him next to me on the rug.
“I’m not seventeen yet.” My words shocked me as I realized what Morrison had planned. He had already asked when I turned seventeen. The thought of being pregnant terrified me, especially from Damian. I glanced back out the window. The gunshots stopped and the letdown of a scarce possibility of a rescue was heavier than before.
“Jade?” Maya interrupted. “When the men with guns come for you, will you take me with you?”
The three of them stared at me as they waited for a response. The sudden knot in my throat squeezed tight, constricting my air as the glassiness in my eyes gave away my dashed hopes. It was one thing for me to dwell on hopeless dreams but it was another to tell them someone would come when they might not. I wanted to tell them I would take them all, but the harsh reality was, I along with them, would probably never get away from Morrison.
“Don’t give up hope Maya, someone will come and I’ll do whatever I can to get you kids get out.” I gave her a forced smile as I felt suddenly sick inside.
If Morrison succeeded, my life would cease to be my own. I would just merely exist as the other women in the compound and unfortunately, for the kids, their future, just as bleak.
CHAPTER 29
I walked out to the patio and looked into the inky darkness as I pulled the blanket tighter around me. The stars slowly faded into the night as thickening clouds blanketed the sky. Pressure in the atmosphere grew tense as the smell of rain grew heavy in the air. The unusually quiet night added to the eeriness and I couldn't shake the concern from my mind.
Morrison called for Damian and they left about an hour ago. I hoped he didn’t return until morning, if he had to return at all. Apparently, Kane caused problems for them over the last few days and I looked forward to the day he made it to the compound. The last few nights I heard constant gunshots, but tonight not one shot roared and I worried if something happened to my brother.
A sigh escaped me as I moved into the room and set the blanket at the end of the bed. The faint squeak of the springs gave way as I crawled inside and felt the cool sheets against my skin. My energy drained as my eyes drifted closed and felt weighted to the bed. I lifted a heavy arm to rub the ache in my head.
I tried to see Gage’s face in my mind as I imagined him with his arms around me. A tear escaped and trickled over my temple into my hair. Pain crushed my heart from how much I missed him. Slowly, I turned to my side and pushed my face into the pillow, angry that I couldn't make out his face. I couldn't see his heart melting smile or his beautiful, soft bl
ue eyes. His face faded further until only a blur remained. The tears came and let myself fall into a restless sleep.
A swift crash of thunder jolted me awake in a disoriented state. I found my bearings and paused to listen but there were no sounds of rain or wind outside as I waited for a flash of lightening and another crash.
Then, a blinding flash displaced the air with a thunderous rumble that shook the compound and rattled my insides. Gunshots popped like firecrackers, splitting the once calm night. I jumped out of bed and burst through the doors out to the patio to peer through the fence just beyond the borders of the compound. Golden streaks flashed through the black sky as gunshots fired not more than five hundred yards away.
“Let’s go!” Damian said, as he crashed through the doors behind me. I spun around, panicked.
“Where are we going?”
“Away from here!”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? They’re after you!”
They weren’t after me! They were coming for me! I didn’t want to leave! I wanted to stay right where I was and let them find me! Guards scrambled for their weapons as he pulled me down the hallway into the chaos. The charred smell of something burning grew strong and I frantically searched for where it came from, as the hallway grew cloudy with smoke. My eyes stung. I caught sight of Morrison who walked swiftly out of his office, carrying a large case. Two guards behind him, carrying two more each.
“Set off the charges!” Red-faced, with eyes as sharp as daggers and neck veins that pulsated at the base from rage. He barked orders to a guard as he moved down the stairs, while the plump woman followed behind him.
“Not everyone is out yet!” She yelled, wild eyed with her arms flailing as she ran after him. He stopped on the staircase and blocked the way as we rushed to the stairs. Shocked, I watched as she pleaded for more time with no avail.
“Then I suggest you hurry! You have five minutes to get out!” He yelled at the woman, and then he turned to the guard. “Go set them off! Time the first three for seven minutes! Set the others for ten! ”
I watched Morrison move down the stairs, concerned only of his own escape. “Wait!” I stopped abruptly as his words stunned me. Damian’s forward momentum and strong grip on my wrist jerked me forward and with a whip of my arm, I pulled it from his grasp.
