by Ann, Bry
Bad people on the street wanted my words to do mean things to Marley, the lady who took care of me when I was super cold and always hungry after Mommy and Old Daddy left me.
But when I had no more words, people slowly stopped seeing me. Words are bad things that only get me hurt.
But Miss Isla needs my words. She earned them. And so has Daddy. So, I open my mouth and I scream.
Chapter Eighteen
Seven
“Help.”
The sound that comes out of her mouth is almost not human, but she spoke. She spoke! She said something.
I can only blink at her. I wanna spin her in a circle and tell her she is, in fact, a princess like Isla says. But it’s actually Frances that snaps me out of my shock.
“Did you just say help?” he jumps in, saving all of our dumbfounded asses.
Nia nods, looking just a wreck. She’s my focus. Her small body is trembling so hard it almost makes me cry.
“Help. Help. Help,” she keeps repeating it in a rhythm, like a chant, looking in my eyes like I’m supposed to already know what happened.
Boss starts barking orders for people do a search while Frances and I look at Nia.
“Will you tell Marley?” Frances asks.
“Help. Help.”
She’s giving me those eyes again. Like, come on, Dad. Understand what I’m trying to tell you.
“Nia, I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” I pause, taking in her hurt expression. I take her chin between my fingers and make her look at me. “But your words matter to me, sweetie. Your words matter.”
“This is sweet and all,” Frances muses. “Real glad you’re talking, but if someone’s dead or dying, we need to get on it.”
Nia starts to tremble again.
“Can you show me, N? Show me where you need help?”
Slowly, she nods and wiggles for me to put her down. I set her on her feet, and immediately, she’s off. I dart after her, as do Boss and Frances. Nia is running now, seemingly having found her way out of the shock that was riddling her body before.
Boss looks at me as we run.
“Seven, I have a bad feeling. I need you to hold yourself together.”
Before I have a chance to respond, Nia is using her small body to try to shove the large oak front doors open. Little grunts come from her lips as she shoves and shoves. Frances and I go above her and push the doors open for her.
Nia takes off, running faster than I’ve ever seen her run. Radar, Rose, and Carly are all outside. Rose is shaking so badly, tears rolling down her cheeks, holding on for dear life to Radar’s arm. Radar has his lips set in a firm line, tense. Carly’s hugging Rose.
“Dwad!” Rose screams. Boss looks torn for a moment, trying to decide whether to follow Nia to the gate where she’s running or to go to his daughter.
“Go after her, Seven.”
I do as Boss says. As he goes to hold his daughter, I go chase mine.
I round the corner of the gate with Frances hot on my heels. Why was the gate open? Where the fuck are the guards? Why were the kids out of property lines?
I hear Frances mutter “oh fuck” and look up.
Frank, Danny’s boyfriend, is on the ground, writhing, covered in blood.
“I’m gonna get the kid’s boyfriend. I’ll be right back.”
The words rush out of Frances’ mouth as he takes off. I run to Frank, immediately sliding to my knees to put pressure on the wound.
“Hey, stay with me, man. Stay with me.”
Nia is staring at me wide eyed, wanting to do something with her hands. I can tell.
“No,” Frank starts to cry, “I-Isla… they have Isla.”
Frank grabs my blood-soaked hand.
“You have to…” he hisses in a pained, deep breath, “get her. Danny loves her so much.”
“Isla? What about Isla?! Where the hell is she?”
Frank opens his mouth, but his chest heaves and he’s fading fast from blood loss.
“Nia, what happened to Isla? If you know and you can talk, I need you to tell me. I’m sorry, sweetie. I need your voice,” I implore her. “I need it,” I whisper.
“Ta-take…” Nia squeezes her eyes and grabs her throat. I have so much coursing through me that I don’t know what to touch on: her talking, Isla, Frank dying…
“It’s okay. Go tell Adam.” The kids call Boss by his real name. “Tell him 9-1-1, Nia. He’ll know what to do. Can you do that?”
She nods and runs.
Two seconds later, while I’m telling Frank to stay with me, Danny and Frances round the corner.
“Frank!” Danny cries, getting to his knees like I did and grabbing Frank’s face. “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
“I-I tr-tried…” A cold tear slips down Frank’s cheek. “Co-couldn’t. Not strong…”
“It’s okay. Shh… you don’t have to be strong. I got you. Just…” Danny squeezes his eyes tightly. “Goddamnit, stay awake, Frank. I love you, okay? I know you’ve told me ten times and I’ve been too Goddamn scared to say it, but I love you. Don’t leave me.”
Another cold tear.
“Di-ditto. Bu-but your… Isla… I tr-tried…” Danny goes completely rigid. “Th-they shot and I-I could-couldn’t st-stop them for-for you.”
A hardness comes over Danny.
“Don’t die on me, Frank. Don’t die.”
But it’s clear that Danny’s thoughts are distracted. He looks up at me and I’m not sure what I see besides anger—fear, trust, blame… it’s unclear to me.
A black car pulls up in front of us. Our doctor comes out, starts barking orders, and in less time than we can blink, Frank is in the car, getting attended to by the doctor before heading to the hospital. He’s not close enough to our circle to even be a concern. Danny and Frank’s eyes meet. Frank is the boyfriend Danny just confessed his love to, so technically he should go with him. I know he wants to.
But Isla is missing.
And that’s his family.
“Go,” Frank rasps. He smiles warmly at Danny, pained but full of love. “Find her, babe.”
Tears fill Danny’s eyes.
“Thank you. I love you, Frank.”
The car door shuts and he’s gone.
* * *
I give Danny a minute to get it together, but that’s all. Danny comes to on his own.
“I know this is your fault,” Danny says in a low, dangerous voice. I didn’t even know he possessed all this darkness. Guess Isla brought out the best in him, too.
“I know she’s in this mess ‘cause of you, Seven. If any part of her beautiful soul is tainted by this, I will find a way to kill you myself.”
He rounds on me, eyes blazing. His tear and hate filled gaze flickers to the sword on my belt that most people don’t notice.
“With your own sword.”
Chapter Nineteen
Isla
“Mmmm… mmm…” I screech against the gag, jerking wildly.
Let me go! Let me go!
They shot Frank. They shot Frank. My brain’s short-circuiting. He— he jumped in to save me. Sweet, little Frankie.
“Mmm!!!!” My limbs jerk wildly, fighting the inevitable. Fighting the rope holding me in place. The men laugh. There’s four of them. Four smelly, beer belly, stanky old men.
“MMMM!!!”
“Oh, shut up or we’ll shut you up.”
Help! Seven! Seven, please.
“You’re pretty when you cry,” one of them teases, fiddling with the bottom of my pant leg. I jerk and kick at him.
Get away from me!
“Feisty. I like it.”
“Well, I fucking don’t,” a guy from the corner growls, “and you lay a finger on her, Boss will have your head. He claimed this one for himself.”
Boss. No. No. No.
Claim?!
Tears dampen the cloth in my mouth.
“He’s right,” the most amused one laughs, “let’s cut the temptation now.�
��
NOO!
There’s blinding pain for only a second.
… and then my world goes black.
* * *
“Did I say knock the girl out and bring her to me?” a cold, level voice breaks through my foggy thoughts. My eyes flutter but won’t open. It’s too bright, ahh. I coil back.
“N-no, sir, b-but—”
Splich... the most horrific sound I’ve ever heard resonates in the room.
Gargling proceeds the horrific sound. I don’t know what’s happening, but just the sounds make bile rise up in my throat.
“Aww, doc, you’re up.”
My nerves alight. Doc. No. Please. Please no.
I curl inward and squeeze my eyes closed, earning a deep chuckle from the other corner of the room.
“You know…” I feel an overwhelming presence above me. “I can easily get your attention, tabib żagħżugħ.” (Young doctor.)
I bite my lip to keep from crying.
“Very well.”
Fingers wrap loosely around my bicep. I shoot up to seated, shuffling away from him as quickly as I can, blindly, because I refuse to open my eyes.
“Tsk, tsk, stubborn. I don’t like that, tabib żagħżugħ. You don’t want me upset, do you?”
Wrapping my arms around my legs, I let the tears fall.
“I just wanna go home,” I plea on a whisper.
“Leave us.”
His voice is cool as ice as he commands his men. Seven’s boss isn’t this cold.
I don’t wanna be alone with him. I still haven’t even opened my eyes, because when I do, it’ll all become real.
“Doc…” Why is he so obsessed with my title?! Bastard. A whimper escapes my lips as he ducks down in front of me. His hands encompass my small knees, locking me in place.
“Look at me, little girl.”
I shake my head.
“Pl-please let me go home. I-I don’t kn-know anything.”
“Yes, you do,” he says simply. “Open your eyes right now or I’ll be forced to punish you.”
His hands skate up my thigh. Tears keep spilling over, but I stay quiet.
“I think you know I’m true to my word. Don’t you, doc?”
I nod yes and slowly, one at a time, peel my eyes open. My body somewhat blesses me, because as soon as the light touches my eyes, I rear back and grab my head as a splitting headache so intense that it blinds me distracts me from everything else.
Holding my face between my fingers, I grit my teeth and try to breathe myself through it.
“Hurting, doc?” His hand slides through my hair like a snake and yanks upward hard. My vision goes white for a second as I cry out.
“Let me go! Oww!” I reach up and grab his wrist to pull him off me.
“Your skin is so soft, tabib żagħżugħ.”
My head lolls forward and I dry heave over the luxurious carpet. The room we’re in is an old-fashioned library of some kind with deep, cherrywood walls and expensive leather seating.
“Don’t you dare!”
He tugs again, drawing me back. I scream. Oh my God, MY HEAD. I can’t focus on him or surviving or anything else.
“Behave, doc,” he hisses.
“Let me go. Please. Please, let me go.”
“Ah, please. There you go. Good girl.”
Slowly, his fingers release, easing some of the pressure, and he strokes my hair once.
“I have medicine that will help with your headache, Isla.”
I should feel disturbed by his knowledge of my real name, but… medicine. Oh my gosh, can he get this pain to go away? I snap my head upward to look at him for the first time since I got here so I can beg. Plead. Get on my hands and knees and beg him to give me medicine for the pain.
But as soon as I meet his ice blue eyes and see the lifelessness behind them, something splinters in my mind and memories flood.
The terror I felt the first time I saw him. The shock.
The knife.
His fist.
His fingers on me. In me.
The nauseating noise I heard earlier and the gargling.
It’s not until the last memory drifts away that I realize I’m screaming. I’m screaming at the very top of my lungs.
Ice man just stares as my screaming turns to gasping, then to whimpers.
“I see you remember my capabilities.” He smirks.
“You— you killed th-that guy.”
“Yes, why? You gonna miss him?” He smirks at me. “How’s your head?”
My jaw grits. I hate him!
“You have something to say to me, doc?”
“You’re— you’re a…”
“Nu-uh, if you’re gonna say it, little girl, you have to look me in the eyes.”
“Can I have the medicine?” I whisper, looking at my knees, deciding on the safer option.
“What do I get out of it?”
“The satisfaction of doing a good deed.”
He scoffs. “Try again.”
Before I can reply, he has my arms and is hoisting me to my tiptoes and yanking me into him.
“Are-are you hurt?” I shriek.
His eyebrows raise. “Am I hurt?”
“Yes,” I squeak, trying to put distance between us when he’s allowing none. “Are you?”
“Why do you ask?” He looks amused.
“I’m a doctor. I-I can help. So, you get something out of it.”
He laughs. Actually throws his head back and lets out a deep laugh. When it finally dies down, he’s looking at me again with those creepy, amused, yet still lifeless eyes.
“Smart woman. I’m impressed. My cock hurts. Can you help with that, doc?” His accent is thick as he smirks down at me.
“No! I can’t. I can’t. Please.”
His finger comes up and traces a line on my cheek.
“You like that word, tabib żagħżugħ. Please. Don’t you?”
“People listen then.”
He chuckles. “Sometimes. Flash those big eyes and I’m sure you get your way a lot.”
“Less than you’d think,” I mutter.
“Huh?” he whispers to himself, staring at me. “What to do with you, little girl. What to do with you. I don’t need anything from you. You’re simply a puzzle piece, so what do I do with you while I wait for your friends to show up, huh?”
“What do you want with them?”
He traces his finger over my lips in an almost scrutinizing way. I shudder.
“I think I’ll keep that information to myself for now. If I tell you, I may have to kill you, and I’m not quite sure I want to do that yet.”
Yet.
All I can manage is a squeak.
“Do you think they’ll come to save you, little girl?”
He drags me closer so I’m one inch from his face, eyes flaring. I try to pull away, but his hand slides through my hair again, ripping a yelp out of me.
“I don’t know!” I scream. “Please, my head.” God, PLEASE.
“Hmm, I think they will. Good ol’ Adam has a soft spot for women since he met his pretty little wife, and Seven…” Ice man smiles. “I know you were at his house. For a girl like you,” he muses, looking me over like I’m cattle, “yeah, he’ll come. So, I have choices now.”
Please let one of them be medicine. I need the pain to stop.
“I can hurt you again. That’ll piss Seven and Adam off.”
“But that doesn’t sound appealing to me. Hmm. Alright. Take my jacket off, tabib żagħżugħ and you can have some medicine for your head. Your face is scrunched with pain, yet you’re trying to be strong,” he observes. He doesn’t mention that I’m failing at it. It hurts so badly and I know my eyes are wrinkled and my mouth is taut.
“Take your suit jacket off…?” I stammer.
“Yes, doc.” He lets me go, brushing the wrinkles out of my scrubs with one hand. “That’s it. I don’t ask much.”
But that means I have to touch him. Voluntarily. Can I handle that? Can
my emotions handle that? By the glimmer in his eyes, he’s getting exactly the reaction he wanted from me. Confusion. Shame. Breaking me down.
Breaking.
Broken.
Seven’s words float back into my mind.
They broke me, hun. They broke me.
How did he survive what he did? Shame is already consuming me like a disease and nothing really bad has even happened to me.
Yet.
As ice man so quickly reminded me.
Tears spill as I reach for the man’s jacket with shaking hands. His eyes light up with cruel, degrading humor.
“Good choice, little girl. Good choice.”
As he strokes my hair like I’m his pet as I voluntarily make contact with his body, I force my mind to think of Seven. His strong, bulky body. The flannel and plaid he insists on wearing while everyone else is in suits. His beard that is so thick it brings an aura of mystery to his handsome face.
I tremble harder as I slip the jacket off of ice man’s shoulders. When it hits the floor, he grabs me and jerks me around, my back to his front.
“You please me, doc,” he purrs, stroking my face.
“Let me go.” I try to get out of his hold. “Th-this wasn’t part of the deal.”
“I’ll get your medicine. Calm down.”
“I can’t be calm! I can’t be calm! What do you want? What do you want?”
I slump in his hold. His grimy fingers slide up my shoulders to my neck. I panic for a moment, momentarily reliving the feel of Seven’s hands in that same place. But his hands don’t squeeze… they wipe.
“I noticed…” wipe, wipe, wipe, “what looked like bruises while you were undressing me, doc.”
I wasn’t undressing him! I cry out loud in my head.
“Aw, I see I was right.” I stiffen. He laughs. “I thought so.”
When he’s satisfied, he flips me around, gripping me tightly enough that I won’t fight to get away. His fingers lightly trace over the ring of fingerprints painted purple around my neck. I can only look away, swallowing the pain I feel for Seven.
“I heard rumors that Seven had some… issues. PTSD was the word? Tell me, little girl, are the rumors true? Or did he rough you around? Or…” He smirks. “Maybe you asked for it?”
