Living in Darkness (Bloodbreeders) (15 page)

“You’ll pay for that, you little bitch,” he sputtered, raising his fist
to hit me.

“Enrique,” Annabel called out, stopping him. “I will take care of her
myself. Now, bring her here, or do I need to find you some help?”

He didn’t answer
her,
he smiled down at me instead.
“Now you’re going to get what you deserve.” He tried to take me to her, but I
didn’t make his job easy. I fought with every ounce of strength that I had
left. Despite my struggling, he bodily picked me up and swung me over his
shoulder hard enough that I could tell that my ribs were still in bad shape. He
carried me down the corridor to a little room with a table in the middle, and
slammed me down callously. While strapping me down, he took the opportunity to
elbow me in the face, busting my lip with his efforts.

“Consider that payback, bitch,” he said smugly.

I could taste my own blood filling my mouth, but I gave him no
satisfaction.

“No wonder you’re told what to do by a woman, if that’s all you got.”

He raised his fist to strike me once more, but again, Annabel stopped
him. “Leave her to me, and go clean yourself up. The Mistress needs you,” she
told him.

“I’ll have my turn with you,” he whispered leaning next to my ear. “We
have all the time in the world... if you live that long.” He gave me a wicked
smirk, then left.

Annabel walked over to a small white desk by the wall and began working
on something. I couldn’t tell what she was doing, but I could hear metal
clanking ever so slightly.

“You will remember what you did last night for a very long time,” she
said, never turning to look at me. “After tonight, I guarantee you will be a
better girl.” She then came over to me, and told me to lay my hand out flat.

“Why should I do anything you say?” I asked, trying to pull my arms out
of the restraints. “You can all die and go to hell.”

“It’s a shame you are so bullheaded,” she shook her head, taking my
hand in hers, stroking it lightly.
 
“At this
rate it will be months before we can sell you for more than anything but a night’s
pleasure.” She stopped rubbing my hand and quickly took hold of my little
finger, bending it back until I felt the bones break. I screamed out in pain as
my mind threatened to blackout.
 

“Now, lay your hand flat,” she commanded, again stroking my hand. This
time, I did as I was told. I felt her place a flat board on my palm, securing
my hand firmly to it with a thin strip of white cloth.

“What are you doing? Please Annabel, why are you doing this?” I asked,
unable to wipe the fear from my voice.

“So you will remember,” she said, looking me directly in the eyes. “What
you did with this hand.” It already hurt like hell, what else was she planning to
do?
Break the rest of my fingers?

“You don’t have to do this, just let me go. I want to go home. Please,”
I cried. She ignored my plea, and picked up a long, needle-like blade, holding
it up to the light.

“This should do nicely,” she said, in a satisfactory tone.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked, nervously.

“Which one will it be? No, no, not the little one, it has paid its
price. Ah, yes, you’ll do just fine,” she said, picking up my ring finger. “This
may hurt a little.”

She started just under the tip of my fingernail, pushing the blade
slowly underneath, smiling the whole time. I started to scream with the first
slice of the blade, swinging my head wildly from side to side, desperately
trying to yank my hand away, but it was no use. The pain was so immense, that
it caused an instant throbbing heat to course in nauseating waves from the pit
of my stomach to the back of my throat, as I begged for mercy, knowing it was
far from over.

“Now, I want you to promise that you are never...” Annabel added
pushing the blade deeper, “Never...,” the blade pushed deeper still, “Never,
going to hit another friend of Lady Yvette’s.” With the last never, she slammed
the rest of the blade in so forcefully that it not only pierced the skin on the
back of my hand, taking my nail with it, but the flesh in the path of the thin
sharp blade, ripped open like a ripe tomato on a hot July afternoon.

My mouth was open in a silent scream, with no air left to use. The pain
wouldn’t allow me to take even the smallest breath. My eyes rolled back in my head,
while Annabel looked on with a smirk, enjoying every second of my unbelievable
agony. Then like hitting a light switch her smirk turned into a horrid frown.

“Answer Me,” she demanded, sounding more animal than human, as she ripped
the blade out of my hand. It was more than my mind could take, and most
gratefully, I passed out.

*****

I came to back in my cage, unaware of how much time had passed. I sat
up leaning against the slime covered wall, looking down at my tortured hand. The
blood flow from my mangled hand had congealed. It had all but stopped bleeding,
but my little finger was still badly misshapen. It was bent and twisted so much
that it lay against the back of my hand. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt near as
bad as it looked.

Someone began walking my way very softly, but I could hear them
clearly. As the person stopped in front of my cage and bent down, you could
hear the sigh as I let a breath out as soon as I recognized that it was
Tanda
.

“Miss, you must reset your finger or you will heal that way,” she told
me. “If you can’t, I’ll help you.” She kept looking behind her as if afraid she
might be caught speaking with me. “Please, Miss, if I’m to help, we must hurry.
I don’t have much time before they’ll know I’ve gone.”

“Don’t get into trouble for me. Go, before you end up in here,” I
replied in a whisper.

“But your hand, Miss...” I stopped her.

“I can do it, now go.”

She grabbed one of the bars. “I am sorry for you, miss.” Then stood up
and left much faster than she had come. She looked so young, and couldn’t have
been more than fifteen when she was turned. I knew she was sincere with the
words she had just spoken; I could hear it in her voice. She wouldn’t be stuck
down here taking care of those of us trapped in this abominable place, if she
weren’t a slave herself. I looked back up and wondered just how long that
actually might be.

I looked back down at my hand, and shook my head. I leaned my head
against the wall and closed my eyes.
She’s
right,
I thought to myself.
If I don’t pop it back in place, it will
without a doubt heal like this.
That was one thing I noticed with great
curiosity. My body healed so much faster once I had become this new creature of
the night. My lip, two days, the wound on my arm couldn’t have taken more than
four, and the break was healed by the time we reached the beach house in Corpus.

I took several deep breaths, grabbed hold of my finger, and quickly
pulled it away from the back of my hand. I stifled my scream, but the intense
pain almost caused me to pass back out. It was almost as bad as when my
torturer had broken it out of shape to begin with. I gave it one final yank,
and felt it pop back into place. This time the scream escaped, as my body
collapsed against the wall.

My mind was once again stirring, and like many other times I found
myself wanting my mother. I wanted this all to go away, for things to be as
they were before that stranger knocked on our door. I didn’t belong here. Hell,
no one did. How could something so horribly wrong go on and no one do anything
to stop it? I kept looking at the two misfortunate beings that were chained
across from my cage, staring in complete disbelief. I had never heard of such
things happening, not even in the worst cases that I heard spoke of concerning
slavery in the south. I remembered my father telling us stories about the black
slaves, and how his pa and grandpa helped them when they were on the run. He
said they would hide them in the cellar during the day, where they would feed
them and mend their wounds. Then after dark, they would take the slaves down to
Pecan Creek and show them the way to travel in search of their freedom, but
never once did he speak of such horrors as these.

I was grateful that my family would never know the truth of my torment,
or even worse, the truth behind my real fate. I needed to leave this place, if
only in my mind, so I closed my eyes searching my memories for any route of
escape. All the ones that came to my mind included little Johnny, and that only
brought back the one memory that caused my heart more torment than anyone in
this place could ever place upon me. I tried for a memory that had happened
before he was born. Finally one came to mind of when I was eleven years old. My
parents let me go spend a month with Grandma and Grandpa Wesley. My grandma had
become ill and they needed help around the farm. My brothers were too young,
plus they didn’t know a thing about housework and I had been helping my mother
with that sort of thing for three years or longer by then. I could even bake
her famous blackberry pie. One day while I was there, Grandpa said I needed a
break and asked the one thing that I had been waiting on since I had arrived.

“
Wanna
go
fishin
’
with me today, Renee?”

“Sure, if it’s okay with Grandma,” I replied, both of us knowing that grandma
wouldn’t care. I remember going in after feeding the chickens to ask, and she
already had our lunch packed. “How did you know I was going to ask, Grandma?
Are you going with us?”

“No, child, I
ain’t
goin
’,
but the way you were jumping around to get things done early, I figured Pa
asked you to go
fishin
’,” she said with a wink. Then,
she leaned in close and whispered, “Plus, he told me last night after supper.”

“Oh, Grandma, you’re the best!” I threw my arms around her and
squeezed. “You sure you’ll be okay while we’re gone?”

“I think I can manage as long as you fry up what you catch for supper,”
she said, smiling.

“Yes ma’am. I’ll even make cornbread, ‘cause Ma taught me how,” I
replied with great joy.

“Then you best be
gettin
`, Pa won’t wait all
day for
ya
.”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied and I was out the door.

Grandpa took me to his favorite spot at Cisco Crossing. When we got
there, he tied the horse and buckboard in the shade, and we took our
poles
, tin can of night crawlers, and headed down to his
special secret spot. On our way down, grandpa said to me quietly, “I’ll tell
ya
a secret, but you can’t tell
no
one or they’ll come catch up all our fish.”

“I promise, I won’t tell a soul. Not even Pa,” I replied seriously,
watching his every move while I tried to keep up.

“Every time you bait that hook, spit on it,” he explained with a
chuckle. “These fish round here just love it.”

“Yes sir,” I said, then after a second asked, “
You
sure they’ll like my spit,
bein
’ I’m a girl and all?”

“I don’t think them fish care if you’re a girl as long as you got the
Wesley spit in
ya
,” he replied letting out a big full
belly laugh.

“Well,
them
fish best be watching out ‘
cause
I got lots of spit in me, Grandpa.”

“I bet you do at that,” he said, still laughing. “I bet you do.”

We
got
settled in at our fishing spot, and
being a tomboy, I didn’t bat an eye at baiting my own hook. Then, I closed my
eyes in hopes for a good spit, and laid a
big’un
on
that worm. Unfortunately, my worm never hit the water. Instead, it
got
caught in the mesquite next to the creek.

“Looks like you got yourself a bit of a problem,” my grandpa said.
“Here, I’ll get
ya
undone.”

“Sorry, Gramps, I meant to hit that little bend right there where them
big fish live,” I told him.

“Glad to know you been listening to your old Gramps,” he looked at me
proudly. “You’re right, that’d be the best spot to put your worm.”
 

He stepped up to the tree and ended up having to step in the creek to
get my line unhooked. As soon as he was on the edge of the water, the bank gave
way and in he went. I was sure he would come up mad, but I couldn’t have been
more wrong, he came up laughing.

“Well, give me a hand, girl, don’t just stand there.” I reached my
little hand down and told him. “Grab hold and I’ll pull you out.” He took my
hand, but instead of me helping him out, he
helped
me in. We both had a good laugh, and ended up staying in the water longer than
we should have. We eventually got out, and went back to fishing.

“You know Grandma’s
gonna
have a fit, ‘cause
if I look as much a mess as you do, she’ll know we was in the creek,” he said,
knowing my grandma would more than likely get as much of a giggle out of it as
he did.

*****

I was yanked away from my memory by the piercing screams of a young
man. The memory had been a relief that I was grateful for, but now I couldn’t
stop thinking about what they must be doing to that poor person who was making that
painfully familiar sound. It wasn’t long before I heard the door open, the same
door to the room I had been in a few hours ago. I could hear the young man
crying, and Enrique taunting him.