The Sinclair Sisters

A Christmas story

St Petersburg, Florida
December 2007

Violet

This is how my Christmas went down.....

When I woke up one fine December morning, I was not entirely surprised to see another girl.

Long black hair, pretty brown eyes, the usual.

What wasn't usual was the energy the girl had. Every single day, this chick kept looking for ways to make a run for it.

And every single day, I got my ass handed to me by him for 'not taking good care of his property'.

Jodi, Vannah and Koby all wanted me to tell Shehzadi - for that was the girl's name - that escape was literally futile.

But I wanted to see how far the girl would go before cracking, so I left her. Shehzadi either didn't know she was harming me, or didn't see my injuries because she didn't stop. Until one wonderful afternoon.

T'was the afternoon before Christmas....as per norms in Florida, Christmas was as sunny as it always was. It was the one good thing I liked about Florida - the sun reminded me of India. I didn't live in my home country for very long before he took me away, but I was old enough to know it was hot.

All seven of us were outside throwing knives, while he sunbathed and sketched his latest prototype. His house was private property, with a security system not even the CIA could break into. Plus he owned the whole cliff, so no neighbours and no one to watch seven girls throwing knives with the accuracy of a trained secret agent.

At some point, he stood up and went inside to refill his lemonade glass. Before I could say Merry Christmas, Shehzadi was running across the field to the gate. The electrified gate.

Now whose ingenious idea was it to give the runaway girl cheetah?

I recovered in time to chase her. I did not recover in time to stop her from touching the gate and soon, our runaway cheetah was on the ground, groaning from the pain.

The girls took her to his lab for him to check her. I sat mum on our mattress, playing the scene when Shehzadi touched the gate in my mind.

Jodi would say otherwise, but I knew it was my fault.

Which was why I didn't fight when he called me upstairs. I didn't fight when he told me to take off my clothes. I didn't fight when he whipped me with his horsewhip. I didn't fight when he burned me with the hot fire poker. I didn't fight when he stabbed me with his perfectly sharp 2B pencils.

I took it all in, until I couldn't.

The last thing I remembered before blacking out was him calling my name. Then I heard his voice a couple more times. He sounded worried. The little fucker.

When I gained consciousness, I was back in the bunker and almost every inch of my skin was covered in bandages. Essence was combing my hair and singing in Chinese while the other girls sat around me, all tired looking and worried.

"Violet! Oh praise God Vi, you're okay," Vannah said first.

They moved closer and started talking all together, I couldn't make out what any girl was saying.

"Girls, talk slowly. She's still exhausted," Jodi said. They moved back a little. "He said he took it too far," she said. Her eyes watered, "You almost died Vi. He wasn't even sure you would make it through the night."

It was then I saw the tears. As much as I could manage with the cast on my face, I shook my head. "You.... can't. We're ..... together," I said.

"Just don't do it again," Koby said. "You're tough Vi, but not invincible."

I nodded, just to make them stop crying. "The... girl?" I croaked.

Jodi stood up and walked away. She came back with Shehzadi, who was twiddling her thumbs.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

I smiled. "Zephyr."

The other girls frowned. "Her name... Zephyr," I said.

Vannah frowned. "But why Zephyr? Isn't that wind or breeze or something?"

I gave her a knowing look. I knew what Zephyr meant, which was exactly why I gave Shehzadi. She may not try to escape again, but something told me she was like the wind - impossible to tame.

And that my friends, was how I spent Christmas. Question - if I wrote this down as an essay and turned it in for my assignment, do you think Miss Sarah would give me an A?

Yeah. That's what I thought too. Le sigh.