Among them

Chapter Three

Suddenly, a harsh hand grabs my shoulder, sending shivers all along my body and reminding me of the darkest days in my life. The helplessness and the pain. The rage and the anger. Blood and scars. I'm overwhelmed with emotions, so all I do is wheel around to see his face right before me. The one person never letting me go. Whether in nightmares or daylight, he was always there. Harry. But how can he even be here just right now? Isn't that impossible? Manically, I try to get that face out of my sight and his hands off my shoulder.

With my trembling fist, I smack him into the face, causing a thundering sound filling the room. It's probably a breaking nose, but I do not care that much, as long as I don't have to see that face again. The body falls on his back, exposing the face of an about 40-year-old guy who looks nothing like him. But it was him before, wasn't it? Am I getting crazy? I just hit a random person, probably a waiter or something like that. Oh my gosh.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you just randomly hit him?", Arian shouts angrily.

Good point actually, I'd love to know. Well, I will have to find a way to get me out of that smoothly. Or I can just tell them I'm seeing the faces of my former abuser on the ones of their personal. First option seems more appropriate to be honest.

"I didn't hit that dude 'randomly', he touched me without my permission, thus hopefully he and everyone in this room learned their lesson now.", I explain, rolling my eyes. I really hope they for once understood this, because with touching me they would cause pain to both me and themselves.

"And also, it's not my problem if you need to send your slaves to get me because you don't dare to do it yourself.", I add, still not interrupting my attack on the door.

"Where did you learn to fight like that?", Tristan observes, seeming really interested.

"Stop, just stop already. Tristan, you can't just ignore the fact that she fucking hit that man. And called him our slave!", Arian starts to conquer the room angrily, moving back and forth in a frequent tempo. Like a maniac or psycho. I am finding too many fitting words for his own good.

"He surely can, as you already saw.", Mallory rolls his eyes.

Oh, he can speak too. Interesting.

"So, where did you learn that?", Tristan repeats.

So, why do you even care, duh.

"Why would you think a girl would have to learn to fight? Oh, sorry, I forgot your oh so equal world view concerning genders. Of course, I always ran around with pink long dresses and never did anything harmful to anyone. You know, I couldn't even kill a fly because that would have been too traumatic for my spirit.", I laugh an ironical laugh, while smacking that door once more. It feeds my aggression that begins to collect exponentially.

"Can't you just fucking answer a simple question?", Arian shouts, while hitting the glass table until there are cracks visible. He probably destroys thousands of dollars right now. Which improvement you could have done to the world with this amount of money... But now, there are only shattered pieces left. That is probably everything he will ever able to leave, shattered, destroyed, damaged pieces.

"Can you ask one formal question without using 'fuck' or destroying deathly expensive objects?", I counter question.

"Enough of that, Nora, please answer our question.", Tristan begs, a helpless feature in his eyes.
We arrived at please? That dudes are unbelievable.

"Maybe my fighting is just naturally. But maybe it's not. One's for sure, you will never know 'cause I won't tell you. You aren't answering any of my questions as well.", I declare.

"Okay, I do see your point. I will answer your question about your role in all this here.", Tristan points around vaguely with his hands, until he continues:" You 're here for a cooperation."

"The fuck. Why would I do a cooperation with the psychopaths you are?", I quire.

"Just because you have no choice.", Arian smirks.

How can he get from hitting a table to smirking in just that short amount of time?" No choice, huh?. You're hilarious. Okay, then make me cooperate. Force me. Do whatever comes to your mind." I offer, holding my hands up in a capitalizing gesture.

"I will take you by your word, Nora.", Arian threats, licking his lips in a disgusting way.

"Then get me, nothing is stopping you.", I give the door one last hit, until it breaks down beneath my skilled feet. I have not even the slightest clue about any room in this house, so I just turn right randomly. Right should be actually correct, should be right. Otherwise that wouldn't be fair. Oh well, I clearly shouldn't let my fate depend on meanings of words, it only shows how damn desperate I am.

The spotless ground is smooth under my high heels and it's hard to keep balance, hence I free my feet out of that ugly carriage they were torn into.

Every corridor looks the same, on every wall hang too expensive paintings. It is obvious that I wouldn't succeed in my flee. But I really need some time away from them. From my so-called brothers. Time to be alone and think about all that new information. Time to let that sink in.

I turn sharp left into a smaller corridor, speeding my tempo once more, just in case. Sweat is running down my spine, but I'm not stopping. My feet take me through corridor over corridor until I have absolutely no clue about where I am.

I stop abruptly, when I hear silent footsteps seeming to get closer and closer to the point I am standing. It clearly aren't any of my brothers, they didn't follow me and would have much louder and aggressive steps. But who else would be here? One more of their slaves?

Hastily, I press my body against the wall, hoping I could disappear in it. Well, unfortunately physics don't work like that. I decrease my breathing to an absolute minimum and freeze like a statue. I don't want to be found yet. It's too early to see them again.

A thin little girl turns around the corner, she's wearing a grey dress at knee length, if I remember it correctly, it's the same dress that old lady wore. Do they even hire children? Could you even call it hire if they are forced to stay here? Well, I don't know how old she is exactly, I'm quite bad at defining ages, but she is clearly underage.

Blonde hair is wavelike falling down her back, making her look like an angel. A dejected and lonely angel. An abused angel. Abused by the devils, the devils who turned out to be my brothers.

She passes the corridor hastily, just like she is being followed. Maybe she actually is? I mean in this house; everything seems to be possible.

Suddenly, she looks around the corridor, seeming to search something or someone, until her eyes lock with mine. I'm fixed to the spot I'm standing at, getting lost in her brown eyes who look like the ones of a petrified deer. She seems to be afraid of me, but what have I done?

We stay like that for a few seconds, staring at each other, until she awakes out of her stare and turns around, making the dress fly around her thin body. Then, she runs away, not looking back at me, her soft footsteps hall back in my ears for the next few seconds. Only to leave everything noiseless again. Who is she? And how can I rescue her? Or at least assist her.

By cooperating, that's the rational and meanwhile shocking answer. It's ridiculous to mention I don't have any clue what they mean with their cooperation. Maybe I should have listened better to them...