Dire {h.s.}

21

Ava Manakova

If there's anything in life I can wish for, it's for their freedom. After countless stories these girls have told me, I for one have no room to speak. The torture and pain they have endured in their time to only end up here makes what I've been through seem like nothing.

"Good morning," Jade greets me with a smile as I approach the kitchenette. A thick book in one hand, with a paper cup in the other.

"Morning."

"Look what we got at our door today!" I hear Naomi shout across the entire room, earning a few groans from those who are still trying to sleep. But she ignores it anyway.

"What?" Jade asks, taking a sip from her cup.

Naomi comes up to where we are and sits down in the chair across from Jade at the table. A stack of gray papers in her hands as she lays them out on top of the table with a big smile. "Newspaper!"

Jade's eyes grow wide at this and she instantly starts to look into it. Her eyes roaming around the entire front of the top of the stack, her hands reaching for it and flipping through it, eating the information eagerly.

She's looking for something.

¨What are you looking for?¨ I ask, finding the other girls start to walk towards the stack on the table with eager eyes.

Jade doesn't answer me, too consumed by the papers.

Naomi sighs, staring at Jade as I am. ¨For us.¨ she says, ¨we search the papers to see if we've been mentioned yet.¨

I peer over at the papers in Jade's hands, finding no signs of any recent or old kidnappings. A look of disappointment flashes over her face, but she shakes it off and sets the paper down.

"I'm sorry Jade," I say, feeling so bad for her. God knows how long she's been waiting to see her name in those papers.

She shrugs her shoulders, "No worries, maybe next time."

The memory fades away into my dreams like a recurring nightmare of a reminder. Jade will never get the ending she's been longing for. She'll never see her name in the newspapers, nor will she ever make it out to see the world. That moment constantly replays through my head, and it only reminds me that we haven't honored the girls' passing or even grieved it.

I haven't forgotten about them, but I have a sad feeling that the rest of us did.

After last night, which I can't stop thinking about, I couldn't fall asleep. But when I finally have fallen asleep, of course the memory of them appears in my dreams.

I haven't heard from Harry since last night, not that I expect him to walk in and continue where we were headed. I was almost afraid things would reach that far, because the second he left, the realization hit me. I kissed my kidnapper, the one person I'm supposed to hate so much in this world, I kissed like I cared about him. It was heated and for sure on the verge of melting into something else, but I'm glad it didn't.

One thing that disturbs me is that I can still feel the sensation of his lips linger on mine.

A knock at the door brings me out of my trance, and soon it opens to reveal none other than the man himself, Harry.

He peeks his head through the door and searches around the room until his eyes land on mine. "He wants you down stairs." He says with no emotion, before slamming the door after himself.

He's acting as if I've done something to ignore me for, or give me the silent treatment for when he can. I haven't done anything, and I don't know if he's mad about last night or regretful of it, but I can tell he's bothered by me even more from what happened last night. I regret kissing him, yes, but it was in the heat of the moment and as bullshit of an explanation as that is, it's the truth. I couldn't catch myself in time to stop myself from kissing him back.