Eternal bondage (Book One of the Eternity Series)

Chapter 7 | Part 2

*

Everything was foggy, my senses clotted, I saw Lilli with Jayda, she ran to me sobbing, she caught me when I fell.

I laid in her arms for a mere moment before I fell unconscious again.

*

Grey went back downstairs with a bucket of water and a washcloth, he found the kitchen girl still crying over the senseless boy.

He set it down by her, she whispered up at him.

"Thank you."

He hurried back up the stairs, not wanting the mistress to catch him in this act.  

*

Cold water on my forehead pulled me awake in a start, I just wanted to stay under, I didn't want to be beaten anymore, but as I prepared myself for it, it didn't come.

Instead, it was Lilli gently washing the blood off of my battered body. I feebly attempted to smile up at her.

*

"Father?"

Jayda entered Dr Mayin's study where he sat working on paperwork.

"Yes dearest? Is the situation still troubling you?"

She sat in an armchair across the desk from him.

"Not so long as you approve of the decisions I've made."

"You're a woman now Jayda, you have to take care of these things on your own, but yes, I do."

She smiled across at him and stood to leave the room.  

*

When I woke again I was on a cot in what seemed to the be laundry room. I tried to sit up.

"I wouldn't do that lad."

I looked to my right to see a middle aged woman sitting next to me folding laundry.

"You're going to need a day or twos rest before you're ready to move from that bed."

"Who are you?"

I asked her.

"Iris."

"How long have you been here?"

"20 years."

"So you knew Miss Jayda's mother?"

"I did."

"Have you always been in the laundry."

"No lad, only recently when my muscles couldn't take much else. Now let me see those cuts. We need to bandage them."

*