Secret Treasure

Secret Love

Cordula forced herself to be strong. Sometimes she felt like telling Kino where Arohaina were hidden. Maybe she could convince him not to hurt the twins. Instead of telling him she forced herself to think of what would happen to them if she did tell him. Cordula didn't see Marilla anymore. The moment she had no reason to feed her anymore, Kinno stopped the daily visits. She was two at the time. Every time he visited her she begged him to see Marilla. She still remembered their last conversation...

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"Kino, please let me see Marilla. Even if it's only once a week for a couple of minutes. It's been twelve years. Please let me see her."  

"The day you tell me where you hid my daughter, I will let you out of this dungeon. Then you can see both of them." He said touching her cheek where the tears ran down.  

"Don't touch me." She said pulling away from him. "You come here once a week, slap me around a couple of times, make love to me, then you leave. Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?" She asked crying.

"Killing you is not an option. I still need you. I still need to know where my daughter is. This will continue until the day you die or you tell me where she is." He tried to touch her again, but she turned around and moved away from him. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her against him. "You have lost everything in your life because you are stubborn. Life could have been a lot different for you."  

"I might have lost everything, but I gain much more than you could ever imagine."  

"You have gained nothing. Rotting away in a dungeon is not gaining. You have lost Cordula, just give up the fight."  

"I have gained my children's safety.... I. WILL. NEVER. GIVE. UP." She said determined.  

After he left she lay on the floor crying, like every time he came to see her.  

It's her thirty third birthday today. He didn't say anything. He doesn't care about her. Something she knows but still doesn't want to believe. The twins turned fourteen last month. She can't believe it has been this long. She wasn't allowed to see Marilla. It hurt so bad, she thought she was dying of the pain in her chest. To make herself survive this, she kept on reminding herself... Just two more years, just two more years, then they will be safe.

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Cordula were still holding the pearl in the palm of her hand when Kino spoke and pulled her out of that painful memory. "What do you have there, Cordula?" "Kino!!" She said surprised. "It's nothing." She said and laid the pearl down next to her, trying in vain to hide it from him. A memory she weren't ready to share with him.

Kino went over to her and took the shell in his hand. "It's beautiful. Just like you, Cordula." He said softly.

There was a tense silence between them. The heat crept up her neck. Hopelessness and irritation overshadowed her and made her mad at the same time. "I wish you would just stop, Kino. Your smooth talking is not working on me anymore. In fact it is irritating me." She said a little too loud.  

"What do you mean 'smooth talking'?" He continued in a soft and calm voice.  
"What do I mean?" She shouted while rising from her seat. "I will tell you what I mean!" Her voice still getting louder. "You stole me from my family, forcing me to marry you. You made me think you loved me, while planning on how to kill our babies. You threw me in the dungeon and are keeping me from my child. That!! Is what I mean!!" She shouted in fury. "Then you come in here once in a while, with your sweet words, telling me you love me and how pretty I am."