Shackled Escape

Prolouge

Dong!

I look up and feel a smile bloom on my face while I excitedly listen for the next eight dongs. As soon as the echo of the last chime fades, I head over to the front door, eagerly awaiting for it to open. Jumping on my tip toes in anticipation, I look towards the grandfather clock in the living room; 9:05.

"Any minute now!" I whisper to myself. My whisper was synchronized with the sound of the front door slamming against the wall as my papa barges in in a rush.

"Papa!" I scream as I launch myself at him. His breath whooshes out of him as the top of my head collides with his diaphragm.

"Look Belly, you've grown a inch or two since the last time I saw you!" Papa exclaims as he regains his breath.

"Papa!" I huff crossing my arms around my midsection and adopting a military pose like papa does, "I'm not a little girl anymore, my name is Annabelle Leigh Jameston. Nine year old girls aren't called 'Belly'. That's such a silly name!"

Papa looks to the watch that he pulls out of his coat then looks to me. "You're not nine until tomorrow, and tomorrow isn't until three hours. Before then, you're still my Belly and my little girl. "

I look up at papa in adoration and slam into him again to give him another python-gripped hug. "Okay, but only for three more hours. I love you papa."

Papa chuckles and looks at his watch again, "Do you know what time it is Belly?" He looks down at me and raises and eyebrow; a trait that annoyed me until I spent a few hours in front of a mirror teaching myself how to do in. I grumbled at the use of my nickname and I can tell that he's laughing because I can feel his belly rumble.

"It's nine o'clock; the time you promised me you'd be home by." Thinking about how he hasn't been home I rushed to say, "I've missed you this whole month, and I swear that Nanny won't stop bugging my about not wearing dresses. Please tell me that your not leaving again soon? I like to wear pants."

Papa takes me by the hand and he leads us out of the entry way. He sits down on the couch in the living room next the fireplace and pulls me to sit next to him. Then he slings an arm over my shoulders and pulls me close, "Well, I have three things to say to you, Belly: one, the time is way past your bedtime, two, I'm leaving again in another week but this time I'll only be gone for three weeks," I look down at my lap and pout. "And last but not least, you can wear pants anytime you want, just not in public; people don't accept girls who don't wear dresses."

I smile again, I don't like to wear dresses because they're too restricting. Papa tells me that women aren't supposed to wear pants because that's what men do and men fight and women stay at home. I think that I should be allowed to wear pants because I can fight. Papa taught me how to punch someone once, though he didn't really teach me anything else. I'm pretty much a trained fighter.

"But Papa, you just got here, I don't want to go to bed yet, I wanna spend some time with you!" I throw my arms around his shoulders so he can't sand up."

He chuckles again, "Okay, okay! You can stay up! Just let me put my things away and change out of my traveling clothes so I can be comfortable." I release him from my death grip and allow him to grab his stuff and go up stairs.

I jump off the couch and go back to the toys I was playing with before papa came. I absolutely loved my toys, this time, I had them set up as if a war was being fought. One of the wooden figurines has captured the doll princess, and her family wanted her back and were willing to do anything to do so. Just as the bunny king was about to slay the wooden man of evilness, the front door slammed open.

Two men strolled in the house and I heard my papa curse upstairs. One of the men was sort of short, but he was really wide and he had lots of muscles. His hair was a stringy greasy brown, stopping at his shoulders. I gave a squeak and he looked to me and smiled. Popping up, I tried to run to the stairs, but he got there before me and grabbed me aroud the neck and brought my back to his chest, then put an arm around my shoulder to keep me there.