Don't Blink | ✓

062

B L I N K | AGE: Sixteen

"Like that?" Althea questioned, her curls falling over her shoulder to sprawl onto her back as she looked up at me.

"No," I laughed, adjusting her hands correctly on the piano. When I let go, her hand seemed to slip again. This time, after adjusting her little fingers to the keys, I looked at her, only letting go when she nodded up at me.

"You've just finished learning your scales. We're moving onto nursery rhymes. Your hands are going to be moving now"

"So, they won't stay like this anymore?" She removed one nimble hand to brush her bangs back messily, a few pieces of hair even sticking up as a I chuckled.

"Not for now, but you'll have to remember that position. It's part of the basics and very essential to a lot of other pieces"

"Essential?" Her hair flopped back down as she gazed up at me in question.

"Yes, it is very important"

Placing her hand back down, I grabbed her small pinky and moved it over another key. "That goes there," I grabbed her index finger and brought it closer towards the center of the adjacent white key. "And you'll want to slide this up to make it easier to play."

"My little finger won't stop sliding off the key." She wiggled her pinky side to side to show me.

"That's why the stretches I showed you are so important"

I moved my left hand, the one closest to her, to lay flatly on top of the piano. Slowly, I began lifting each finger individually. "It'll increase your dexterity and make playing way easier"

"Dex— what?"

I laughed. Bending over to place a kiss to the top of her head.

"Dexterity...It means flexible"

She only nodded and continued to watch my hand.

I made sure to struggle with my ring finger, the finger not lifting without my pinky and even shaking a bit.

"Hey! I have trouble with that finger too!" Althea looked at me with wide eyes. Her shock was easily recognizable.

I had purposefully made it look hard so that I could prove my point. "See, I haven't been practicing lately and now I'm having a hard time."

"But you're Diem...you play perfectly"

I sighed. She seemed to love that word and no matter how many times it fluttered from her lips, I wouldn't be able to explain to her how far that word was away from my character. She'd learn soon how much mom lived by it...maybe she already had.

"Promise me you'll practice it everyday" I said instead.

"I prom—"

She didn't even get to finish as we heard the loud bang of the front door downstairs.

I froze.

Althea started breathing faster.

It was unfortunate that she knew exactly what that sound was at such a young age.

Then footsteps.

Dozens of footsteps moving downstairs and I quietly stood from the piano bench. Squatting down behind my sister, I hugged her from behind, placing a bunch of kisses to her hairline.

"Hide" she had whispered it so softly.

"What?"

She squirmed out of my hold immediately, fighting my arms that were still tight around her. Standing from the white, wooden bench she grabbed my hand. Squeezing it rather tightly, she pulled me to the center of her room.

"Althea what—"

"Shhh," she shushed me rapidly, both of us perking up at the sound of footsteps ascending the staircase.

"I've been thinking," she pulled me hurriedly towards her walk-in closet. "They can't take you if you're not here. I found this when I was playing hide and seek with Josie." A quick usher of her hanging clothes to the side showed a part of the closet wall that was exposed— some type of manmade spot for closet storage.

I could barely say a thing to Althea as she shoved me down. Something told me that it wasn't her four year old strength, but instead my unconscious willingness.

It wasn't big enough for me to stay on my knees. I could barely switch to sit on my butt before Althea was covering the perfectly cut entranceway with its door.

Pitch black

The blackness consumed me whole and heightened my hearing enough to hear Althea start back up on her piano— her scales.

Then there was the crack of her door hitting the wall and suddenly she stopped, her scared gasp filling the air.

Fewer feet filed into the room. Less than what we'd heard downstairs, but just enough for one to wrap his hands around my mouth to keep my screams quelled and two to pick my weight up off the floor effortlessly.

I rubbed my sweating palms on my knees. My movements slow and calculated as to not create a shuffling noise.

"Where is she?" The voice was deep. Deeper than normal and I knew then that it was probably Jack. He was the boss where my taking was concerned. His deep voice wasn't the only thing to cause everybody below him to follow his command... He was the tallest person I had ever met with broad shoulders and a scowl that caused strangers on the street to shrink back.

"Diem?" My sister sounded scared.

There was no answer and then movement— the sound of a piano bench sliding out. I only hoped it was Althea moving it on her own and not someone intending to further scare, or worse, hurt her.

"She's not here anymore, she left"

"Where did she go?"

"Home." My sister was twisting a pretty good lie. Her voice hadn't wavered like I thought it might. It made me wonder how long she'd been planning this for.

"Isn't this her home?" He laughed.

"I don't think so," she huffed. "She doesn't have a room. Mommy won't let her, I've asked a bunch of times"

"Search the room" Jack ignored her plainly as his feet, along with others, began to move. "Don't forget the closet"

It took them less than a minute and after my erratic, yet silent breathing and Althea's whine of protest to the many men messing up her room and touching her things, the sound of them leaving rung out.

Not before words from my mother,

"Maybe you should start keeping your men downstairs. You're starting to scare my kid" She sighed out irritably. "I'll just start calling Diem down"