For All Eternity (Crescent Moon series, book 2)

Chapter 17

            I woke up this evening calling out to McKayla before even climbing out of bed. I had received no answer. I threw on some pants and called Paul to make sure they were all up and looking. Turned out they had been looking for a half an hour before I called.

            “Is Queen McKayla coming back?”  My thoughts were interrupted by Jena. I didn’t even notice they were awake.

            “I’ll get her back,” I answered. I could see tears forming in both the girls’ eyes.

            “Is she okay?”  Jessica asked.

            “I don’t know.”

            “I feel bad for Princess Alexis and Prince Michael.” I couldn’t believe my ears, they were talking to me. “Queen McKayla’s a good mom. She’s more of mother to us, than our own mother.”  Jenna said looking to the ground.

            I wanted to keep them talking, I wanted to know about them. I got up and went into their cage sitting on the bottom bunk by them. They didn’t flinch away from me like they normally did. “Tell me about your mother.”  I more asked than demanded, I wouldn’t push them into something they didn’t want to talk about.

            “She was a terrible alcoholic, she used to and probably still does cocaine and if she can’t find any, she crushes pills and snorts those. She’s always drunk or high. She’s even been hospitalized four times for overdosing.”  Jessica began.

            Jenna continued giving her sister a break from the story, “She used to sleep with her male friends for money and drugs. I called her prostitute once and she broke my nose.”  Jenna chuckled as if it was nothing. I stared at her in disbelief, not disbelief that they were not telling the truth, but at how she talked like that was nothing. She continued catching on to my stare, “Our mother and friends used to tie us up on tables and use us as ashtrays, they thought funny when squirmed or flinched.”  She lifted up her shirt just enough to show me the burn marks on her stomach.

            “Our mother usually passed out those nights. Her male friends would rape us before passing out on us. And in the morning when our mother found them on top of us, she would push them off. She would un-tie us and beat us for being sluts and sleeping with her men until she knocked us out.”  Jessica added.

            “If we needed clothes or food we’d have to steal it. That’s how we ended up here, we got caught stealing clothes. She refused to take back any thieves. She wouldn’t pay for bail, fostering, detention center, or anything to help us out. She denied us as being her children. We had nowhere else to go, but here.”  Jenna put her head down and I could see the tears falling to the bed.

            “What about your father or grandparents, aunts, uncles, any relation?”  I asked stunned that they had nowhere else.

            “Our mother didn’t know who our father was. It was after that she started drinking and doing drugs. She didn’t want us, but couldn’t get an abortion because of the laws. Our grandparents were there for us until we were seven, and then they died in a fire caused by our passed out mother’s cigarette. We don’t have any other relation, both our grandparents’ were only children and so was our mother.”  Jessica picked back up the story allowing Jenna to recompose herself.

            “Coming here was actually heaven sent for us. Even though we were raped, beat and fed on, the torture here happened a lot less than it did at home. And then we meet Queen McKayla.”    What Jenna said left me speechless. I have never heard of a human happy to be here.