Flutter by, Butterfly

Chapter 10

He hesitated before I felt his arms enfold me. He felt uncertain, as if he had never hugged anyone before, or ever been given one. He changed again, this time to someone more familiar. "Jani, what happened here?" Romeo sounded as frightened as I felt, not for himself, but for me.

"Oh, Romeo! They were going to...going to..." I began to tremble.

"What?" he whispered softly to me, soothingly, encouragingly.

"They were going to buy me back from you."

He started to shake in our embrace. It was as if he was struggling for control. I could feel so many trying to take hold, as if they were fighting on who would take the steering wheel and drive his fragmented mind.

I continued on. "My parents... They were TOUCHING ME!" The final words were ripped from my soul. My parents, that never loved me. I was just their toy.

I felt his arms tighten around me, making me feel relatively safe. "If it hadn't been for you..." I said. His hands rubbed the small of my back, calming me. Something changed again. Something....I don't know. It felt like this one had been hurt before. I looked into the eyes of his tortured soul, wondering if I looked this vulnerable myself. "What's going to happen to me?"

I felt him change again. This time to Hugo. He didn't feel so cold anymore. I could feel his concern for me as he led me away, even if he was slightly more detached than the rest. "Let's get you warmed up. You are going cold from shock." He followed me inside my parents' limousine.

"What's going to happen to my parents?"

"Nothing that you need to worry over."

"What's going to happen to him?" I nodded to the driver. "Is he in danger for witnessing?"

"No, he works for me now."

"Am I in danger?"

"No." He looked out the window.

"So what happens now?"

"What happens next is deciding who takes over your welfare. As you know, your soul purpose was to be created for someone else's pleasure."

"I'd rather it be you than anyone else."

Now Romeo appeared. "No little one!" he said imploringly. "Never say that. You deserve to have a normal life." He changed again. This time someone malicious. "You go, when I say you go!" There was a struggle. He shut his eyes. He took a deep breath, and Hugo appeared again. There was a slight pause, as he assessed I understood what just transpired. "This is why most of us do not wish you to be under our care. Parts of us do not wish to force on you the type of life that has been bestowed on us, but other parts want nothing more than to....indulge, shall we say."

"And you don't care either way?"

"It is not in my nature to care."

"Logic doesn't have any room for feelings," I said.

Hugo looked at me, almost admiringly. Almost. "You are an astute one."

"Could I see you as my father figure?" I asked.

"I don't believe that I would make the best father. I do not have any tenderness at all."

"Romeo is tender enough for both of you," I said. "And I trust both of you in knowing when to pull away."

"But do you trust the rest of us?"

"With my very life."

"And how do you know that? You have yet to even meet us all."

I sighed, and closed my eyes. So many terrible things happened today. I allowed for a moment to allow them to flash before my eyes. I opened them again to the man that became my life-line and security, my safe-place. "Today, I just found out that I was bred to be a sex-slave, and my parents intended to keep me to make me their bitch; if they even are my parents, and you saved me from them."

"It is highly likely that there are those among us that will make you wish that your parents had kept you, ill-purposes and all. How did it make you feel to see them killed?"

"There never was any love between us. I don't feel anything at all." The observation made me kind of sad. "So what happens now?" I asked again, my voice cracking.

"We are taking you to your uncle's house. Your parents, I'm afraid, have been digging their own grave for a long time now. They angered the wrong people, and made enemies in the worst of places. It was your uncle that helped set them up tonight. We will be taking you there, and they will take over as your legal guardians."

I began to shake. "Is he a part of.....whatever this is? Is he going to hurt me the way that my parents tried to tonight?"

Hugo put a hand on my shoulder. "I promise, I won't let anything happen to you."

His touch calmed me. Hugo said "I" instead of "we." Maybe he had a tender spot after all.

"I believe you."