Plié (Lost Birds Book 2)

Part 12 Ballerina's.

"I don't know how she even did that. Why? Is what her mother threatened really that much worse than the pain she went through trying to obey her?" The sound of Tao's voice made my fuzzy reality slowly slide back into place. I didn't move or open my eyes. I wasn't ready to.

"She's a ballerina..." Cam sighed. I could picture him shaking his head at Tao.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Tao asked.

"Ballerina's tend to have a very high pain threshold." Theo said quietly. 

"So she's a masochist?" Tao asked.

"No. He's not saying she likes it. He's saying she's trained herself to ignore it." Cameron said.

"Her mothers trained her to ignore it." Theo corrected quietly.

"I can't believe we let her go home to a sadist." Tao said.

"We didn't know..." Theo sighed.

"I knew. She fucking told me and I didn't even think about it..." Tao said.

"What?" Cameron asked sharply.

"When she took one in the vest...  we talked about some... things... her mother did the same thing when she had that brain injury. Not even twenty-four hours out of the hospital and she had her up doing this shit... I should've fucking known it wouldn't be any different just because of a few years." Tao said.

"Well we know now. I'm not sure we could have done anything differently though. Aydan's calling in some favors right now to get them out of here. They don't know she's back in the hospital and we don't know if they would leave if they knew." Theo said.

"They left her here when she rolled her ankle." Cameron said.

"That wasn't surgery it was just a sprain." Theo said.

"Yeah well I'm pretty sure they don't give two shits about her and it's fucking bullshit. I hope their plane crashes on their way to where ever the fuck Aydan sends them." Tao grumbled.

"Mateo..." Theo said disapproving. "They're still her family."

"No, they're fucking not. We are. I say we drop this shit job and take her out of here before her shitty parents get back." Tao grumbled.

"That's kidnapping." Cameron sighed.

"I don't care." Tao said. "If it means she'll be safe and away from this disaster I don't care."

"Don't you think maybe she cares." Cam said.

"About the people that hurt her and abandon her literally every chance they get? I fucking hope not." Tao said.

"About the people that raised her. This isn't black and white Tao. Her parents are the only family she's ever known. She's not just going to trust us more than them after only one month and you should know that better than anyone." Cam said.

"It feels like a lot longer than a month." Tao sighed.

"But it's not and if we want her to trust us and come to us when things like this happen then we need to slow down and try to think about this from her perspective." Theo said.

"That's pretty hard to do if she doesn't tell us everything that's going on and what she's thinking." Tao said.

"But she's not going to tell us anything if you try to jump in and make major decisions for her. She has a plan to get away from her parents. She's been keeping us at arm's length because she doesn't want us to ruin it. We need to respect that." Cam said.