It was hard for Marla to talk about it still. What happened to her. Sometimes late at night, if she couldn’t sleep, I’d find her crawling into bed with me and we’d talk for a bit. I knew that she was kept in a cage pretty much the entire time she was captured. I knew that they touched her. A lot. I knew they laced her food with drugs just to watch her get sick.
That was all she was able to talk about, though.
“Here, let’s take a rest,” Marla said.
“What?” I asked as I looked over at her. “No, no. I’m fine. We can?—”
“Your limp is getting worse.”
I sighed heavily before I felt a tug on my arm. I dropped down, finding a cushioned chair waiting for my fall. I furrowed my brow as I looked around, and I found that we were no longer in one of the hallways. At some point in time, Marla led me into one of the many offshoot rooms that this mansion had.
This one happened to be a fireplace room.
Complete with a real fireplace that had a real chimney jutting through the roof.
“Huh,” I said as I stared at it.
“Just for a few minutes,” Marla said as she patted my knee. “Then we’ll walk to the kitchen and reward ourselves. You did two laps around this place. That’s good.”
“Right, right.”
There was a mirror over top of the fireplace, and I did the one thing I shouldn’t have done. I peered up into it. The bruises around my eyes hadn’t yet faded. My left eye was still a bit swollen and half-hooded. The ligature marks around my neck turned yellow, but only barely. My hair looked thinner, too.
I missed my long hair.
It would take me forever to grow it back out.
“Hey,” Marla said softly.
It dragged my attention back to her. “Hey.”
“You’re going to be okay Liz.”
I nodded softly. “I know, Em.”
“And when you’re ready for me to trim up your hair, just say the word.”
My gaze slowly gravitated back to the mirror. “I know.”
“Oh, come ooooon, Doc.”
“Oh boy,” Marla muttered.
My back straightened as I heard that woman’s voice.
King’s sister.
Annaliese.
“What?” I heard Doc say as the two of them walked down the hallway that led to the room we sat in. “This is the job your brother had for you.”
“No one said anything about babysitting,” Anna said with a pout in her voice. “I want out there. In on the action. I’ve already proven my gun skills to you guys. What more could you want!?”
Doc chuckled as they walked by. “Protecting all women from what’s currently happeningisbeing part of the action, Anna.”
She clicked her tongue. “But you guys are doing week-long trade-offs! I don’t wanna roam this fucking place for a whole week. No offense.”
“None taken.”
