FOURTEEN
I crawl over to the front door and turn my head to the side. Why is it open?
“Hello?” I call out, trying to see if anyone else is in the apartment.
Daddy told me he had to go out to collect a couple of things from Yamal and that he would be back later, leaving me alone. How long has it been since Daddy left? There are no clocks in the apartment, sadly, so I don’t know if it’s morning or night.
I have to rely on Daddy for all of that.
Yet another thing. It seems like everything I do, I have to rely on him to decide or help me. I can’t do anything on my own anymore.
At the same time, I don’t know if Iwantto do everything on my own. It’s nice to be taken care of and be loved. Daddy has taken such good care of me and always makes sure I’m okay before anything else. If we were to go back to how things were on the space station, I would be exhausted.
“Hello?” I call out once again as I get closer to the front door.
Did Daddy forget to close it? Or maybe he is outside the door, waiting for me to come to him?
When I don’t hear any reply, I push the heavy door completely open and crawl out of the apartment. Where could Daddy be?
I look to the left to find an empty hallway. I turn my head to the right and see the same thing. I start crawling to my right. Every single time we come up the elevator, we always take a left to the apartment.
Before I know it, I’m standing in front of the elevators, staring at them. Can I even get out without Daddy? Do I want to go out without him? Every time we’ve gone out, he’s always held me to make sure I stay close to him and don’t get lost.
“Little pet?” someone calls out.
I whirl around, screaming and pushing my body into the wall as I stare at an unfamiliar Venkorian male.
“Sorry for scaring you,” he gently says as he gets closer.
I shake my head and press myself more into the wall.
“You are one of the humans everyone has been talking about. I thought about getting one of you, but I think I will just keep you for myself.” He gets closer to me.
I scream again, tears running down my face as he comes toward me. I’m still unsteady on my feet, so I can’t run away. He has me cornered in the hallway, and I have no way of getting past him to get back to the apartment.
Why did I have to be curious? Why couldn’t I have just shut the door and waited for Daddy to come to me when he was done talking to Yamal?
“Pl-please,” I stutter.
“You are so cute. The things I could do to you,” he purrs. “Keep you to myself. Have my way with you. Make you do anything I want. The list is endless.”
Fear courses through my body as I watch my life flash before my eyes. I haven’t been able to experience anything on Venkoria, and he is about to take it all away from me.
“Leah?” Daddy calls out.
With Tears racing down my face, I turn my head to see him walking out of the elevator.
“Daddy!” I scream and hold my hands up.
He rushes toward me, picking me up and holding me close to him.
“Why are you out of the apartment? Why are you crying? What’s wrong?” he rapid-fires the questions.
“I walked out of my apartment and saw her sitting in front of the elevator, and I called out to her,” the man lies.
I clutch Daddy’s shirt even tighter, pushing my face into his neck. Whoever this guy is, I don’t like him one bit. He gives me creepy vibes.
“I don’t know how she got out,” Daddy says.
