Page 18 of 4 Corinthians

“Whose house is this?” I whispered. I wasn’t sure who could hear us, so I wasn’t going to take any chances.

“I don’t know,” Kenbral answered. He moved back so that I could take his place and see what I was doing. Her shoulder was out of place and possibly broken, but I hoped it wasn’t.

“Why did you do this to her?” I scolded him as I looked at her injuries. She was beaten up and had dried blood on her lip, nose, and coming out of her ear. “Huh, why did you do this?”

“Because Robert told me to!” he angrily replied. “Since you’ve been down here, that’s all he’s made me do: spar with her. Every day, all day. That’s all we do.”

“You didn’t have to do this to her,” I said to him, shaking my head. “You could’ve taken it easy on her.”

“And Robert would’ve known!” Kenbral angrily said as he backed away from us.

Instead of arguing with him, I waved him off. I positioned Corinthians against the gate, gripped her arm, and took a deep breath. She was out, but like Kenbral said, as soon as I popped her shoulder back into place, she was going to wake up from the pain. “Hold on to her,” I told Kenbral. He did what I asked, then put his hand over her mouth. “Let her go!”

“She’s going to scream,” he replied. “They told us to shut up and not make noise.”

I debated arguing with him, then decided not to. I nodded, then pulled until I heard the pop of her shoulder going back into place. Corinthians woke up, screaming and fighting like we said she would. Once her arm was back in place, I pushed Kenbral away and held her, making sure to cover her mouth too.

“You have to be quiet,” I said into her ear. Corinthians continued to fight me, but I didn’t let go. “You have to calm down before they come down here.” She kept fighting, but not as hard. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I told you,” Kenbral said as she continued to fight.

“Please stop,” I begged her. I knew how much pressure to apply to her neck to make her pass out, but I didn’t want to do that. “Please stop fighting. I won't hurt you, believe me. Please, Cori.” Her fighting stopped, and she held onto my arm around her. I didn’t move my hand from her mouth until I looked down and saw that she was crying. “I’m sorry.”

“You can't protect her,” Kenbral said, glaring at Corinthians. “Robert already has plans for her.” He looked up at me with a weird expression. “She’s his; he already said so.”

***

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked Corinthians. She sat in the corner of her cage, her knees pulled close to her body and her head resting on them.

“Gold,” she softly answered, not looking at me.

“Animal?”

“Ostrich.”

“Why?” I didn’t mean to laugh, but I did. I had never heard of someone, especially a girl, saying their favorite animal was an ostrich. “They can't even fly.”

“Because they run fast,” she answered. “It's hard to catch them.”

“My favorite animal is an orca,” I told her, nodding. Corinthians' brows went up.

“Like Free Willy?” she asked, and I nodded. “Why? Willy was caught.”

“But he got away,” I told her with a shrug. “At the end of the movie, he was free. That’s going to be me one day.” I stood up, looked around to make sure no one was coming, then snuck up the gate to her cage. “Stand up so I can look at your back.”

Slowly, she got up and turned around. I moved her shirt aside and looked at her cuts. Robert had cut her before her last fight with Kenbral. It was deep, and she needed stitches, but we didn’t have any down here, so I had to use some old superglue I found.

“Is it infected?” she asked.

“Does it still hurt?” I asked her as I looked at it. It wasn’t as red as it was yesterday.

“What do you think?” she replied.

“I wouldn’t know. I can't feel pain,” I told her, then put her shirt back. “It looks okay, but I will look at it again later when the sun is through that hole.” I pointed to the hole in the corner of the board on the window. That was how we were keeping track of the days. It’d been two weeks since I put her shoulder back in place.

“You can't feel pain?” Her eyes were wide in surprise. “Is that why you aren’t limping around here? And why you didn’t scream when I stabbed you?”

“Yeah,” I answered, then went back to my cage. I sat in the corner and watched as Corinthians looked at me through narrow eyes. “What?”