Living Free {Hold}

IV

Chapter IV

Today was my eighth birthday and the only thing I wished for was to be home with my family. I wanted to hear their forgotten voices and see their forgotten faces. I could barely remember all of my aunt's and uncle's names. Pathetic I know.

As I lay there on the hard bed trying to remember my family I hadn't notice when Brother James stepped inside with something behind his back. He slowly walked over to the bed and just stood in front of me. He had the usual blank expression on his face which annoyed me to no end.

For a fraction of a second I saw the corners of his lips twitch before they stopped. He pulled out whatever was behind his back and held it out for me to take.

I stare at what was resting in his hand in shock. There resting in the palm of his hand was a chocolate cupcake with white icing and colorful sprinkles and sticking out of it was a purple candle. I tiled my head confused as to why he was giving me this. Maybe it was poisonous and he was trying to kill me. 

As if knowing what I was thinking he shook his head and said, "Don't worry nothing is wrong with it. Just take it. You should appreciate that I'm actually being nice today."

Yeah, today.

I took the cupcake out of his hand and stared down at it. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black lighter before lighting the candle.

"Make a wish."

Make a wish? What was the point in wishing to get out of here if there was no way out? I was just an eight year old girl who didn't really know anything about this cruel world or what it had to offer me. Now that I was stuck in here, confined to this room for the rest of my life I realized that I would never be able to learn anything about this cruel world I was living in until I actually escaped. How was I going to do that? I had no clue.

I sighed before taking in a deep breath and letting it out making the flame from the candle go out. Brother James reached for the candle and licked the icing off of it before stuffing it in his pants pocket.

I looked down at the cupcake in my hand before slowly licking some of the icing off. When I pulled back I noticed Brother James staring down at me with an emotion I didn't recognize. Suddenly he leaned forward and placed his arms on each side of my body. He moved his face closer to mine and just blinked. He brought one of his hands up and slowly caressed my left cheek.

"I can't wait to make you mine," he said, closing his eyes tightly.

I just looked at him puzzled. I had no idea what he meant by 'I can't wait to make you mine' but a part of me already knew that it wasn't anything good.

He slowly opened his eyes back open and leaned in closer so our lips were slightly touching. He let out a groan and shut his eyes once again.

"James get your ass down here right now!"

Brother James' eyes instantly snapped opened at the sound of his father calling his name. I didn't miss the fear in his eyes when he opened them. He quickly pulled away and ran his finger through his hair a couple of times before leaving the room and locking the door behind him.

The first week had passed by faster than I could even blink. I still didn't get that mysterious boy to talk and I still have not figured out his name. It was the same every day. We sat next to each other on the bus ride to and from school, he was teased and had paper balls thrown at him during class, and I sat with him by the trash bins every day for lunch. It took me until Thursday to figure out what kind of sandwich he ate every day for lunch. It was tuna.