In Your Veins [SLOW UPDATES]

Chapter 4

(Three months previously)

"ADRIENNE! Where the fuck are you?!" my stepfather bellowed. Regretfully lifting my aching head from my book, I rose & faced my tormentor. If I left him waiting I'd only be beaten harder, raped for longer & insulted louder.

"Yes?" I answered timidly.

"What's this I hear about you asking for a new phone?" he growled. Well, at least he's sober this time.

"My old one broke when I accidentally dropped it from the balcony," the second story of our house had a balcony with a pretty view that I liked to bask in. And drop my gadgets from apparently.

"Well does it look like we have fucking truckloads of money to buy you everything you want, you lazy piece of worthless, floozy crap?" he snarled. I guess he'd drank or gambled away all our money. His comments didn't faze me anymore either, they were not offensive or hurtful, they were accurate depictions of me.

"Well, can I get a job?" I asked hopefully. I would love to earn some of my own money. It would mean I'd be out of the house more.

"You little heifer, you ain't fuckin' leaving this house!" He ranted. Sigh.

"Manny, she can get a job, well partially. And she won't even be away from us for that long!" my mother offered.

"Doing what?" he spat.

"Donating blood. Or any other of her organs."

"Sandra, nobody gets paid for that, dumb bitch!"

She beckoned him over & they whispered for a few minutes while I processed what I just heard. Sell my body? Wow, I always thought that would involve me prostituting myself but this is a whole new level of exploitation. I trudged back to my room unable to hear any more.

∞

"WAKE UP!" Came the crash of voices almost as loud as the banging against my (locked) door. Disorientated, I got out of bed to see what I had done this time.

"Get dressed, we're going out." Manny deadpanned. I daren't ask where to, I just dress and oblige.

We drove for about an hour while I was lost in song.

Eventually we arrived. To what, I didn't know. We were in a decrepit place of sandy nothingness except for an expansive concrete structure that didn't quite deserve the title of building. There was gravel under my feet as I trudged hesitantly towards it, my mother and stepfather walking on either side of me. Probably to stop me from abandoning their plan. I very well could, but I decided a few years ago to stick it out until I was done with high school. I would hone my academic and sporting prowess in order to be offered a university scholarship. If not, then at least I shouldn't find it difficult to get into a tertiary institution. I would move out the day I graduated & get some or other job to pay for my studies. My past & present circumstances don't have to fuck up my future, I refuse to allow them.

We entered the dilapidated one-story concrete slab & I was overwhelmed by the pungent odour of decay, blood & urine. Don't ask me how I knew that it smelt like death, it just did. The scent of our species coming to an undignified end was a demeaning horror I would wish upon no one. Except Manny.

I didn't even have time to ask what the hell we were doing here when a man dressed in stained hospital scrubs approached us & talked mutedly with my mom & Manny. I took the opportunity to really look at the place. And wished I hadn't. There were haphazardly cordoned-off sections, filth adorning many of the surfaces & a few weakly people lying or sitting around. Some with gaping wounds & dead eyes. Others, so thin they would put an anorexic to shame. A few were hooked up to unsterile-looking IVs. There were also a few people striding around that looked like doctors and nurses. What?