Another adopted by Hamilton story

Forty-five

"Morning, Ni." Lin says, opening the curtain.

"Morning." He lays next to me on the twin sized cot.

"You don't have to do school work, yet." I tell her.

"I missed a bunch."

"You were far ahead before. You completed the year early. You don't even have to do this stuff till September."

"Let me finish this." I watch her easily complete a match game with history terms and then she logs out and closes it. I slide the old computer under her cot.

"How are you?" She shrugs.

"Fine, I guess."

"Then why are you doing schoolwork at 6:30 in the morning." I laugh.

"I couldn't sleep. Why are you up?"

"Same thing. I don't think I will until I know just what happened to you."

"I don't know how much I can say, yet."

"You wanna try. You might feel better?" She nods and starts braiding a piece of hair. "How did you get taken?"

"I was a little delusional, I guess. I couldn't remember the day and I went to see if Anna was here because I didn't want to leave her out there if I had the wrong day and Liam took me."

"Did you struggle?"

"Sort of. But I passed out and woke up in a tiny room. No one came until it was dark."

"Why did they come in." She braids the piece of hair for a moment.

"Sex. It's all but labor that I was there for. Like before but worse."

"Did you fight?" She shakes her head.

"Not really. I- learned more, I guess you could say."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"The better I got at it, the more I could go outside or eat and the less I was beat." She avoids looking at me.

"Do you want to talk to Pippa about this? It might be easier." She nods, looking relieved but a little scared that she has to tell Pippa now.

"What do you want for breakfast." She looks up at me with a smile.

"I missed that word."

"We have cereal, fruit, oatmeal, bagels, and eggs."

"Fruit and cereal?"

"Sounds good." I stand up and hand her crutches to her. She follows me out and cuts up the fruit while I put the cereal, milk and bowls out.

"Morning." Vanessa comes out ready for work. "I was wondering where you were."

"Up with the sun with this one." I ruffle her hair as we sit down. V and I talk but Niamh is quiet. I don't blame her after that.