Silhouettes

Chapter 7

"Every 30 seconds another person becomes
a victim of human trafficking."
~ Unknown

Chantal was in her 'room' the same night laying on her 'bed' and staring at the ceiling. Her bed was the only furniture in the room smack in the middle with bare walls and the paint in the ceiling stripping.

Whatever Bigga (who she found out was named Charles), had told her had been a lie. He was using her for more than just carrying drugs to China.

'He lied to me to me,' she thought, 'I wonder if Sam would lose it if he knew. But then again why would he care. It's not like he cares about us. But maybe he will because he must have paid less to use use me.'

Would he lose it if he found out Charles almost starved me to death? Doesn't he see for himself how malnourished I look?

Thoughts.

Thoughts she did not want to ponder.

Thoughts that she blocked.

'That curly haired girl…' she shuddered at the thought of Lizzy. 'Way too chirpy,' she concluded.

She went back to a time in her mind when life told no lies and only sent smiles. She thought about the nights she'd stayed up late and gave her mother a ton load of mischief no matter how many times she would run her off to bed. She knew that although her mother appeared annoyed with her behaviour, she knew she loved it.

Her mind even travelled further back to when her father was alive and she would run into his arms after he came home from a tedious day at work then she would run to the back of her house and carry her newly baked mud cake to show her father who made it his daily duty to 'taste' it and tell her good a cook she was.

That memory brought a smile to her face but was immediately replaced with a frown and her forehead creased as she remembered how her father died.

She sat eagerly on the ground at her front gate waiting for her father to get home. She had made a new mud cake. This one had red flowers in there in the shape of a heart. Red flowers she got from her school's flower bed. She closed her eyes as the memory flooded into her mind's eye.

The three year old, black, kinky haired girl sat on the ground with her pan of mud cake at the front gate. She jiggled waiting on her father to reach home but as the wait became longer her bubbly behaviour went with it too. Her head turned up and her eyes caught an early twinkler that vanished with the wink of her eye.