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Nodding my head, I run my fingers through my hair, exhaling as Rodney leaves the room. Sitting up, I toss my legs over the edge of the bed and shove myself up to my feet. When I make my way to the bathroom, I flip the light on and when I reach out to turn on the sink, I notice the dried blood under my fingernails.
Not again.
I wash my hands quickly, digging beneath my fingernails, trying to rid myself of every last speck of crimson. Once I dry my hands, I lift the hem of my t-shirt up to my chest and hold it in place with my chin. I wet the towel and dab at the scratches on my hips while I mentally berate myself because the last wounds just healed over. If I keep going at this rate, I’ll be scarred forever.
After I’ve thoroughly cleansed and bandaged the scratches, I change into a new t-shirt and sweats and make my way downstairs to have that talk with Rodney. I guess I owe him some sort of explanation, after all, he’s been putting a roof over my head for more than a year now, and I only get worse, never better. He took in a broken kid.
“Alright kid, blueberry or chocolate chip?”
“Chocolate chip, duh,” I grumble as I pick up the coffee with a “Z” written on the side, and plop myself into one of the black leather arm chairs in the waiting area of his studio.
He tosses a chocolate chip muffin my way and I catch it, quickly taking a bite as he makes his way over to the chair across from me.
“Look, I’m not saying I’m gonna have the answers Z… but if you don't talk about the things that are plaguing you… those things are gonna eat you alive.”
“I - I know,” I pick at the lid of my coffee cup, shaking as I take a sip.
“It won’t change anything.”
“Are you sure?” I peek up at him through the strands of hair that curtain my eyes.
“We all have demons, kid.”
“I….” I start but I falter. I take another deep breath and pinch my eyes closed, and then I try again. While I’m not looking at the face of the man who saved me from the streets, instead looking at the inside of my eyelids.
“Rodney, that foster home I ran from… It was real, real bad. I… I don’t like to talk about it, but I can’t stop dreaming about it. It wasn’t really me, like… no one was bad to me. No one hit me or hurt me…”
“Okay…”
“But I had a sister. F-foster sister. Ellie. They did hurt her… and I couldn’t stop it. I had to listen from the other side of the wall. Every night. All I could do was hold her when it was all over and let her cry.”
“Jesus, that’s fucking terrible.”
I open my eyes, and his face falls, expression softening.
“Where is she now?”
“Y-you wouldn’t believe me,” I shake my head.
“Try me.”
“Alright,” I suck in a deep breath. “It wasn’t just our foster dad. One night, he invited someone else to join in…”
“Jesus fucking christ,” Rodney’s face turns squeamish but I keep going.
“He… they… There’s something called the Syndicate. And our foster dad, he sold her to them. She panicked and we tried to run. We did run… but they caught her. And now, I’m here.”
“Oh kid…”
“I know, I know, it sounds crazy. But I swear I’m telling the truth. One of these days Rodney, I’m going to find her.”
Rodney sits up and leans forward, pressing his forearms into his thighs as he looks up at me, fiddling with the lid to his coffee cup. “That’s not it. I… I believe you.”
“You do?” my heart rate increases. I never expected him to believe me. I was fully prepared for him to think I was crazy.
“I do. I’ve heard of this… Syndicate. My MC, the Hellhounds, we had some girls go missing… We think… Well it doesn’t matter. The thing is kid, you can’t just go up against them.”
“I’m going to get her back,” I snap.
