Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
The aide nods at me before stepping away again, but the girls noticed him, and that’s the only thing that matters.
I focus my attention back on them. “This is your new home now.”
“Home?” the middle girl murmurs. “But I already have one. Where is my grandpa?”
“Perhaps you only thought you had a home,” I answer, gazing at her with a fire burning in my eyes.
It is not her grandfather she should be crying for. After all, he is the one who sent her here.
I start pacing up and down the hallway in front of them. “Any of you know why you’re here?” When no one answers, I continue. “You’re here because your parents, grandparents, or the one in charge of your upbringing or education didn’t think you were capable of being saved. You’ve messed up so badly that they looked at me and begged me to fix you.”
“Fix me? But I’m not broken,” the middle girl murmurs, shaking her head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Your grandparents sent you off, didn’t they? After a big fight when you destroyed their most prized … possessions,” I say. When her eyes widen, I smile deviously. It’s a metaphor, but she knows what I mean. “Yes, I know all about your misbehavior.”
“So what is this place then?” the same girl asks.
I rub my lips together. “Think of this place as a sort of moment of re-education.”
“Re-education?” The first girl in the modest dress balks. “What kind of nonsense—”
“Silence!” one of my guards growls at her, and his anger immediately makes her shut her mouth again.
She has spirit, but it’s definitely been broken already. Just not hard enough.
“You’re the one who came from the Family, didn’t you?” I narrow my eyes at her when her pupils dilate. “Thought so.”
That must be the one they couldn’t find a husband for.
“I had a life before that cult,” she says, scrunching up her face in dismay.
“I know you did,” I say, looking her straight in the eyes. “But your time there is over. What matters is the here and now, and you need to learn how to control yourself, so you can live a fulfilling life.”
“What will happen to me after then? Will you ship me off too?” she spits.
I cock my head. “I guess that depends on your behavior and what you manage to learn during your time here.”
She makes a tsk sound and looks away with folded arms, but not before taking a deep breath. She knows not to taunt me. She’s learned that much from the Family that she belonged to for quite some time. Keep your head down and don’t talk back too much, or you might get hurt.
“So what is this then? Are you a part of that Family cult too?” she asks.
“Not a part, no,” I reply with a gentle smile. “More an extension.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” the middle girl mutters, her body quaking even more when I approach her.
I grab her chin and force her to look up at me. “You’ll understand soon enough.”
When I release her, she goes right back into her shell as though it’s the perfect way to stay out of trouble. But this is not submission. This is fear.
Fear can be useful … sometimes.
But this House isn’t about abject fear. It’s about control.
To change the world, one must be willing to sacrifice one’s morals and ethics for the greater good. And that’s exactly what we do.
I take in a breath. “You will all be staying here for the time being.”
“Why?” the girl on the left asks. “Why was I brought here? Am I going to be forced to marry here too?” Her defiance strikes me as odd for someone who came from the Family. Then again, maybe that’s exactly why they sent her to me in the first place.
Some of them don’t blend in well, and they’re given to me as a last resort.
I smile at her. “You ended up here because there was no other choice. This is the last stop. For all of you.” I look at all the girls, even the one who’s completely distant. “This is where your sins stop.”
“Sins?” the middle girl mutters.
I pause, focusing my attention on her. As I stand before her and lean in, she cowers before me. “No one is without sin.”
I myself dabble in and out of sin regularly. But it is not without reason, and I too will be punished for my sins one day.
Their day of reckoning just came sooner than mine.
Amelia
After hours on end of not seeing or hearing a thing, a loud thud wakes me from my dreamless sleep. It’s the middle of the night, and I can barely see a thing. I turn on the light next to my bed and throw off the blanket, listening to the sounds.
Another loud thud has me jolting up and down in the bed.