Page 28

“Aubrey,” I said, pushing my voice out in a low whisper.

Tink.

“You can talk softly, I should be able to hear you.”

“What about the guards?” she asked, her voice so quiet I had to strain to hear her.

Her voice sounded like it was coming from the seam of the wall and the floor, so I slid down to my haunches, keeping one shoulder and ear against the wall.

“We have a little bit before they come back around, they do sweeps every thirty minutes or so. How are you feeling?”

It was a dumb question. I knew how she felt. She felt like shit, she felt like her life was over, she felt all the same things everyone else did about being there.

“Are you sure it's safe to do this?”

“Sure enough,” I responded with a giggle, doing my best to make light of a horrible situation. “It feels good to talk to someone else that isn't one of Virgo's goons, I can tell you that.”

“It really does.”

Relaxing my head against the wall, I sat on my ass, curling my legs underneath me. “Where are you from?”

I was trying to make small talk. It seemed like the proper thing to do when you were talking to someone you knew nothing about.

“Florence,” she said, her accent fairly light for someone born in Italy. “You?”

“Boston.”

“Where's that?”

“The U.S.”

“That's a world away from here.” She sounded much more relaxed, almost at ease. We sat silent for a moment, and I don't think either of us really knew how to have a normal conversation anymore.

What do you say?

What do you ask?

It wasn't like we had lives to talk about outside that place. Memories equaled more pain, and I wanted to avoid the pain.

“Can I ask you something?” she finally questioned.

“Sure.” Picking at my fingers, I kept my hands in my lap.

I had one ear on her and one on the hall. We had to be careful. If we got caught, I didn't even want to think about what Virgo would do to her.

I wasn't really worried about myself. I had been with him long enough to build up a thick skin to his punishments. The scars I bore were my armor. He couldn't hurt me anymore than he already had. Death was the only other thing he had, and I knew he would never give me that because it was something I had begged him for.

'You'll always suffer, that's why you were brought to me.'His words were burned into my head, a constant reminder of how he truly saw me.

“Do you think your family is looking for you?”

My heart clenched at her question, turning the muscle to stone. Taking in a labored breath, my eyes closed tightly. The memory of that day flooded my mind, making my body numb.

The answer was simple. No, no one was out there looking for me.

But every once in awhile, I wondered if my siblings questioned where I was. And then I would remember how young they were when we were separated. Odds are, they didn't even realize I existed anymore.

There memories of me had probably faded, becoming more of a dream than a reality that was once viable. My sister was three and my brother was barely a year old, there minds were cleansed of their older sister by now, filled with new memories of whatever life they were living in.