Page 4 of The Monsters Within

He was wrong.

The scary man could reach me. He grabbed my ankle and I screamed. I tried to hold on to a bar underneath, but I wasn’t strong like Thorne.

“Come here, little girl. I won’t hurt you. I promise,” he rasped.

He was already hurting me. I kicked at the hand that held my foot, but he didn’t let go. So I screamed again.

“Come out here, you little bitch. I got something I can feed you.”

He sounded like he wanted to help, but he used the same word the man did. The word he called Mom before he hit her. I knew that wasn’t a nice word. Mom didn’t let us use bad words. Thorne used them, though.

“HEY!”

The shout scared the man, and he let go of my foot.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a lady asked him. She wasn’t using nice words either. But maybe you could use bad words with bad people.

“None of your business, you cunt. Get the hell out of here before I make you take her place.”

I couldn’t see the lady, but Mom always said if we got lost to find a mom. A mom would always help. I wondered if she was a mom.

“You picked the wrong day, asshole.” I saw her feet from under the dumpster; she was wearing boots. Black ones. They looked like they would hurt if she kicked you. Thorne kicked me once when he was wearing boots. It hurt a lot.

“Sweetheart, you stay where you are. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.” Yup, she sounded like a mom. That’s what Mom used to say to us when the man came. That she would get us when it was safe.

I didn’t answer her. I was too scared to talk. I didn’t want the man to find me.

“You gonna save her?” the man asked the lady.

“You’re damn right I am.”

“Bitch, you and what army?”

“I don’t need a fucking army.”

There were loud noises, and the lady was yelling at the man, and he was yelling back. They were both using words that were bad. Words Mom told us we should never say.

I saw their feet moving around, and then it got quiet when the man fell to the ground. He was looking right at me, but he didn’t move. Then I saw the blood. A red line around his neck.

“Sweetheart, it’s safe, but I want you to close your eyes before you come out, okay?”

I did what she said and crawled out from under the dumpster. She picked me up and pushed my face into her neck.

“You don’t need to see that, sweetheart.” She didn’t know I had already seen it.

The lady took me out of the alley and to a restaurant. She let me order whatever I wanted, and I got to eat it all by myself. I wished Thorne was there. He was probably hungry, too.

“My name is Valhalla. What’s your name?”

Mom told us to never give our real name. But I liked my name.

“Rose.”

“Where’s your mom, Rose?”

I shrugged. “The man took her a long time ago.”

“You’re out here alone?”