Tea and toast was placed in front of me. I wasn’t sure if it was fresh toast or the old one from our room—it didn’t matter, though. “Thank you.” I nibbled at the toast but my stomach turned. I felt too disgusting to keep anything down.
The new Violet opened the bedroom door and tentatively stepped out. Her eyes darted around the room. “It’s okay,” I whispered. Wow, I was just like Rose and Poppy, giving false hope to the new girl. She stepped into the room and perched on the arm of the sofa.
Poppy whispered in my ear, “She’s not said a word, and she won’t talk to us or even listen to us.” Probably because she doesn’t want to hear what you have to say. Violet was still in shock; her wide eyes scanned the room. My chest tightened as I remembered that feeling of being completely lost, confused, and terrified. Violet needed someone that understood her, not someone that would tell her to stay strong and endure it from day one.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
Her head snapped to mine so quickly I jumped in surprise. “Layal,” she replied in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Layal’s unusual.”
“I’m from France originally, moved here with my mum to live with my grandparents when I was two.”
I was getting somewhere. At least she had spoken to me. “Why did you move?”
She shook her head, frowning at a bad memory. “My dad was abusive, apparently. I don’t remember him at all.”
“I’m sorry,” Rose said, and Layal shrugged. Violet, I reminded myself. I couldn’t get caught up in calling her by her name. If I slipped up in front of him, then who knows what kind of screwed-up reaction he would have.
Violet looked up, directly at me, as if she didn’t want to acknowledge Rose and Poppy. “What does he want?”
“We think the perfect family, or something like that. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to understand that psycho.” I ignored Rose’s deep frown. Brainwashed.
Violet look on, turning her nose up in disgust. “He’s so fucked up.” I nodded in agreement. You have no idea. “What did he do to you last night?” I dropped my eyes to the floor and tensed. “He raped you, didn’t he?” she whispered. No! No, no, no, no, no! I tried to ignore the lump in my throat and picked a spot on the floor and stared. I will not cry. “He won’t do that to me.” I curled up, hugging my legs to my chest. I remembered saying a similar thing.
Rose tucked her hair behind her ears. “Would you like something to eat, Violet?”
“Layal,” she corrected. “And no, thanks. Why are we all still here when there’s four of us and only one of him?” Good question. Fear. That was all that stopped me and Poppy from trying to escape. For Rose, though, it was something else.
Violet clearly wanted to get out, so maybe it could work. We still both desperately wanted to escape. Poppy would take a lot of convincing, but I think we could win her around. Rose was a lost cause. Whatever we did, we had to make sure it was well thought out and that Rose didn’t know a thing.
“We could poison him,” Violet suggested.
I shook my head. “Too much could go wrong. We’d have to do it gradually, so he wouldn’t taste or smell it, but then there would be no guarantee he’d die down here. I don’t want to starve to death.” Stabbing him with something, though there wasn’t anything particularly sharp down here. Hitting him over the head with something hard, but then the only thing hard enough was the frying pan, TV, or a chair, and who wouldn’t see that coming?
“Anyway, how did he find you?” I asked, needing to change the subject because Rose was still around, and I didn’t want her to know how much I’d been thinking about escaping.
“I’ll make some soup for lunch,” Rose announced and abruptly walked away. I watched her go and hoped that when we got out she would be okay. Her family had to come forward and take care of her after everything she’s been through.
As soon as she was busy pulling pans out of the cupboard, I turned to Violet and whispered, “We’ll talk when we’re alone.” She looked up at Rose and her eyes widened a fraction as she understood why. I was determined to get out now more than ever.
When Rose called us for lunch, I made myself sit at the table like normal. Even though I felt the furthest thing from normal. My chest was aching. I wanted to curl up in the corner and lie there until we were found.
“Smells good,” Poppy complimented.
I looked down at the steam rising off the plate, dancing around and making swirling patterns in the air. I watched it rise until it disappeared, wishing I could float off and disappear too.
“Lily, are you not hungry?” Rose asked.
I had only eaten a few mouthfuls and not even touched the bread roll. “No.” Of course I wasn’t hungry. Since I had been down here, I had lost my appetite, and after last night, I felt too sick and disgusted to eat anything more than a few nibbles of toast.
She took my plate. “Well I’ll pop it in a Tupperware and we can keep it in the fridge for later.”
“I won’t want it later,” I replied.