Chapter Seventeen
Adam~
We sit down to have dinner with Nanna. Sophia keeps her eyes on the plate in front of her, not even looking up when Nanna talks to her.
I get an uneasy feeling something happened today.
“Sophia,” I say softly.
She swallows hard on the bite of food she just took.
“Yes, Master?”
I reach over and feel her forehead. She’s not hot so the fever’s not back.
“Are you feeling okay? How’s the pain?”
She takes a deep breath and then forces a smile to her lips. “Miss Ella gave me painkillers. I’m feeling okay.”
I look at Nanna and frown. “What happened while I was gone?”
Nanna looks at Sophia and then sighs heavily. “She’s been like this ever since River mentioned that she should share a room with Diane and Lizzy.”
Sophia brings the fork to her mouth. I don’t miss how her hand is trembling, which makes my concern grow. I gently place my hand on the back of her neck, and for the first time she tenses under my touch.
“You don’t have to share a room with them,” I say. I don’t think she’s upset because she has to share a room. It’s something else. “Is that what’s wrong?”
She places the fork back on the plate, and keeps staring at the food.
“I don’t mind, Master,” she whispers, and the numb tone grates at my ears.
I get up and take Sophia’s hand. “Thank you for dinner, Nanna.”
Nanna smiles at me, her eyes shining with tears. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Thanks, Nanna.”
I pull Sophia closer and link my fingers with hers. I walk out the backdoor and I feel a slither of relief when she stays close to me. That means it’s not something I did.
We take a few steps into the darkness when she slows down next to me. I glance at her and see that she’s staring up at the night sky.
I look up at the clear night. It’s beautiful out here. The stars are out in full force tonight.
I slow my pace so she can look around, not that she’ll be able to see much in the dark. We walk past the guest houses which the guards use. Tristan comes out of his as we pass his house.
“Nice night for a stroll,” he says, and then walks in the direction of the house. I know he’s going to check on Diane. I’ve seen him watching her. I once asked if he had feelings for her, which he of course denied.
When we get to my house, I open the door. Smiling down at her, I say, “Go in.”
She takes a few tentative steps inside and then stops.
“Welcome to my home,” I say as I walk past her. “I have two bedrooms. You’re welcome to have the guest room, then you won’t have to share. It’s more private here.” I open the fridge and pull a face at the contents. “I can only offer you beer or coffee.” I glance at her, and the disoriented look on her face guts me.
I walk over to her and duck my head closer to hers. “Tell me what happened today. What upset you like this?”
She shakes her head and her hair glides over her shoulders. She’s healing fast. The black marks around her eyes are fading to brown.
I take hold of her chin, nudging her face back up so she’ll look at me.
“Tell me, Sophia.” She takes a breath and opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. “When I left you this morning you were doing so well.”
She bites her bottom lip her whole face crumbles. Tears sneak from her eyes, each one finding its way to my heart.
“Sweetheart,” I whisper. I pull her into my arms and gently caress her hair. “Tell me so I can fix it.”
She covers her face with her hands and her shoulders jerk with her cries. Fuck, this is breaking my heart. She didn’t cry after the beating and that must’ve hurt a shitload. She’s been putting up such a brave front.
“I’m … scared,” she finally sobs out. She takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t … understand … anything.” She looks up at me with the bluest eyes, swimming in fear and confusion. “I want to please Master, but I don’t know how.” She slips from my arms to the floor and kneels in front of me. She scoots close to my leg like a dog. “Please don’t dispose of me, Master. I’m still good to work a few more years.” She hiccups all through the words.
Rage explodes white and hot behind my eyes. I’m shaking from the anger pulsing through my body. I’m going to kill every last fucking one of those bastards. I swear I am.
I kneel down in front of her and cup her face with both my hands. “This must all be so confusing to you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” Her eyes keep darting from my chest to my face, and back down. She’s totally out of balance. She’s busy losing her old habits, but she doesn’t have new ones, and that makes her feel lost.
“I’m going to tell you exactly what I expect of you, Sophia. Everything you learned through your life was wrong. I’m going to teach you the right way.”
I get up, pulling her up alongside me. I walk over to the couch so we can sit for this conversation. I place my arm around her shoulders, and pull her into my chest.
“My parents died when I was young, so Nanna raised me. She taught me everything I know. You like Miss Ella, don’t you?”
She nods against my chest. “I do.” The words come out hoarsely.
“She told me a good person will always look you in the eye. Bad people don’t make eye contact. You were taught to never make eye contact because those people didn’t want you to see the monsters they were. They didn’t want to see the person you are, the person they were hurting.”
Placing my hand on the side of her jaw, I nudge her face up. “I want you to look me in the eyes, because I want to see what type of person you are. I want you to look in mine, so you can see I’m not one of those people.”
She turns her face slightly away from me and whispers, “What if I’m bad? What if Master looks in my eyes and Master sees that I’m bad?”
I bring her face back to mine and I’m happy when she makes eye contact this time. That’s one win.
“Sophia, we all have good and bad in us, but it’s your reason behind your actions that matters. The people you’ve known all your life were greedy, sadistic monsters. Everything they did was for their own gain. Good people don’t beat on others. They don’t keep other people as slaves. Good people don’t kill other people.”
She gasps and her eyes drop back down. I watch her pale as I continue.
“Some of us do it anyway. Some kill for the pleasure of taking another’s life, and they are bad. Some kill to protect others, and I’d like to believe that they are good. Some kill to protect themselves, and I can’t possibly believe that makes you bad. You have a right to defend yourself and those you love.”
I lift her face back to mine and whisper, “I’ve killed people. I’ve killed bad people, and people who have been a threat to my loved ones. I’m not proud of it, but I’d do it again to protect my country and those I love. To some people, there’s no excuse in taking another’s life, but those people have never faced a moment where they had to choose between their loved ones and the person threatening them. Those people judge what we do and our reasons for our actions.”
I place my hand over her heart and feel it beating wildly.
“You have to do what you feel is right inside of you. I’ve done bad things for good reasons.” I take a breath before I get to the point. “Sophia, you were forced to do bad things by bad people. Anything bad you might’ve done was purely for your own survival. I will never judge you. No one here at the sanctuary will judge you.”
She tilts her head slightly and peeks up at me, and I can’t help but smile. This girl is something else.
“Will Master show me how to be good?”
“I’ll show you, and I’m sure Nanna will show you, too.”
I lean back against the couch and stretch my legs out in front of me. She cuddles closer into my side. This woman must be starved for any kind of affection.
“You need to remember to call me Adam. You’re not a slave anymore. No more sex unless it’s something you really want with a person you really like. No more kneeling.” I pause to make my point. “I mean it, Sophia. You don’t bow down to another human being.”
She frowns and I can see whatever’s bothering her is not gone yet.
“You can ask me anything,” I encourage her.
“I don’t understand. Is fucking bad?”
I rub tiredly over my face, and try to think of the best way to explain it to her.
“Sophia, the world you’ve know all your life is a lie. It’s a sick lie they made you believe. The world is so much bigger than you can ever imagine. It’s not normal for people to not wear clothes.”
I watch her face closely as she starts to frown. I don’t want to push too hard.
“It’s not normal for people to use others for sex. We have laws and it’s against the law to use someone as a sex slave.”
She moves away from me as my words start to register.
“What’s normal then?”
I brush some hair from her cheek. “It’s normal for a little girl to play with dolls. It’s normal to go to school with other kids. It’s normal to have butterflies in your stomach when you’re about to kiss for the first time. Sex is not a commodity, Sophia. Sex is something you share with the person you love. You share it with the person who means the world to you.”
She shakes her head and it looks like I’m not getting through to her, when she says, “My whole life has been bad? Pleasing a master is bad?”
I’m not going to lie to her. She’s been lied to her whole life.
“What you’ve been forced to do your entire life, is cruel and horrific. Forcing you to be a sex slave is fucked up. I have no other way to explain it.”
She twists her fingers together and says, “I was never forced. I was happy to please a master.”
I clench my jaw, digging deep so I won’t lose my shit.
“What would’ve happened if you had said no, or tried to leave?”
She’s quiet for a few minutes but I can see how busy her mind is.
Finally, she whispers, “I would’ve been replaced.”
I lean a little closer to her. “Think about it, Sophia. If you disobeyed them in any way, you would’ve been killed. Because they held that threat over your head, you did whatever they wanted.”
She just sits and stares at her hands as the realization hits.
I keep quiet and lean my head back against the couch, closing my eyes.
She now needs time to come to grips with everything I told her.
I don’t know how much time passes in silence, each of us busy with our own thoughts.
She moves closer to me, and wraps her arm around my waist. “Will you teach me how to be normal?”
“I will. There’s a whole new life waiting for you and you’re going to love it. No more pain. No beatings. No fearing that you’ll be killed if you’re not done as you’re told. You’ll learn to make your own choices and to be the master of your own life.”
“Thank you, Adam.”
I turn my face into her hair and whisper, “Anything for you, Sophia.”
***
We both fell asleep on the couch. I wake up with Sophia pressed to my side. She’s still asleep and I don’t have the heart to wake her. I sit with her for a good thirty minutes before she wakes up.
“Hey, sleepy head.” I smile when she lifts her head from my chest. She sits up, kneeling on the couch and rubs her eyes. She’s clearly still half asleep. “I’ll get us some coffee.”
I leave her sitting on the couch and make us some coffee. I notice her getting up, then she walks down the hallway. Minutes later, I hear the toilet flush. I place the coffee on the counter.
When Sophia doesn’t come back, I go check on her. She’s standing in front of a bedroom, just staring at it.
I walk up to her and look into the bedroom. “It’s not big, but you can use it. Or you can stay up at the main house. It’s your choice.”
Her hands grab hold of the sides of her dress, and she scrunches the material as she makes fists.
“I can really choose? I can stay here with you if I want to?”
I pull her hand away from the death grip she has on her dress, and I bring it to my mouth. I place a kiss over the one welt that’s fading.
“You can stay here for as long as you want.” I pull her towards the kitchen. “Come, we both could use that coffee.”
We walk back to the main house. When we walk into the kitchen, Jack’s just finishing up his food.
“Morning,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. Jack and Sophia are so very different from each other. I’ve never had a case like Jack, so I’m not sure what to do to make him feel at ease.
I glance down at my watch and notice that it’s already past eleven. “It’s more afternoon than morning. You two enjoying your brunch?”
“You know I love a snack here and there. At my age, there’s no such thing as watching my figure. Who knows what kind of foods they have in paradise. I want to get my fill while I still can.”
I laugh at Nanna and tease her, “Excuses, excuses. Nanna, do you have two more plates?”
She prepares two plates and I make sure to sit down in front of Jack so he can see me at all times. I don’t want him to feel threatened.
When he gets up, I quickly say, “Stay a while, Jack.”
His body tenses as he watches me from across the table.
“I’ve noticed you’ve started on the garden. I’m glad you’re feeling better. There’s a chapel close to the river. I’d like to go show you. I think you’ll be able to do something with it.” I’m trying to make small talk. I want to see how he reacts to it.
“Okay.” He almost bites the words out as he steps away from the table. This man has a lot of anger in him. I don’t blame him at all.
“Why did you call yourselves Master and Mistress Ryland if you claim to be different?”
I’m surprised by his question. He’s not as broken as Sophia. He doesn’t trust us and I can’t blame him.
“That was all a show to fool the fuckers who had you, Jack,” I almost spit the words out. The anger for what was done to them is always simmering in the background, ready to erupt.
“No one has the right to keep another human being as a slave. It’s wrong.”
I shake my head and get up fast. The chair falls back and I see Nanna reach a hand out to me. I need to get away from Sophia and Nanna. I’m just going to upset them. I walk to the door but stop and glance back at Sophia. She has a panicked look on her face and it makes me feel terrible for not controlling my emotions better.
“Stay with Miss Ella.” I look at Jack. “Come, Jack.”
The walk down to the river gives me time to rein in my temper.
When we reach the clearing, I stop a few steps away from the chapel. “This is the chapel, at least that’s what we call it.”
I let Jack take a closer look. His eyes are vibrant and intelligent. I can see him already planning what he’d like to do here. Seeing Jack out in nature is like watching a wild beast finally get set free. It’s a beautiful thing to witness. It’s the little moments like these that makes it all worth it.
“If you need to get some of your supplies here, just let me know and I’ll help you drive it down. It’s too far to walk up and down with everything.”
Jack makes direct eye contact with me. I see anger, confusion, and a strong will staring back at me.
“You’re safe here, Jack. River and I will make sure nothing happens to you.”
I leave Jack in the clearing so my words can sink in. It’s going to take a very long time to win his trust, but it’s something I’m prepared to work for. Jack needs a friend.