HOPE
“This will be your room.The bed is to be used only when I want you, other than that you will sleep on the floor, but you know the rules.” He starts laughing behind me, he hasn’t even told me his name yet. All I know him as is the man that owns me, but all I want is my parents. I want to wake from my sleepover and my mom to come and pick me up.
Looking through the corner of my eye to see what I can of the room, but all I see is the bed. "Get on the bed." I feel his finger trace down my back, and a cold shiver runs through me.
Lying on the bed, I close my eyes. "Now you know the rules, your eyes are to stay open and you look at me." His hand moves to my neck. "I told your uncle everything I liked, and he better have trained you right." His hand tightens around my neck as he says the words. I remember the lessons, I remember the rules.
My eyes locked with his as his grip tightens more and his hand moves down my body. I try to look away; I want to close my eyes. I can’t breathe.
I wake up clutching my throat, struggling to breathe. Closing my eyes for a moment, I take a deep breath in then look around the room to make sure I'm alone. Moving over to the window, I look out at the lights. I want to see the lights of hope.
Leaning my head on the window I pick up the newspaper article, the one about the fire at the house and I stare at it; the house where my life was happy. I’ve lived in darkness until last night. Last night was different. Leo asked for permission, they don’t ask permission. Leo was soft, gentle, but he still kissed me with power, and control.
When he got home last night, I saw him in a whole different way, and things started to change. He killed a man that he's never met; he killed a man forme. Leo is trying to help me, he's trying to make my health better, and he's trying to make me feel safe again.
I want to trust him. I want to believe him, but it never stays that way. They always break me,healways broke me. I’ve lived with rules for so many years; I just don’t know how to tear my mind from them.
Leo has a touch that’s helping me. Helping me feel like I belong and I’m not just a worthless girl in a room.
Quickly folding the paper, I feel him outside. Hearing the door open, I look out of the window.
I hear his footsteps getting closer to me. He laughs lightly. “I didn’t even make a sound.” I see him from the corner of my eye as he sits on the floor and leans against the window like me. “Bad night?”
“Used to them,” I tell him. After last night I want to make to make more of an effort with him, even though every tiny muscle in my body is telling me to follow the rules. I’m trying to fight through them.
"What's in the box?" I grab it and pull it close to me, but he says, "I won't take it."
“I know.”
Sitting cross-legged, he places his hand on top of mine and the other moves closer to my face moving some of my hair away and putting it behind my ear.
“I know as soon as you open up to me and smile you’re going to be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. How do I know that? You’re already so beautiful when you hide.”
My eyes close and I let out a tear I’ve been fighting. I’ve never been called beautiful. I’ve been called a lot of things, but beautiful is not one of them.
Leo's hand moves to my cheek to wipe away my tear. "I want you to talk to me, Hope. I want to—" Leo stops, and I wonder what he wanted to say.
"Do you kill a lot of people?" I ask. Last night he killed a man he'd never met, and he did it without even thinking about what could happen to him.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Leo tells me. I go to lift my head, but stop myself and turn back to look at the lights again. “The only reason I do it is so no one will get hurt by these monsters again.”
I nod my head. I understand if anything were to go wrong they wouldn't be able to link things together.
"What are you looking at?" Leo moves closer to me, and I can smell his cologne. It smells really good, like when I was sleeping in Central Park; the fresh woody scent in the morning. I always loved that.
“The lights. Where there’s light, there’s hope.” I lean my head on his hand where he’s placed it on my shoulder.
“I’ll give you all the light you want Hope. I’ll give you all the light in the world. I’ll give you everything you need.” Leo kisses my head and pulls me into his embrace. Just having his arms around me makes me feel warm and makes me believe he’s really trying to keep me safe.
“Work in the morning?” I ask him, as we sit there looking out of the window.
“Yes,” he says quietly.
“What do you do?” I don’t really know anything about Leo, except that he leaves the house in the morning, comes back and his best friend is Jackson. Although now I know he kills people in his spare time.
"We have a financial company, and when people want to borrow money for a business idea, they come to us. We look at it and decide if they get the loan or not," Leo tells me. They are clearly a family with money.
Shaking my head to release the thoughts about money and men from my head, I don’t think that Leo is the same; I know he’s not the same.