I do plan on updating Duty, as soon as I can get back into it. Anyway, no Stefan r Damon in this chapter, only more background.
Chapter 2 – No hope
Abby returned when pale light had just began to creep in through the tiny window along the far wall. Quietly Abby had slid underneath the thin, brown and white blanket beside her. Her mother's body shook and the arm that brushed up against her was cold. Bonnie hadn't been to sleep, she couldn't fall asleep, her mind plagued by horrible thoughts. She wondered at times if she would be able to fall asleep again, ever.
Her mother smelled of fresh soap, like berries and spices. She also assumed her mother had switch clothes if the material brushing against her bare arm was any indication.
"Mom...?" Bonnie whispered quietly. Abby's shivering instantly stopped, maybe the woman thought she was asleep. She opened her mouth to ask if the woman was alright, but thought better of it. It was obvious she wasn't. "What about father?"
Abby was silent at first. "He was arrested."
Bonnie froze, her heart hit her stomach and she quickly sat up. "What? When?"
"I said I would answer your question as soon as I go back, I understand. But I would really like to rest for a couple of hours, Bonnie..." The woman sighed quietly.
"Mom..." Bonnie whispered again after a few minutes, she turned around and faced her mother as she laid back down, barely making out the woman in the amount of light coming in through the window.
Abby sighed. "What about Giuseppe, Lilly, and Stefan?"
Her mother was quiet at first, which made her nervous "They still work here, well Lilly and Giuseppe do."
Bonnie frowned and bit her lip. "What about Stefan?"
"Last I heard he became a solider," Abby said a heavy amount of bitterness and disgust in her words.
"But a... solider?"
"On the vampire side, Bonnie. He became a solider for the vampires because that's what he is." The woman snapped. Bonnie's blood ran cold and her first instinct was for denial. He wouldn't... Her mind quickly brought up a smiling face boy with dark blonde hair and greenish-blue eyes, who liked peaches and would pout whenever she would beat him at anything. A little boy who she use to roll around in the mud with and sleep underneath a star filled sky. A little boy who declared he would be her friend forever.
She gently shook her head without understanding why. "Can... Lilly and Giuseppe help us?" She asked uncertainly
"Goodness, Bonnie, I told you their son became a solider, one who has been enslaving and killing us. Why on earth would Giuseppe help us?" Bonnie remained silent heart hurting. Her mother sighed. "Lets rest, Bonnie, please."
Bonnie nodded.
(io)
Bonnie was kept hidden away in that bedroom for almost a week before the vampire man, Anderson, demanded she be brought to him.
Her mother was a nervous mess on that fateful day, moving around like a kid who had a little to much candy. She was unable to stay still. It was frightening, Bonnie had never seen her mother nervous. Her shoulder had began to twitch as a result of her nerves.
"I've been working out compromises with him. He's not going to make you become a whore." The woman said, only Bonnie was unsure about who she was attempting to convince. The woman had bit her lip and stood, staring off into space with her hands on her hips. "He won't... wouldn't" The woman shook her head staring off into space again.
"Mom..." Bonnie called when her mother had spaced out the fourth time.
"Hmmm... yes?" the woman went to the wooden dresser and pulled out a teal dress, "he wants you to wear this." Her mother smiled a strained smile, "its not too bad."
Bonnie accepted her dress and held it out in front of her, frowning at the low cut front and short bottom hem. Rudy, her father, was a tall man over six feet, while her mother was five foot five feet, Bonnie had landed at an even five foot three. Lilly had said she was all legs despite her height. Her new dress wouldn't be very long.
"Hurry, Bonnie," her mother ordered, "he's a fickle man, it would be wise not to keep him waiting."
She hated him already. This vampire Anderson, even when she had never met him, she hated for what he had done to her mother, what he was doing to her mother. Her mother had never been afraid of anyone. Her mother had been so strong.
Bonnie nodded and stepped out into the hallway and stepped into the shared bathroom on the other side of the hall she had been in a couple of times in that week. It was a normal bathroom, with a sink, a tub, and a toilet.
Bonnie quickly pulled off the only clothing she had still left in the house not fitted for her eleven year old body, her school uniform - a plaid yellow skirt and white blouse with a green tie and pulled on the teal dress. It only came to just above her mid-thigh, long-sleeves but a low cut in the front. Turning to the bathroom's mirror, one hand quickly went to cover her open cleavage while the other fruitlessly yanked at the hem.
The hand against her chest balled into a weak fist as she focused her attention on her face. Her hair had barely brushed her shoulders, it was also a chocolate color like her father's when he was younger and still had hair. Her hazel eyes had also come from her father. While their skin colors ranged from a light olive like her father's to deep mahogany like her mother.
(io)
Her mother wrapped her arm with hers as she lead her back into the main living area of their once home. There were other women, the first Bonnie had seen though she had heard a few moving around outside of the bedroom she was sharing with her mother. A few of them were cleaning the halls, sweeping, mopping, and dusty paintings. No one looked up when they walked by.
"Behave, Bonnie," Abby said softly.
Her mother stopped at the end of the main hall at what was once Rudy's office and quickly rapped on the thick wooden door. She could hear clicking and popping which suggested Madam Susanna was on the other side and grew even more nervous.
A second later she was once again face to face with Madam Susanna and her mechanical popping arm. The old woman smiled. "Its little witchy royalty and her offspring," she looked over her shoulder, "you wan' em in?"
"Yes, Susanna I've been expecting them," a deep, unmistakably male voice answered, "although they are five minutes late."
Abby bit her lip and pulled Bonnie in with her after Susanna had stepped back with a shrug.
Inside her father's once office was brown-haired vampire, sitting at her father's desk poking at a computertab screen. Behind him was girl a little older then Bonnie herself, skin like coffee with cream, brown sad eyes giving the vampire man a massage. On the left of the family heirloom desk was another girl, Bonnie's mother complexion, pouring tea into a flower-printed, gold rimmed tea cup.
"We're here now Mr. Anderson," her mother announced.
Instead of saying anything, the man continued poking at the computer screen, leaving them to stand awkwardly in the middle of the office. Bonnie weakly glared at the man but easily kept her mouth shut as a promise to her mother. Accidentally locking eyes with the girl behind Anderson, she caught the girl shaking her head softly. Deciding not to cause trouble, Bonnie adverted her gaze, ceasing her glare-a-thon with the vampire's head.
"So now..." The man finally said and looked up, first his attention settled on Abby before coming to settle on Bonnie. A slow smile crept onto his face. Bonnie hated it. "Now Abby, you don't honestly expect me to hide a beauty such as her back do you? She is more beautiful in person."
Her mother's whole body stiffened. "Are you... we had a deal..." She was fighting to keep herself calm, Bonnie noted.
"I don't think we truly did."
Abby's jaw worked and her lips pressed into one another. "You... Are you doing this because we were late?" The woman demanded more then asked. "If you are..." Her voice cracked and her hold on Bonnie tighten. Bonnie felt her heart-breaking. "I'll do anything..." Suddenly Abby's arm untangled from hers and her mother was standing in front of the man's desk. "Please... anything just do-"
Bonnie couldn't breathe. "Mom..." She called out weakly. "Mom... don't beg him."
"Yes, mommy, don't beg," the vampire mocked. Susanna, in the corner, laughed. Bonnie felt ill, never had she ever met these type of creatures.
"Mom..."
"No!" Abby snapped at her, still facing the man. "You don't understand, Bonnie. You cannot... I won't allow..." The woman panted as if she had just ran a long distance.
"Its not your decision to make now is it, Abby?" Anderson interrupted with a disgusted sneer. "I thought who was in charge here was beaten into you already." Bonnie choked on air as her mother's shoulders squared. Beaten? Her mind wondered.
"Beaten?" Bonnie whispered underneath her breath unable to help herself.
"Oh yes," Anderson answered, "your dear mommy was beaten into submission. Her fault truly, for not understand her place."
Anger flared up inside of Bonnie. This man was sprouting off nonsense about understanding ones place when he was a filthy no good vampire. Her mother was royalty on her father's side, the first emperor of the witch's Union great grand-daughter, back before the new constitution was enacted and democracy was reintroduced.
Before Bonnie could say any of this her mother spoke up again. "I understand my place," the woman said strongly, "but we had a deal."
"Obviously you do not, Abby." The man said with a sigh, waving the trembling girl behind him away and leaning back in her father's leather chair. "I suggest you stop digging the hole even deeper, Abby dear, and prepare her for later on tonight."
Her mother's legs buckled but she remained standing.
"You should be thankful I've given you time to prepare her."
"I should be thankful?" Abby snarled, shoulders jerking with every haggard breath she took. "I should be thankful you're going to corrupt, taint, and destroy my daughter?"
"Weee look at her, Anderson. I told you she was only pretending this whole time. That one ain't been broken yet." Susanna chortled.
Bonnie had always secretly believed green eyes were beautiful, greenish-blue like Stefan's. Now, as Anderson, with the exact hue of greenish blue leaned in towards her mother, face twisted into an angry snarl, she couldn't think of anything more evil looking.
"Enough," he growled, "prepare your daughter, if not go spend a day in the hole and your daughter will have to prepare herself, either way, she will be taking a customer." He quirked an eyebrow. "Also, I want her hair grown out."
Bonnie watched her mother's body quake with anger and wanted nothing more then to go to her, but found herself afraid of moving. Her sick feeling only grew. Her gaze briefly went to the two silent witches standing against the bookshelf along the left of the office, neither would meet her gaze, but both looked pale.
Finally, her mother spun around and stalked quickly in her direction, grabbing her arm, her mother pulled her out after her.
(io)
It was sundown when Abby sent for her after leading her back into their bedroom an hour before, to the nutrient bathing pool in the back of the farm house.
It had been a project her mother had been working on before Bonnie left for school and was no used for bathing all of the women in the whorehouse. Leaving Bonnie to stew with worry and fear for hours. She had no idea what her mother had been doing for that one hour, but the girl hoped she was finding both of them away out of this situation. She had been surprised when the lighter girl from Anderson's office had showed up summoning her.
Abby's face had been blank when Bonnie appeared still dressed in the teal dress. Abby was unable to look her in the eye when she told Bonnie to undress. Her mother had shutdown.
"Can't we try running away?" Bonnie asked a hitch in her voice and slightly pleading tone to her voice as she began to push the teal dress off her shoulders. Her mother swallowed and shook her head from her place beside the pool. Steam curled in the air, making the gray stone beneath her bare feet warm against the cool night.
Abby held out her hand, offering it to Bonnie to help her into the pool. Bonnie hesitated, still holding the teal dress against her body. Finally, she took her mother's hand and accepted help into the bathing pool. "Mom..." Abby took her dress from her and bent beside her before handing her a bar of yellow soap which smelled like honeysuckle. It was a pleasant odor but it made Bonnie's stomach lurch painfully, recalling a lesson in her seduction classes about what a pleasant odor is for.
Bonnie had whimpered in that moment and made an attempted at facing her mother. But the woman hands found her shoulders and kept her facing forward. Bonnie shoulder had began to jump a second later but her mother kept her hold on her.
"You have to serve him tea, Bonnie. You remember how right? They taught you that in the Academy right? All of the men who come here are vampire officers, so they a quickly angered."
Bonnie couldn't breathe. A strangled whimper left her as she tried sucking in air. The air, it was much to thick. "Mom," she cried between haggard breaths as the hold on her grew tighter.
"Do not fight him, allow him and it'll be easier... less painful. You're..."
"No, I won't," Bonnie blurted viciously, "I'll kill him. I'll kill all of them. I - " Her words fading away upon pulling out of her mother's hold before turning and seeing her mother in tears, shoulders shaking with every silent intake of breath.
"Turn around," her mother said voice lacking every emotion that truly should have been there, and that her face clearly suggested was. "Bonnie, there are unfortunately realities in war. Maybe... things will be... thing will change. But you're going to have to endure... you hear me?"
Bonnie shook her head. "I... Do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?"
Her mother looked in deep agony before her next words left her mouth. "I... I'm not asking, Bonnie. It is something you have to do." Bonnie felt cold despite the bathing pool's heat. "You have to.
"
In that very moment, the young witch realized she couldn't win, her mother couldn't win, her father couldn't win. The helplessness which hit her in that very moment was like a blow to the face with ice.
In that moment the girl realized she wasn't the only child of councilman leader Rudy and Abby Bennett, a heiress of two very wealthy estates, a fire cracker, a little vampire's boy's best friend, a student at North Union Academy for Girls. No. Now she was Bonnie Bennett, a prisoner of war. A unwilling whore. A sex slave.
With a firm hand, Abby forced Bonnie's suddenly limp, muscle-less body back around, scooping up a bucket of water dropping it over her head, she then began lathering her daughter's hair with shampoo, not in anyway gentle. Abby then dumped another bucket of water over her head, once then twice, then again. She then began washing her daughter's hair again.
Bonnie had fought against her own tears and won, she barely whimpered as her mother roughly washed her hair. "Now," Abby said shakily, "finish washing yourself. I'll get your dress. Bonnie..." The woman left without being able to say whatever she was going to.
Numb, Bonnie sat there, her scalp softly throbbing, her stomach churning. She couldn't wrap her mind around any of it, so many things had happened way too fast. How had so much gone bad so quickly? Her hope flickered like a dying flame in the wind.
Abby had returned fifteen minutes later, a bundle of clothing in her arms. She had found her daughter still unmoved, staring blankly ahead of her, staring at the wooden fence a couple of yards past the field in front of her at the woods.
Abby took a deep breath and approached Bonnie after setting the clothing onto a dry rock. Abby then picked up another bar of soap and a rag and began scrubbing her daughter who had flinched in response.
"If it helps, simply think happy thoughts." Abby said her words foul and bitter in her mouth. Bonnie blinked anger flaring up inside of her. 'If it helps, simply think happy thoughts?' Were those truly her mother's words of advice?
"You mean like taking father's hunting blades and gutting the bastard like a pig?"
"If you must," was her mother's response.
The young witch woman allows her mother to wash her. A few minutes after she was ushered out of the bathing pool, then dressed into a deep red dress by her mother. Her mother applies lipstick, a dark blue in shade. After hour and fifteen minutes, Bonnie was ushered back inside by Abby. Her anxiety and sick feeling increased when she was back inside, overwhelmingly so. She was going to run then, she honestly was, but then all of a sudden she was flanked by vampires, two of them on either side of her, separating her from her mother.
"I had it under control!" Abby shouted heatedly. "I was bringing her, damn it."
One of the vampires merely eyed her up and down in a disinterested way. "Don't you have your on customers waiting? They are your priority, getting this one to her appointment is ours."
Bonnie looked at her mother helplessly, finding her mother sporting a similar look. Her shoulders sagged. No hope there than.