Hello again, loyal readers!

I hope this chapter meets all your standards, it's the last one I have already written, do I had better get back to writing more often.

Like I said, (last update? the one before?) I will be posting the first chapter of one of my new stories, Forbidden Romance, on Friday, instead of the usual Missing Pieces update. I hope no one minds.

Anyway, here is Chapter 19! Love you all!!!!

-G

\--/

The red car drove down the road in the middle of the night. The wind howled around it, and rain beat against the windows. Inside, two red-headed women sat silently. Until the younger one spoke:

"I think.. I've figured it out," Cheryl told her mother. "You poisoned Nana Rose with the tannis root, and pushed her down the stairs."

"You've gone mad," Penelope Blossom said with complete certainty. Cheryl looked at her incredulously. "That's all there is to it. You've lost your mind and... and you leave us no choice," she finished. Cheryl looked back and forth between the window and her mother, unsure of what was going on.

"What do you mean, no choice?!" She demanded. Her mother shook her head, not even acknowledging the girl's question.

"But it's all right. They're going to make you all better," she continued, not bothering to explain. "All better."

And that was it for the rest of the journey. The two women were once again silent, until their car pulled up in front of a dark, imposing building.

Shaking, Cheryl opened the car door, only to be greeted by 3 nuns standing on the steps. They surrounded her as she followed her mother inside the horrific building.

Once inside, Cheryl and her mother were escorted into a large, clean room, empty except for an imposing hardwood desk in one corner. Moving towards it, the nuns left Cheryl by the door, but only after making sure to lock it. There were bars on all the windows, and there was nothing around them that could be used in any way as a weapon.

Penelope followed the group of nuns to the desk, still ignoring her daughter.

They talked together in low voices for what felt like a very long time, occasionally looking over at Cheryl as she waited beside the door. When they were done, one of the nuns walked over to Cheryl, stopping a few feet infront of her.

"Hello. My name is Sister Maldini. You are going to come with me to your room to rest. You have had a hard day, and you need to sleep." The nun said. Cheryl shook her head.

"No. No! I want to leave. I want to leave. Let me leave." Cheryl demanded, her voice rising in pitch as she got more and more distressed. The nun moved to grab her arm, but Cheryl jumped back, and that's when the door across the room opened, and two giant men in white coats entered the room. They saw Cheryl, and moved towards her. Cheryl tried backing away, but stopped when she felt the wall behind her. The two men descended upon her, grabbing her arms, and almost carrying her towards the door they had come from.

"Stop! Don't do that! My friends, Toni, they'll come for me! Toni will find me. She always will. She promised!" Cheryl screamed as the two thugs dragged her away. She was pulled into a room, still screaming obscenities at the giant men holding her, until suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her arm, and her body loosened, muscles relaxing. "She promised," was the last thing Cheryl said, before the darkness closed in around her and she fell to the floor.

\--/

"Cheryl...," someone sobbed. "Cheryl. Where are you? Where did you go, Cher, where did they take you?" It was a voice Cheryl knew well, but in her unconscious state, she couldn't quite place it. "Cher, I miss you. I need you to come back. I need you to be ok. I... I need you... I need to..to tell you... I..I love you. Oh god, I love you. So much. So so much," the person sobbed. "Just please be ok... just please.."

"Please come back to me, Cher..."

\--/

Cheryl woke with a jolt, forcing herself to open her eyes. Glancing around the room she was in, she struggled to remember where she was, struggled to remember anything. Trying to push herself up on her elbows, she found her wrists strapped to the bed she was lying on. Looking down, she saw her feet were similarly tied.

Suddenly remembering everything, she screamed. She screamed for herself; for the pain, and anger, and betrayal; she screamed for Toni; left behind, unable to find her; she screamed because it was the only thing these people couldn't take away from her. Her voice was a tool, a weapon. That, she already knew, but she hadn't fully recognized the fact until now.

Struggling against the bonds, Cheryl stopped yelling, trying to figure out what time it was, what day it was. All she remembered was her mother, taking her away from the hospital, dragging her here, to this horrid place. Then when she tried to run, those goons restrained her. And then, the blackness. After that, Cheryl had no knowledge of anything.

Except... there was a tiny niggling memory, right in the back of her consciousness. Cheryl tried to remember, but all she could gather was... Toni. Toni, the last person left she cared about, the only person she loved. Toni who she would never see again.

Breaking down once again, Cheryl just let the tears fall down her face. Falling back onto the bed, Cheryl slept fitfully. Eventually she was woken by a noise at the door.

A nun walked in, one of the three from the first day, with a man wheeling a trolley behind her. She smiled creepily at Cheryl, and that's when Cheryl's heart finally broke. There was no point fighting. No point plotting or planning or scheming. No point in even trying to figure out the time. Cheryl realised that she was going to be at this place for a long time. She was stuck now.

"Oh you poor child," the nun said. "there's nothing to be afraid of. Sister Woodhouse is going to help you." Cheryl smiled, grateful that there was at least one sane person in this hideous establishment.

"Thank you Sister Woodhouse," she said breathlessly.

"Yeah she's going to rid you of all those naughty demons," Cheryl froze, her smile slipping, realising that this woman had a very different idea of help. "The ones making you think such awful, unatural thoughts. Today, you must rest," Sister Woodhouse said. "Tomorrow, the real work," she smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "the conversion begins."

The man shut the door, just as the sister reached for one of the syringes lying on the trolley. Cheryl tried to back away, but couldn't move very far. The nun grabbed her arm, and once again, Cheryl felt the sharp pain, then the blackness again.

For the next few hours, days, weeks, it was just blackness. Cheryl would flit in and out of conciousness, never really becoming concious enough to gather any sense of time or space.

Finally, the nuns must have decided that Cheryl was allowed to wake up. So now, she stood in front of the one window in her tiny room. When one of the nuns enters, Cheryl barely even noticed.

"It's time, girly," Sister Woodhouse told her, and Cheryl moved away from the window, following the old woman as she led the tired girl down a long, bare corridoor towards the only other room Cheryl had been allowed to visit: the movie room.

Every night, Cheryl was taken there to watch old videos of "deviant" children. In all honesty, the room was just a white box full of blank eyed, lifeless kids. Except... Cheryl had discovered that some of them weren't as lifeless as they looked.

There was one girl, Amira, who was always dragged into the movie room kicking and screaming. She fought everywhere she went. Sometimes when Cheryl would peek through the window in her door, she would see Amira being dragged down the hallway.

Two nights ago, Cheryl had been walking down the hallway when Amira ran past her, three of the Sister's guards behind her. When she saw Cheryl, she had stopped, grabbing Cheryl's hands and tugging on them.

"Don't stop fighting! They only win if you stop fighting. Don't let them win. Don't stop fighting."

Her words had given Cheryl hope. If that girl was still fighting, then Cheryl would fight too. She no longer did everything the Sister's said, when they told her to. Cheryl held on to the memories of her life before the Sister's, positive she would get back there eventually. And when, a day later, Amira stopped coming the movie room, Cheryl refused to stop fighting. She would remember that strong girl, a flame that had kept burning, even in the darkest of nights.

\--/

"I believe I've deduced what has caused this imbalance in you, Cheryl," one of the nuns said, upon entering Cheryl's room.

The Sister's would periodically visit Cheryl's room, claiming to have figured out why Cheryl was being "deviant". Every single time, she would shoot them down, and be forced to partake in some absurd punishment as a result. Apparently, this time it Sister Livingstone's turn.

"And what would that be, Sister Livingstone?" Cheryl asked sceptically, putting down her book.

"I've spoke to your mother about your brother Jason, and how close you were." The woman claimed. Cheryl knew that whatever her mother told the Sisters, it was guaranteed to be complete BS. She sighed as the woman kept talking. "So close, in fact, that your Nana would sometimes mix you up. Isn't that right? She would dress you in Jason's clothes, and he in yours." Cheryl rolled her eyes. Of course her mother was just going to continue twisting the truth.

"Nana's always been half blind, Sister. Cataracts," Cheryl explained. "But if anything has affected my physche, it's the firehose of abuse directed at me by my mother and father," she spat back, not even bothering to try and be polite. The nun shook her head.

"You've suffered many traumas, it's true. But that does not excuse your willful behavior." Cheryl sighed. "Now, you will report to the undercroft immediately where you will undergo physical therapy until you're ready to listen."

Ignoring the nun's demand and picking up her book again, Cheryl settled back into the bed. She had only read two or three lines when she felt giant hands close around her arms, and the next thing she knew, she was being dragged down the hallway towards the undercroft. She refused to make it easy for them though, kicking and screaming all the way.

"Now child, you are going to be taking these flour bags here," Sister Livingstone told her once she had settled down, gesturing to a pile of straw sacks on a cot. "And moving them to the north-east corner. Over there. Do you understand?" Cheryl nodded tiredly. "I will come back when it is time for you to go to the movie room."

So Cheryl proceeded to do as the woman said, knowing the best thing to do would be to finish with the flour bags as quickly as possible, giving her time to relax before the Sisters came back.

When Sister Woodhouse came to check on Cheryl, she only had three more bags left, but she stopped when she saw the nun.

"But foolish girl, what have you done?" Cheryl looked at her, furrowing her brow in confusion. "You've stacked the bags in the north-east corner when I specifically told you the northwest!" The woman said gleefully.

"What? No, no, no, you said?!" Cheryl protested.

"Start over," Sister Woodhouse demanded. "And next time, listen child. You'll never get better if you don't listen to me."

Cheryl huffed as the older woman left the room. Screw their "listening". She was thoroughly over this place. She sat down on the bag she had been dragging around, dropping her face into her hands. She felt her eyes brimming with tears, but refused to give the nuns the satisfaction of making her cry. So instead, she wiped her eyes, picking up the bag and dragging it towards the new position.

Eventually, the Sister returned, barely even acknowledging her.

"Movie night. Clean yourself up!" The nun demanded. Cheryl sighed, following her out of the room. So much for relaxing.