Dolls in Neverland

Chapter Two - Dall'altro lato del vetro

On the Other Side of the Glass

Triela was genuinely baffled. She hated to admit, but she almost felt the chill of fear running down her spine as Dr. Bianchi took her tanned arm with a cold, hard grasp.

So what if something's wrong with me? I don't feel anything. She glanced over at Henrietta. But then, I never did. Every pore of her being showed distress and misery as she sat glumly on the steel stool.The blonde girl watched Dr. Bianchi scribble something into his clipboard before discovering that Hillshire was watching her with Jose on the other side of the glass. She let out a snort that was just a tad bit too loud. Dr. Bianchi raised an eyebrow, and called for Dr. Gilliani.

"Say hello to the guru of artificial limbs, girls." Bianchi joked, but it was hardly one. "This man, right here, is the one who gave you girls the arms and legs so you could better help your fratellos,"

"Uh, sir, we don't need a replacement quite yet. We haven't had anything to do for some time and look, we hardly have a scratch," Henrietta spoke up, showing her soft pale arm. Gilliani cracked a smile pleasantly, showing a strange mixture of pity and humor.

Triela rolled her eyes. "Etta, you can't possibly think that that's why the guy is here," she pointed sharply. She looked up at Dr. Gillani with furrowed brows and a demanding look.

"Why are you here?"

"You are saying…" Hillshire repeated, quite unable to take all this in.

"The girls' growth had been partially neutralized during the surgical operation and replacing of the body with synthetic carbon frames, but apparently, we haven't done an excellent job in permanently putting their development to a halt." Dr. Gillani re-explained. "We are still onto finding out why exactly the girls, despite the conditioning, are able to grow taller at a rate of nearly or over a centimeter a week." The technician then excused himself.

Jose pondered this idea for a while, and so did Hillshire. Jean, still disbelieving, had not appeared and taken Rico for another brutal training. "We should report this to Lorenzo," he concluded.

"Hold on, Croce. I don't know if that's really the best thing to do right now." Jose gave his German colleague a skeptical look. "We can't know for sure what he'd say,"

Jose came to a realization. The point of having the girls was that they were children. And Lorenzo had specifically pointed out, children are convincing. If he found out that the girls were actually growing, it meant, more than likely, that they were futile. "Then what would we do, replace their brains with artificial fibers and wires?"

Hillshire turned to look at Triela and Henrietta, just finished with the x-rays and CAT scans, still in the examination room with Dr. Bianchi. His deep, dark eyes cast a faraway look.

"What we have left to do," he said darkly, "is nothing."

Jose stared at the cynical man in disbelief. "Hillshire, I do want to save the girls as much as you do, and the only way is to inform Lorenzo. He is not the man to…dispose of a human being, like a damned tool. I'm sure he has his own ways."

"Not so sure about that, Croce…not so sure." Hillshire muttered, and Jose barely heard him.

A few days passed without much event, except for the excessive checkups with the doctors. The Padania was keeping quiet, and the SWA hadn't been informed of any Mafia's activity around the city. Henrietta, out of everyone else, was most delirious at having Jose all to herself for almost four days.

"Jose?" The little girl with the Amati called, looking up at her fratello with huge, smiling eyes over a large ice-cream cone. To Jose, this was real happiness - although he had a few of those in his life - walking in the famous plaza of Piazza di Spagna with whom he has made especially happy.

"Yes, Henrietta?" Jose replied. This was all very strange…he was not used to Henrietta brushing her "violin" case on his thigh, not his knee. This growth spurt, there must be a way to do something about it. She had questioned once before if something was wrong with herself, Rico, and Triela and Jose has found an excuse that he had an incredibly important errand to run, much to his guiltiness. He wasn't sure how Henrietta would take it…she probably didn't even know what it was.

"Thank you so much for this gift. I'm really grateful," Suddenly, the little girl seemed timid. "What happened to your sister?"

The fratello froze in his tracks. The petite girl almost ran into his leg, and sending her forward onto the brick pavement instead. He looked down at Henrietta, the face that was a spitting image of Enrica. He couldn't move an inch, not even to help her up. Henrietta was shocked, scared almost, by the reaction.

"I'm so sorry, Jose… I should never have mentioned--"

And it all happened so quickly.

Henrietta, in a fraction of a second, had rammed herself into Jose's side, an impact that sent him crashing onto an ice-cream vendor and a passerby. And when Jose was able to grapple onto this implausible situation and open his eyes half-way, he heard, after years and years of hearing and using it, a familiar, faint little sound of a bullet slicing through the air. He instantly and instinctively recognized it as a Dragunov SWD-M.

And when he fully opened his eyes, he saw Henrietta on the ground.