Chapter Sixty Three
Peter
I stood in amazement as I recognized the kid as she lower herself off the roof and dropped to the ground before limping into the vegetation. Where the fuck did she think she was going? She wasn't wearing any shoes or a coat and it was cold for a human tonight. With a shake of my head I set off after her at a lope curious as to where she was going, she had no idea where she was or where she'd come from so just where did she think she was going? It occurred to me that we knew nothing about her, could she be a plant? It seemed unlikely the condition she was in but maybe she was so screwed up that she couldn't help trying to get back to him. Well if she was the she was going in the wrong fucking direction, out into the countryside and that could be dangerous for her. The house Esme rented was away from neighbors so closer to places a kid could get herself killed, there were wild critters around who might see her as an easy meal or...
Kat
I showed them, they thought I was trapped in that stupid house but I got out, I wasn't afraid of getting hurt and the ground wasn't that far away. Sure I hurt my ankle but I'd had worse pain when daddy scolded me for being a bad girl. Daddy, I had to find him, he was the only person in my world, all I knew and these people frightened me. They didn't really care, there were no other kids in the house so why had they taken me in?
I knew what would happen, the kind faces would turn black and then I'd end up in another cellar but this time with no one trying to help me be good. No one really loved me, not for long, I was a bad girl and I knew just what bad girls got, I'd felt daddy's hand often enough. He wanted me to be a good girl but he'd told me I wasn't, that I was bad, that I'd always been bad and he should know. All I had to do was to get free of these people and daddy would find me, he had to. He would be cross that I didn't know where the strangers had taken Ellie or Aggie but it wasn't my fault, they split us up, took away my family and kept me all alone.
I had no idea which way to go but I wasn't scared of the dark or the trees that closed in around me, it was like being at home again in our room except it smelled funny. I slowed down after a while, my feet hurt walking over stones and twigs and my ankle throbbing. I knew they were keeping me prisoner because despite their kind words they'd taken away my shoes, sure they were only rags I bound around my feet but they were mine and she had stolen them from me. Why were all women so cruel?
She tried to drown me, wasting precious water, and tried telling me it was for my own good, she was a liar too. Daddy was the only person who didn't lie to me, he told me I was naughty and ungrateful and I knew he was right but he had kept me, fed me, and found me company, first Sophie to be my mama and then Ellie my sister. He told me he'd found my sister and brought her home but she wasn't nice to me either, daddy stopped loving me when she came and then mama had another girl, another sister for me but she stole daddy away completely and I was all on my own. If I could get back to daddy he'd be pleased with me, he'd love me again because I came home to him.
I heard things moving in the trees but I knew it was just animals, I could smell them, they smelled like I had before she tortured me. I hated this stink, the bubbles had left a strange scent on me and made my skin all pink and pale just like them, the strangers. There was a heavy crashing from behind me and suddenly I was scared, I was all alone out here and lost.
"Daddy? Is that you? I came looking for you, I'm a good girl Daddy, we can start again, get another sister please daddy I'm scared."
No one answered and I sank to my knees exhausted, I hadn't moved around like this in...I couldn't remember a time I had been free but I hadn't always lived in that room had I? My head hurt trying to remember and I closed my eyes.
There was another crash and a snuffling noise and I opened them again to see a huge shaggy animal towering over me. Its eyes shone and when it opened its mouth I could see huge white teeth shining in the moonlight and long claws on the end of its paws. I'd been so naughty, such a bad girl that daddy had sent a beast to kill me, he didn't love me any more, not at all.
I screamed and tried to back away but my feet got tangled in the plants and roots and the beast loomed over me snarling, it was going to eat me I knew it. Daddy had told me a story about a big bear that ate naughty ungrateful children but I'd thought it was just a story yet here he was in front of me and ready to eat me just like in the story.
I screamed again and something came between me and the bear, a flash of white and then I saw him, it was the man who had taken me from Daddy and he was wrestling the bear. How could a man do that? Bears were huge and strong with sharp teeth and claws designed, daddy said, to eat children but they did nothing to the man, they seemed to skid off his skin, was he magic or could the bear only hurt naughty children? I heard a snapping sound and the bear fell to the ground dead. The Man had killed the bear, he'd saved me, but why? He wasn't daddy so why did he care what happened to me?
Peter
I heard the bear almost too late being so focused on the girl who seemed to be running with no clear idea of where she was going. Thinking about it I understood her actions more clearly, she had been snatched from the only life she seemed to know desperate though it had been and taken by strangers to a new and confusing place where more strangers tried to make her do things she either didn't understand, like take a bath, or felt made her a traitor to her daddy.
We knew the way she had been treated was wrong, criminal, and barbaric, but she didn't and she was trying to find the only man she knew, the only place she understood. She was moving purely in panic and then I heard the bear roar. It was almost on her before I could intervene putting myself between him and the girl. It wasn't much of a fight, I was stronger and faster and I killed it without compunction then looked to see the child crouched on the ground, her eyes wide with terror and something else.
She didn't understand what had just happened. I moved very slowly stepping over the bears carcass to kneel down in front of her. She looked so different from the filthy urchin I had carried from that cellar. Her hair was clean and shiny although still knotted and in need of a cut. It reached to her waist and she used it to hide her face from me, just her eyes showing between the tresses. She was painfully thin and gaunt but I thought she had the bone structure to be a pretty girl when I could see her properly. I held out my hand and waited wondering if she would attack or try to run from me.