Loving Ashlynn (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 10 - One Step Forward (Faith POV)

I think about the dream or the nightmare, conflicted because I don't like the way she's talking about Dmitri, and in turn Walsh and Patricia. When I got injured they came, even though they said they had work they took more time off, just to come and see me.

Sonya doesn't rush me, and while I focus on the paper in front of me, the question playing on my mind, but worse on my heart, I debate with myself, use all the current thoughts I have rolling around to write something.

I don't think Dmitri was bad... I don't think he meant to hurt me.

My breathing turns shallow, but I turn the pad towards Sonya. There is no pity there, but she writes something down, and then looks up again.

"Have you heard of social experiments?" I shake my head slowly. "Okay." she murmurs just when I think that she may continue she doesn't.

"I know from your file, that you were locked away in a house, miles - a few hours from anyone - alone on top of a mountain. You had no way of communicating with anyone, and had Walsh and Patricia not found you, you would have died in that house, under lock and key," her voice doesn't waver like Patricia does when she speaks about my life before.

"Inside your house, Walsh found, little food, running water, you had your own room, lovely views, indoor swimming pool, a small work out area, library, shelves and shelves of records, pictures, old cameras, books, lots of books, but you didn't know the code to lead you outside."

I swallowed thickly as my hand begun shaking, but Sonya, still with a serious face, and compassionate eyes - no pity - continues. "You believed that you would die if you went outside, and so you longed to go outside, but believed that you couldn't. There was no telephone, no way to make contact with the outside world; all your books and records were from before 1995 or 1996. You were told that you couldn't go outside without a mask and suit..."

"The only individual you ever interacted with was Dmitri, you knew that others existed but you believed that children like you weren't allowed to go outside, that the air was poisonous. You believed in a war, the Regime, Loyalist, Independents, and all the trappings that went along with those people and hard times."

Stiffened beyond awareness, surpassing any other time, even when Walsh was talking in the safe house, I had never felt so cold, or stuck in my life as I did while Sonya just laid it all out as she did. Thankfully in my nervous and stomach rolling state I appreciated that there was no humor in her voice.

"Trust is such a hard thing to give away, Faith, do you agree?" my mind instantly wonders, what comes next? What comes next when I nod, where will that lead me with Sonya? I have a few options playing on my mind; she tells me that I should trust her, that I should trust the Conrads, that I trusted Walsh and Patricia and that I should trust someone else again or that I shouldn't have trusted Dmitri.

"For me, trust comes with hope, and while giving trust to someone else can be troublesome, hope is the scary thing, because you give trust, but hope blooms. It starts off small inside your heart, and each time something happens, good moments, pleasant events, they nourish that hope, making it grow. Hope is a dangerous thing," she pauses.