Roses for Rachel

Preface

                   **this is an unedited first draft, there will be the occasional typo or grammatical mistakes**

I was ten years old the day I was kidnapped and brought to live at Drighten Boarding School.

"Rachel, dear?" My mother smiles warmly. "Please put this in the buggy for me."

I look up to my beautiful momma and take the shampoo from her hand and place it into the buggy beside me. We'd been at the store for over an hour and I was getting antsy. "Momma?" I whisper sweetly, giving her my puppy dog eyes.

"Yes?" She answers me with knowing already written on her face.

I grin a little wider. My momma couldn't resist my toothless grin. "Can I please go look at the toys. I won't go far! Please, Momma?" I fold my small hands in front of me pleadingly.

Momma reaches out and pushes a lock of my strawberry blonde hair behind my ear. "Stay right where I can see you, yes ma'am?"

"Yes ma'am." I repeat with a victorious smile as she helps me out of the buggy and I skip across the aisle to look at the wall of Barbie's. I look through them, trying to decide which one is the prettiest so I can beg for it. I glance back over to make sure I'm still within my momma's view and we share a quick smile before she goes back to looking through the towels and I turn back to face the beautiful dolls.

"Hey." Someone whispers and I turn my head to see a tall man with dark tan skin standing at the edge of the aisle. I smile politely and then look back to the dolls. "You want to see the new Barbies that we got in today?" The man whispers to me. "No one else has gotten to see these yet, and there is a bunch of really pretty ones." He smiles a charming smile and motions with his head to the next aisle.

I glance back to my mom, and she still has her back to me. "Ok." I tell him. I really want to see the new special dolls, so I turn to follow the man just around the corner. Momma won't mind if I go for just a second, and then I can show her the special dolls too.

He only leads me a couple steps out of my momma's view, and then points behind me. "They're right over there." He says so I turn my back to him to look but it's nothing but a shelf full of children's books.

Before I can question him, or go back to my momma, a large hand with a funny smelling rag covers my face, and suddenly it all goes black. I wake up in a strange place that's dark and scary and filled with crying of other little girl's just like me.