The Pharmacy (UNEDITED)

Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

  "I..." I felt devoid of words, "What makes you say that?"

The blonde girl stared at me with child-like wonder, whereas the frail girl raised her chin to speak.

"He warned us not to speak with you," her voice cracked, barely reaching above a whisper. "He threatened he would do the same that happened to Adéle if any of us did."

A man beside her shook his head and sighed, "Igne, he didn't actually do that stuff to her, how many times do we need to repeat that for you to understand?"

Igne blushed hard, and dipped two scoots back, like she was going to some shelter. I was still extremely confused.

"Who's 'he'? What are you all talking about?" I snapped, making all heads turn. Their eyes looked like camera lenses to me, and that really didn't help with the deep anxiety this white-lit void made in me.

The man, who was hook-nosed and had a head full of rich mahogany hair, made eye contact with me.

"'He' is Johannes Steiner. He's the SS officer that's been placed as what is practically our overseer. He makes sure we don't escape, and sometimes he brings in new people. All for his nephew, Fabian Neumann. I really don't understand why, but he does."

"You left out so much, Ezra!" The blonde one exclaimed. "Including the bit where he torments us if he don't heed his every order! Especially you!"

"Would you quit being so loud, for the love of God..." Ezra murmured, running his dark green eyes over the girl.

Johannes Steiner is Fabian's uncle? He's doing this all for Fabian? How much do I genuinely not know?

"Does Fabian know his uncle's doing this?" I quietly asked, hoping deeply that he didn't. I've grown quite a fancy for him, and I don't want to fall into something I don't understand.

The three of them eyeballed each other. The other people whispered amongst themselves with gossip-like voices.

"We don't know," the blonde girl shrugged with sorry eyes. I felt disappointed on the inside, but shook it off. I couldn't expect these people to know everything.

"Thanks anyway, miss..."

"Renate," she completed my sentence nearly instantly. "My name is Renate."

"Thank you, Renate," I weakly smiled, but it quickly dropped into an anxious frown. I had a lingering feeling that I may have trapped myself in the middle of something awful.

Igne was in her same place, restlessly picking at her nails. Ezra was visibly annoyed, but he kept quiet, biting the inside of his cheek to do so. Renate kept watching me as I nervously fidgeted with my hands in front of my stomach. Everyone else was just silent, some of them hadn't even looked at me, like they had millions of thoughts on their minds. Most of them were bruised or had traces of wounds on their bodies. Ezra had a scar running from his temple to his jaw, and the thoughts that I had of where that could've come from didn't help with the existing anxiety in my system.

"Do you live here?" Igne barely spoke above a whisper, looking at me with her droopy eyes. They were about as pale as the rest of her body, a ghostly blue.

"Kind of," I replied, "The Baumhauers are my godparents." ....I felt kind of guilty about saying that, like I should be ashamed of admitting it.

"So you live above us," Ezra murmured with his chin cupped in the palm of his roughened hand.

"Pretty much," I sat down on the cold, hard floor. It sent a chill riding up from my spine to the top of my head, which I had to process before regaining my focus. I gazed at everyone for a moment. All these people are ill. They are stuffed with medicine only heaven knows how many times. And as test subjects, they must be forced. Most of them were adorned with bruises and scars, each one of them had a stare to their eyes unique to their experiences. I could only imagine how miserable their lives must be, and to make matters worse, it doesn't seem like law enforcement really cares whether they're missing or not. They've even stopped posting up some posters of the people I'm seeing here. To make everything worse, Fabian is somehow connected to this. Why?

"Danique?" Renate tried to hide her perpetual eagerness.

"Hm?"

"Are you here to save us?"