In a room where both her parents were sticking needles into the arms, a five-year-old curly headed red-haired girl with hazel eyes stood barefoot on a milk crate. The plastic doing nothing to her callused bare feet as she stood there boiling macaroni noodles on the stove for her dinner. She had her spoon circling the boiling noodles on the stove, actively tuning out the background.
There, on the floor now, lay her parents, immobile from the drug high on the floor of the other rooms.
The young girl, Stevie, was unsure how she had managed to survive and even at the age of five was more that aware of the dangers of life. Her harsh environment caused her to age mentally at a rate like no other, her wisdom and sense of awareness that of a person tenfold her age.
Alone at the table she sat alone eating her macaroni and reading her one book, "The tale of Mouse men", that she stole from the neighbors kids a couple month ago.
She wasn't an angel herself; she knew stealing was bad, but she just didn't care in some cases.
Thanks to stealing books, and the closed captioning stuck on her television, she taught herself to read and write, tie her shoes, and even had a deep understanding of manipulation tactics and emotional suppression that many psychologists dreamed to understand.
They way she spoke was a professional manner, better suited for a teenager, and even at 5 was more than capable at mathematics.
So when a foreign man came into her home unannounced on that evening without knocking she sensed trouble. When her parents only nodded to the man and returned to their drug use the peach fuzz growing on her arms stood on their ends.
She watched him, like a hawk while continuing to eat from her perch on the counter. She was baffled as he handed a large briefcase to her parents who were standing now- wobbly on their drugged feet, their balance thrown off from IV drugs. She realized quickly that the man was purchasing, well, her.
An emotional numbness drifted within her, in a way, kidnapping wasn't even scary to her anymore. Having faced it many times, escaping each time. But being sold was a new feeing of fear. She placed her bowl of macaroni on the counter, gripping her book as her feet carried her across the floor of the kitchen, her eyes on her mother.
A sole tear escape as she tried desperately walked to her mother, trying to grab her mother's hand, hoping just once her mother would show her the slightest of love to hold her.
But that was not the case.
As her one hand gripped her book her mother side stepped her reach, and pushed her small body out the door to where the man was walking away, his back to her. She turned and was saddened as her parents called her Steven on the way out, mispronouncing her name at their last goodbye.
Any hopes of having a real family left her.
"Good riddance." She heard her mother bark as the door shut in her face, throwing her shoes out the door. She closed her eyes in sadness, every daughter wants a mother to love her. She so desperately wanted to be loved by her parents, her mother especially. But she held her book and closed her eyes as the man threw her shoes at her and all but drug her limp body to the car.
Holding in her tears, she looked up to the man, a strong jawed, rugged looking man. He smelt of cigarettes and something sour. He loaded her into the backseat of his car and spoke in a language she could not understand. What she could understand, after hearing similar words repeated is that she was not coming back.
The situation she had found herself in sounded bad to her. She was being sold to a man from another country, someone who had no respect for her, and she could almost smell the death on him. The man unloaded her from the car and pushed her resistant body into a metal cage where she was still able to hold her book in her death grip. A blanket was placed over the cage and she was in the dark, literally blinded from her surroundings.
Though terrified, she stayed quiet, realizing she was in a real dog kennel. No tears falling from her eyes, but she was stiff in fear. She was shocked when she was loaded into the bottom of something she realized was a plane of some sort from the noises. No other noises, no other children from the lack of crying.
When the plane landed, the first thing that hit her was the change in temperature, and how quick it was. It was bone chilling cold and there was a certain dryness to the air she wasn't used to. She stayed silent still, through taunting yells of men who loaded the cage she was in onto a crate and carried her a long, cold mile into a warehouse.
Her knuckles were white as she gripped her book harder as the doors of the warehouse creaked open. Her eyes were wide with fear. The reality setting in as she was rolled into the far right of the building. Other children crying in the background as the doors opened.
She watched as they taunted her and others. They called her names, spit on her, push her cage around, throw it to the ground, asking her if she was stupid, or unintelligent due to her unresponsive nature.
She learned quickly that the men watching all the cages are on a schedule and with her rapidly growing self-preservation skill. She watches and learns the way of their paths and their rounds and learns that the guard believes she is so scared that he's taunting the children to leave, leaving their cages open.
Time passes in hazes of hunger and the urge to urinate. She quickly became unsure how long she was in the warehouse. She was fed only two apples a day, sometimes a couple of bread slices. Never water. She was dizzy and became horrified every time she had to relive herself in the corner of the cage. It was humiliating.
Her book was her only solace as she read it over and over until one day a small creak drove her eyes zup. IT was two girls, cage neighbors. They were older than her by at least 10 years and her eyes widened.
Her eyes fell as she watched the two teenagers try to escape. She shut her book watching, wanting to yell at them to stop. The girls were walking the wrong way, but Stevie was too scared to speak up. She was not the only one watching as soon children everywhere went silent as a mouse.
The girls did one thing wrong after another. They were in the center of the cages. They were seen from every cage. That and Stevie could hear their heavy footsteps from her cage 30 feet away.
Soon a long noise was heard. A shot and screams erupted from the girls. The man shot one in the leg. The second girl took off running screaming no over and over.
The girl watched and ran past Stevie's cage this time, making eye contact as something shiny lifted into the air. It came down hard and Stevie flinched back as a bat came down on the teenage girls head. Blood spattering everywhere.
The girl Layed dead- her head busted open in front of her. The girls blood on her. She didn't move, she didn't look at the man, her eyes were frozen on the body. Her body winced as the others began to scream and cry louder. Stevie had witnessed death already, four times in the last year. Her mother would invite men and women over to get high. The child was no stranger to bleaching the floor for her parents.
Her patience was a god send, and she waited, in silent horror, as 4 men ganged up on a group of the older girls who were still alive and had gone the opposite way as the first two.
Holding the dead girl, who's brain was falling out in pieces on the floor, an older man dragged her towards the newly captured girls to taunt them. The 5 year old watched with horror filled eyes as she saw things no child should see happen to the girl who was alive. Things that brought a true fear to Stevie's eyes.
But she knew in the screams of pain that it was time to go with this new distraction. She snuck out her cage, the door creak less, she was unsure how, but was thankful. She tucked the book into her pant front, ensuring no evidence of her departure was noted. She tip toed around the blood pooling by her cage and she walked into the darkness by the stairs.
Only a few children watched her, everyone still frozen in fear from the murder in front of them. Not a single child yelled out to Stevie as she fled.
Silent as a mouse, the girl went and tiptoed up the stairs behind her cage, using the solid stairs to hide her body as the screams continued. She knew the two guards that were torturing the girl were the only two on duty at the moment and it was now or never.
Climbing on her hands and feet to stay silent, she found an open window that looked out into a town. The town was snow covered, and dark as night. The only thing noted was the light post right outside the window.
As she looked down at her bare feet. She decided what to do. She picked up her small body, squeezed through the window and tumbled straight down into the snow. She briefly let go of her book in fear as she fell.
She is landing with a thud in the snow, followed shortly by her book straight to her head, into the pile of snow, buried in it was rubbish. The sound still masked by the screaming girls.
She clenched her mouth to hide the pain of a twisted ankle, and having broken two ribs before, this was nothing. She was a tough child.
The girl braced freezing weather like it was nothing, and an actively coming snowstorm to flee. The wire fence was long and after a few minutes of walking the edge of the compound there was a part unattached to the rest.
There she found a small, baren alleyway right behind the warehouse and after climbing two more fences she found a street that seemed to lead away from the small town, but it had no lights. She followed it for some time before her aching bones began to stir.
Smoke rising in the air drew her eyes in, as they were adjusting to the low light. She gripped her book like it was the only thing keeping her going and she walked on.
Her imagination ran wild. She pictured herself, sword on hip, running from the house cat, as Despereaux would, and bracing her fear to save herself. She imagined this was the true fear the mouse had felt in her book and her book meant even more to her as she pushed on. She realized she was dehydrated.
Her feet were on fire and she was certain she had no feeling in half her toes now. She still was mad at herself for not putting on shoes the day she was kidnapped. Her eyes lit up as she realized the smoke was a junk yard. There were three people she could see and no one by the fire. She scurried behind the fence and made it within 100 feet of the burning trash fire.
She found a hidden cove under snow piled cars. "A tire!" She lit up in excitement. It was close the fire and seemed warm. She placed her feet up in the air, facing the fire and her rear into the middle. Her body cried in joy as she wiggled into a tire to rest.
Her small body closed its eyes in the warmth of the tire and soon she found herself falling asleep.
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The smallest crack of snow had Stevies body on hyperdrive. Her body flung up into sitting position, her voice silent in fear, her eyes wide in panic at the noise.
A small intake of air sounded infront of her and her eyes met another's. She stayed silent as she took in the person infront of her. He was a child.
The first thing that registered were the most beautiful pair of green eyes she had ever seen. The eyes pairing with hers, widened in shock. His were mostly wide at her ability to sense them coming at her with their silent steps.
She held in a gasp as the young boy infront of her looked her up and down. She tightened her grip on her book as she looked up at the boy infront of her. It was much darker out that when she was walking, and she realized she must have been asleep for hours. She peaked up and looked the boy infront of her over once more. He was maybe a couple years older than her, his hair was almost black, a light brown in the light poles around them both.
His face was hard as steel and she realized this child was smoking a cigarette, It took everything in her not to rip it from his hands for his health. She wanted to scream about coughing fits and lung cancer but held in her tongue. Would this man even know what a foreigner like her was saying.
His eyes were kind, and as he opened his mouth he spoke in a language she presumed was Russian and her eyes squinted in confusion. She had been listening for 48 hours to Russian and picked up on a few syllables, but the words were jumbled.
Looking up, she found the fellow child's eyes were honest. He held no judgement on her confusion and there was a tad bit of concern in his eyes. She knew from experience the eyes were the most honest part of somebody.
"English?" He asked, looking her up and down. She nodded in surprise.
"Can you speak it..?" He continued; a tad annoyed.
"Um- yes.." She spoke, sitting up more.
"Good, you- come to me." He pulled a cigarette to his mouth, and she flinched back. Trying to flee.
"NO- wait, no.." He quipped loudly. She was preparing to run, but he caught her arm in his hand.
"Look-Kitten, you come to me, or you go bye bye with child sellers on the hill." He flicked his head. She froze. They were going to sell her, she was not dumb. She realized that was the inevitable.
"You must have come from there- trust me, I am better than that. You seem useful." He whispered the last part.
"Now, you come to me, be my slave to my home." He said. Stevie thought for only one second before sighing. The mask on her face resumes and the boys eyebrows rose in surprise at her ability to mask her emotions.
"A slave or a servant?" She asked, unfazed. The boy saw her eyes were deadly serious. She was definitely more useful than the other young ones in the home. He liked this girl. She seemed strong, and appeared to have as much of a messed up start as he did."Shes going to be perfect." The boy thought to himself.
"Cook, clean, school papers.. How do you say that in English?" He asked as he took another puff of his cigarette.
"Servant.. maid, slave worker.." She whispered.
"Perfect.." He held out a free hand and she looked up to his face. His face was stoic, rugged, and tired. She realized his eyes held pain similar to hers. A child wise beyond their years.
She held her hand out.
"I-ill come with you." She grabbed his hand and he lifted her. He puffed his cigarette smoke away from her with a smirk.
"Good. My name is Lev.."
"Stevie.." She mumbles.
"Are you a boy?" He asked, eyes wide, looking her up and down. He noted her long hair and pink top, under the dirt this kid looked like a girl to him.
"No- I am a girl." Stevie informed as she held a grip on her shirt end.
"You have boy name." He said, scowling at her.
"I do-"
"Did your parents hate you?" He laughed.
"Yes." She answered honestly, nodding slightly. Lev stopped and looked back at the child. He put two and two together and sighed. His hand found her shoulder. She looked at him and saw once more true sincerity within his vibrant orbs.
"Well, forget them, kitten. You have me now. Come. Ill show you home." Lev grabbed her hand and pulled her. Stevie watched as lev took one last inhale of his horridly smelly concussion and threw the cigarette into the nearby snow.
He looked her over and noticed how much she was shaking. He assumed she was freezing now. He had an outer jacket on and placed it on the girl. Then he picked her up, with only a small protest and watched as the girl held the book for dear life. She gave him no resistance as he tucked her feet into his jacket.
"Why-why are you being so kind to me." Stevie asked honestly. Lev shrugged
"I have love for wild animals." Lev chuckled in English.
"I am not a wild animal.." Stevie coughed, cold and unconsciously getting closer to the boy's body warmth.
"Yes you are, you were in the tire like a lost kitten." Lev smiled, making Stevie's shoulder relax.
*****
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haha, i like to concept i have so far.
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-toodles
-AJ