VICTORIA'S POV
".......Natasha Zulu of South Africa was abducted last night along with......" the radio announcer spoke. " .... the count of abducted teenage girls has now risen to 16 087 854 in the last five months with over 6 000 000 having been abducted in the last two weeks alone. The chief of the Joint Worldwide Task Force, Patrick Olson, announced the new curfew to be put in place effective immediately from 5pm to 8 am...........advised to stay indoors and move in groups......" the announcer continued to speak.
Lately, the only thing reported on the news was about the abductions.
"Another girl has been abducted. Why aren't the JWTF any closer to finding the girls or their abductors?" dad asked no one in particular.
"This is ridiculous!" he shouted as he banged his closed fist against the steering wheel of his silver Range Rover.
"Over 16 000 000 girls have gone missing around the world and no one has an explanation for it?" dad asked as he looked at mom who quickly glanced over her shoulder to my sister Vanessa, and then barely at me, in the backseat.
He continued to speak, "How is it that the world's joint intelligence units are unable to solve this case? They have the best of the best. They have the FBI, the CSI......and.....and the.... whatever other intelligence units are out there."
At this I rolled my eyes and turned to look out the window as we drove home from church. Of course, he would only know about American intelligence units, the rest of the world didn't matter to him.
Finally, mom responded which caused me to look at the back of her seat, "we just have to make sure to keep our girls safe and in our sights at all times, they are all that matter. I won't let anyone take them from me," she said with a determined look.
They continued talking about the abductions and precautions to put in place to make sure we were safer. I looked at Nessa and noticed that she had her ear phones plugged in and was gently bobbing her head to whatever song was currently playing.
I looked back out the window and wondered as well what was happening out there. Who would do such a thing? Who would decide to abduct so many teenage girls....and why? Where were they taking them? The only thing we knew so far was that the abductors were taking girls who were between the ages of eighteen and twenty. It was random as well, because the abductees were girls of different nationalities and races from all over the world. There wasn't even a specific time that the girls were taken. There was nothing linking the girls to each other; nothing other than their ages. No one saw the abductors, the girls just seemed to vanish into thin air...poof.... gone...disappeared....never to be seen again....
You get the point.
One thing we did know for sure was that no one was safe, especially if you happened to be a teenage girl in that age range. This means that I am not safe, because I am nineteen. I just turned nineteen for that matter.
See, most people celebrate their birthdays and thank God for adding another year to their lives and get to have a party with lots of gifts.
Me?
Not so much.
I could be abducted at any second. In fact, I could be taken right now.
One hundred and thirty-two girls have already gone missing from our town. And to this town, that's a lot. Like a lot a lot. My town, Stockbridge, Massachusetts is one of the smallest towns in America. I doubt many people know about it.
How small? My entire high school only having about 800 students small.
Get it now?
I guess I have to introduce myself to you now.
Hi.
My name is Victoria Dunhill. I am nineteen years old and I graduated high school last year. My mother and father are Elizabeth and Marcus Dunhill. My sister is Vanessa Dunhill.
My sister just turned seventeen, so lucky for her, she doesn't have to worry as much about being abducted. But we can never be too sure because we know nothing of these abductions or if the abductors will follow their pattern without fault. All we have are assumptions based on the data that has been collected thus far.
Oh, and by the way, did I mention that I was adopted?
Well, I was.
My biological parents had recently moved to America from an African country, I didn't bother asking which one, for hope of a better life. It's not that I didn't care, I just didn't feel I was ready to handle all of that yet. I got the bare minimum information from my parents.
When they got here, unfortunately, they met with a terrible car accident that took my father's life on impact. My mother held on and was rushed to the ER where they had to perform an emergency C-section surgery because she was eight months pregnant with me. The stress from the operation was too much for her to handle and she succumbed to death before they completely delivered me.
I guess you could call it luck, but my parents, my adoptive parents (they hate that term) would call it a blessing. A blessing that only a few weeks after this unfortunate event, they found me and adopted me.
Did I mention that my biological parents were African?
Well, in case you missed it, they were. Which I guess, makes me qualify as an African American.
Why did my parents adopt a dark-skinned baby?
Well, the only answer I have right now is that they are good people, good people who see past the physical and haven't fallen prey to idiotic stereotypes.
Mom said that when she and dad came to look at babies, I held onto her and wouldn't let go. I guess that must have done the trick cause here I am.
The doctors said that she couldn't have children, and that's why they got me. But over a year later, she got pregnant and that's how Vanessa came to be.
For a couple of my first years, I was oblivious to the difference between my family and I. Well, mostly.
I definitely noticed that my hair was so much harder to handle than Nessa's. But that was it, till I was five that is.
I remember that day vividly.
Victoria at five
The bus had just dropped me off from kindergarten. I ran into the house as I shouted for mom, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy where are you?"
In here sweetie, she called from the kitchen. She stood by the kitchen island feeding Nessa who sat in her baby chair. "Say ah," she tried to make Nessa eat her vegetables but Nessa was having none of it. "Come on, come on Nessa. Just one bite, one bite, come on"
"It's distiting," Nessa said in her baby garble.
"It's not disgusting baby, come on, try it," mom continued.
"No!" she said and shoved the plate away which went flying to the ground, messing mom's shirt up as well.
Mom heaved a sigh and bent down to clean the mess.
"Mommy," I called again and she looked up at me.
"Vickie, take Nessa to the bathroom while I clean this up."
"Okay mommy. Nessa come on." I held out my hand to her as mom put her down from her chair.
"Vickie, did you go to wok? Like daddy?"
"No Nessa, I went school."
"Did you bwing ice cweam? I want ice cweam. Mommy's making me eat boogers."
I laughed as we went up the stairs to the bathroom. " Those aren't boogers."
"They look like boogers"
"They do huh?"
Nessa nodded her head. She followed me to our room where I went to put my things away.
"Vickie? I want to go to scwool wi you."
"You will, when you are older."
"But I want to go now."
"Ok, we'll go tomorrow." This made her smile.
I led her to the bathroom and a little while later mom came in and put us both in the bathtub.
She was busy washing Nessa's hair.
"Mommy?"
"Yes pumpkin?"
"How come I have brown skin?"
Her hand stilled as she turned to look at me.
"Is it cause I'm dirty?" she didn't say anything.
"I haven't been playing in the mud or anything, and I scrub really hard, but the dirt won't come off."
She had moisture in her eyes and quickly rinsed Nessa's hair and left her to play in the water. She turned to me and took my hand in hers. Her hand was so big compared to mine. I looked down and so how different our skin looked. My skin was so much darker. She followed my gaze and started rubbing circles with her thumb.
I started to cry silently and continued.
"There's this girl, Felicia, she has skin like mine, and her mommy and daddy also have skin like her. But you and daddy have different skin from me."
I looked up at her as the tears continued to fall.
"What's wrong with me mommy?"
"Oh baby," she seemed to find her voice then.
"Nothing's wrong with you pumpkin."
She looked around struggling to find the words.
"But..."
"Shhh," she cut me off.
"There's nothing wrong with you pumpkin and you're not dirty. You are a gift from God sweetie. God sent his angels and brought you with them. See mommy and daddy really wanted a baby, so we prayed really hard. Then God answered our prayers and he sent you to us. God was so generous that he decided to give us Nessa too, because He saw how much we loved you, he wanted to give us another baby to love just as much."
"God sent me?" I sniffed.
"Yes pumpkin," dad's voice came from behind mom. He came in and knelt down next to mom and took my other hand in his. "God knew that we really, really wanted a baby, and poof," he did that thing magicians do when they bring their hands together and spread them apart with flare. I giggled.
"There you were, smiling up at us."
Mom looked at him softly. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be working?"
"I decided to leave early, and that's a good thing because I knew my girls wanted ice cream!" he yelled and pulled two packs of ice cream from his back pockets.
"Ice cream!" Nessa and I yelled at the same time.
He opened them and gave them to us and soon I forgot all about the talk we had.
Back to the present
"Vickie! Vickie! Get your head out of the clouds, we're home." I started when Nessa pulled me back to reality.
I looked out the window again and realised that we were indeed home.
Our house was just like all the other houses in our street, green lawn, white picket fence. Given, it was larger than most of the houses, it had the same feel about it as the other houses, homey.
I got out of the car and walked to the front door, which was left open for me to enter. I got in, shut the door and started towards my room.
Correction.
Our room.
Ever since the news of the abductions around the world hit, mom and dad thought it a good idea to have Nessa and I in the same room. They moved into Nessa's room which was next door so they could be closer to us.
Yes, I know, weird right.
Imagine a grown couple in a mostly purple room.
So weird.
But still, it was better than dad's first suggestion to sleep outside my room.
Nessa was already lying on her stomach on the bed as she talked on the phone to who knows.
Probably one of her many friends.
Aargh, the pain of not having my own space.
My bed wasn't that big to begin with. It was a double, and considering my height and weight.... sharing it wasn't the most comfortable thing to do.
I'm 5'8, and a little overweight, depending on your perspective. Nessa is always trying to make me feel good about myself, but this coming from one of the most popular girls in our town.... makes me feel worse.
I mean she's 5'6, skinny, with flawless skin. Her hair?
Don't get me started. It's this beautiful shade of red that a lot of salons try and fail to replicate, and her eyes are like this amazing deep shade of blue......the world is not fair.
But then I can't hold that to her. Why? She's the nicest person on this planet. She's so caring and helpful and cheery, but not so cheery you want to punch her in the face, no. Cheery as in fun.
Sometimes I wonder if she has a hidden bottle that is just filled with happiness and positivity, which she drinks from every day.
You could say that we are polar opposites.
Plus, she doesn't need glasses to see.
Her and her perfect vision.
I walked over to my tiny desk and decided to pick up where I left off on my book that I had downloaded on my iPad.
Who is this girl Nail keeps dreaming of? Is she the one he's been looking for all this while? Will he be able to get to her in time?
This book was so amazing. I was practically bouncing in my seat waiting to find out the answers to the questions that were in my head.
"Girls! Time for lunch!" mom called from downstairs.
Oh come on, I just read two paragraphs. Aargh!