Читать книгу Marked For Life - Emelie Schepp - Страница 14

CHAPTER NINE

AT FIRST THE girl had cried hysterically. But now she felt calm. She had never felt like this before. Everything happened as if in slow motion.

She sat with her now heavy head bent over her thighs, her arms hanging limply from her sides, almost numb now. The engine in the van in which they were traveling growled weakly. Her thighs were stinging. She had wet herself when her captors had gripped her hard and pushed a needle into her arm.

Now she looked slowly up toward her left upper arm at the little red mark. It was really tiny. She giggled. Really tiny. Teeny weeny. The syringe was also really tiny.

The van jerked and the asphalt turned into gravel. The girl leaned her head back and tried to balance its weight so that she wouldn’t bang herself against the van’s hard interior. Or against somebody else. They were sitting tightly packed, all seven. Danilo, who was next to her, had cried too. The girl had never seen him cry before, only smile. The girl liked his smile and always smiled back at him. But now he couldn’t smile. The silvery bit of tape was stuck hard over his mouth, and he breathed in what air he could through his dilated nostrils.

A woman sat opposite them. She looked angry. Terribly, terribly angry. Grrrr. The girl laughed to herself. Then she sank down again with her head against her thighs. She was tired and most of all wanted to sleep in her own bed with the doll that she had once found at a bus stop. The doll with only one arm and one leg. But it was the finest doll the girl had ever seen. The doll had dark curly hair and a pink dress. She missed her doll dreadfully. The doll was still back there with Mama and Papa. She would fetch her later, when she came back to the container.

Then everything would be all right again.

And they would go back.

Home.