Page 14 of Manacled Hearts

I head her way and glance at some of the titles—classics. Foreign titles, too. Kafka, Dostoevsky, Orwell.

“I’m afraid none of these books are for your age, honey.”

The complexities of the works are unsurprising for a woman like Katya. There is warmth in her, but it’s hidden under cold, hard layers only she can peel. She’s done it for me—briefly. She does it for Maya more.

Everyone does it for my sister, though. She bears our mother’s soft eyes, but not her personality. None of ours, actually. Maya’s a social extrovert in a family of introverts, and not only that, but people naturally gravitate toward her. Then she pries them open and doesn’t even acknowledge no as a valid answer. Or one that exists. She understands limits, but I swear she can see right through a person and notice that the limits they set are not the ones they truly want. So, she feigns ignorance and pushes on. She’s going to be a force to be reckoned with when she grows up.

I spot something familiar on the bookshelf. A book that looks out of place amongst the others, not because of the subject matter, but because of how cracked the spine is—Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, by Jules Verne. I reach for it and carefully slide it out.

“This one, Maya. I think you’ll like Captain Nemo’s adventure.” I flip briefly through its pages to make sure it’s still in good condition, then hand it over to her.

She reaches over, eyes sparkling with excitement, and turns it carefully in her little palms like it’s some sort of treasure. In two seconds flat she’s throwing herself on the sofa, the world around her lost. I won’t get a word out of her until dinner. But I can’t help but smile at her joy. Yet the muscles in my cheeks seem strained at the movement. Like they haven’t done such an exercise in so long.

* * *

Lights flicker from an overhead bulb. Two men speak around me—it’s him, the one who took me. The one who…

“You’re my glory hole now,” he speaks into my ear, his pronounced lisp sending tiny splatters of spittle along with the words.

I say nothing. I can’t. My tongue is numb and heavy in my mouth. It’s not clear if those words were actually spoken, or I imagined them. They float in my world of colors like they were thrown into the universe, and I happen to encounter them here.

Something sharp breaks through my skin, and an uncomfortable heat fills my body. Even after the weight of the man with the lisp leaves my back, the heaviness lingers. I want to reach for that sensation, wrap it in a soft cocoon, and nurture it back to something beautiful.

I can’t get to it, though. In this kaleidoscope of colors, that one is a void, and I can’t latch onto it.

“I think I’ll ask the boss to keep you. All to myself.” His voice echoes.

My mind reels. It doesn’t feel like it’s mine. My veins carry a fire in them, a comfortable one that tickles all my nerves, sending enough pleasure through the fibers, and the void seems to be pushed farther in the background.

I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s heaven and hell, beauty and sickness all at once.

A new person appears in my line of sight. Older, walking with a limp, and ordering everyone around.

“Vassallo,” I hear someone say. What a strange name.

I try to focus on their conversation, but the words don’t register.

They’re looking at me now. The voices grow louder.

“Why is she still alive?” the limping man asks, sending a deep shiver down my spine. “She’s too old.”

Too old? Oh yes, they’re talking about me. They were only interested in kids. Like my sister.

My sister! Where is she?

My brain begins to register who it belongs to, but those signals don’t reach my limbs. They refuse the connection with their nerves, but I need to find Maya.

Tar has my arms trapped, but a cold thread zaps through one of them. It moves, but I’m not sure I’m the one controlling it. It doesn’t feel like it.

None of this feels like me.

I can’t tell if my body is mine anymore. There is no longer a sense of being connected.

But when the limping older man presses his thick boot against my shoulder and rolls me over ever so slightly, I know that I don’t want to be me right now. Not when evil pours out of his gaze and spills onto me with such disdain, I don’t understand.

A scream driven by nothing but fear lodges in my throat. Something hot trickles at the corner of my eye. The younger of the two men drops on one knee next to me, leans in slightly, and reaches over. Stings rip my scalp as my head is yanked up by the hair, and a seedy grin contorts his face as he stares at me.

“I want to keep her,” he says to the older man standing next to him, his gaze fixed on me.

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