Page 18 of Black Sheep
Sadness fills his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything, instead he steps ahead of me and leads me slowly back up the stairs to the bedroom.
“I know you’re upset,” he starts.
“I’m not upset,” I spit. “I’m pissed. I had a life and you took it. The three of you drugged me and flew me halfway across the world to a place I don’t know, with men who don’t care enough to ask me if I wanted to be taken, andyou what? You expect me to say thank you? To be grateful that you deemed me so insignificant that you just stole me? Fuck you. Fuck all of you.” Storming past him, I throw open the closet door, then slam it closed behind me, sinking back down to my hiding spot under the vanity.
TEN
LEV
I flinchat the sound of the closet door slamming shut. Sighing, I glance around at the beautiful room we decorated just for her. A part of me actually thought she’d like it, that she’d be pleased that we’d put so much thought into her space. But I guess that was foolish of me, because she’s right. We took her. We destroyed her life bit by bit and then we took her like she was a possession we could buy or steal.
Glancing at the closet door, I try to decide what to do now. I could go in there, maybe try to talk to her, reasonwith her. But right now, what would be the point? She’s too angry to listen to all the valid reasons why we brought her here.
I don’t want to leave her alone when she’s hurt and upset, but I don’t think my presence will make her feel better. If anything, I’m pretty sure I’m just agitating her even more.
Retreating out of the bedroom, I glance at the lock and wonder if I should arm it. Sighing, I press the button to activate it, look down into the scanner, and lock it. She isn’t a prisoner, but although the island is safe from uninvited guests, it’s still an unknown to her in a tropical climate and if she decides to run, she could get hurt before we have a chance to find her.
My steps are slow as I head back down to the dining room, my mind whirring with things we could do or say to make her understand that this is her life now. But everything comes down to the fact that none of this was her choice.
“What happened?” Vik asks as I retake my seat at the table.
“She yelled at me, then shut herself in the closet again.”
“She needs to eat and drink something, she’s dehydrated, her eyes are sunken and her lips are dry,” Dimi says. He’s always been the one to push us all to take care of ourselves. We all know what it’s like to try to sleep with hunger gnawing at our bellies, although that’s not something any of us have felt in a very long time. But it makes sense that he’s more worried about her refusing breakfast, than how clearly she hates us.
“She must be starving, but she didn’t even glance at the food,” Vik points out.
“What do wedo if she keeps refusing?” I ask, more worried now than I was before.
“I’ll deal with it,” Dimi says darkly.
“Dimi,” I start.
“She is ours, is she not? What good is she to us if she makes herself ill by throwing a temper tantrum?” he growls.
“I wouldn’t call it a tantrum—” I start.
“She is a twenty-year-old woman refusing to eat and drink because she isn’t happy with her life. That is a temper tantrum,” he snarls.
Glancing at Vik, I find him smirking up at Dimi. Vik is hard to read at the best of times, so right now, he could be amused or plotting annihilation with the exact same look on his face. Turning back to Dimi, I open my mouth to speak, but he pushes back his chair and strides out of the room before I have a chance to protest his flawed thoughts about Alabama’s behavior.
“Whatever he plans to do, is only going to make her angrier at us.” I sigh.
“She’ll get over it.” Vik shrugs.
“Will she? Would you?”
“Once she gets to know us, she’ll see how good she’ll have it here. Big beautiful house, closet full of clothes, anything she could ever want and desire,” Vik says, his smile wide and honest.
“Stupidly, I thought all of that would help sway her too. Now I’m not so sure. We all assumed she didn’t have nice things because she couldn’t afford them. What if she didn’t have nice things because she wasn’t interested in them. What the hell do we do, if all she ever wants is her life back?” I’mpanicking and the sound of it is clear in my voice.
“If. And it’s a big if,” Vik says. “But if she can’t adjust, then we use her how we planned and we send her home.” Shrugging nonchalantly, he lifts his coffee mug to his lips and throws the last of it back.
Standing, I leave the dining room and head into our office. The house has plenty of space, more than enough for us each to have separate rooms, but like everything else, we’re used to sharing, and the idea of not working together just never made sense to us.
The differences in our personalities are more obvious in here. Dimi’s desk is older, an antique he imported from Russia. He thinks we don’t know that this was originally his grandfather’s desk, sold off when our families’ homes were emptied, the contents thrown away, discarded, or put up for sale.
It appeared on an online auction site about five years ago, not long after we purchased the island, and he recognized it, bought it, and had it shipped to the US, then to here. The antique desk is immaculately clean and polished to a shine. His laptop, notepad, and pens, are all neatly lined up in the middle. The shelves behind him are an organizational dream, color coded, labeled and then filed. A place for everything and everything in its place.
