Captured Witch

X. Mother

No one said anything for a while. I just stared at my mother and the man beside her. Daniel stared at me waiting for me to say something. My mother stepped forward to reach out to me but was pulled back by the man beside her. “Adalaide,” the man beside my mother stepped forward, “It’s wonderful to finally see you after seventeen years. I’m your father.” He reached his hand to me, but I stepped back, hiding behind Daniel. Why am I acting like this? I moved aside so I was farther away from this man who said he was my father but so I wasn’t behind Daniel.

            “Don’t be so shy Adalaide” my father said.

            “I only wanted to see my mother. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

            Daniel looked at me and chuckled. “Come on Charles, let’s leave the women to talk and let’s get a drink. Be good Adalaide.” He glared at me. I held my breath in fear and anxiety as they left. When the door shut, I took a deep breath and calmed myself down.

            “Adalaide, I know you must have so many questions for me. Please, I just want you to know that I left you in the woods to protect you. I had heard about the school from other girls here and I just had to get you there. I knew they would take care of you so—”

            I held my hand out to stop her. “I know all of that. I need to ask you something else. How did you escape from here?”

            “I’m not allowed to talk about that” she said shaking her head. “Like physically I cannot say it, write it down, or act it out. When I got back, they forbid it, and it was only reiterated when we found out you were here.”

            I sighed and collapsed on the ground crying. The realization that I was never getting out of here started to hit me. As I started to cry more. The room started to shake. Suddenly I heard what sounded like pouring down rain in the hall. I couldn’t stop though. I felt like I was holding seventeen years’ worth of tears in and now they were all coming out. I heard people running around in the halls and shouting.

            “Adalaide, please calm down.” She reached out to calm me down.

            “DON’T TOUCH ME!” A mirror shattered on the wall by her. Suddenly the door swung open and my father crossed the room and slapped my mother.

            “What did you do to her?” He shouted at her.

            Daniel walked over to me and took my chin in his hand, turning my face to his. “Stop crying.” He ordered me. Slowly, I stopped sobbing. “Good.” He turned to my mother and stared at her. “What did she say to her.” He asked my father. My father looked to my mother, “What did you say to her?” He said repeating Daniel’s question.

            My mother hesitated a moment, staring at me apologetically. “She asked me how I escaped, and I told her I couldn’t tell her.”

            Daniel looked back at me as I still tried to regain my normally strong composure. He grabbed my arm and stormed out of the room. I struggled to get away from him. Why do these people keep dragging me around like some sort of wagon! “P-put me down!” He ignored me and kept walking, almost running. We practically flew through the hall and got to his room. He continued to drag me until he got to the middle of the room and he threw me down on the couch.

            “What the f**k is wrong with you. I tell you to behave and the only thing you ask your mother is how she escaped so you could copy her? I mean did you stop and think that things have changed since then?”

            I pulled my knees to my chest wrapping my arms around them. I winced at his words. I felt so incredibly stupid for doing that. What was I expecting? Of course, she wouldn’t be allowed to tell me. I hadn’t realized that I was tuning him out until he yelled at me.

            “Are you even listening?”

            I stared at him. I had no idea what to do or say. Part of me wanted to scream back at him. The other part of me knew it was best to stay silent. When did I start to become rational? I took a deep breath, letting my instinct take over.

            “Maybe if everyone around here stopped dragging me around, forcing me to wear ugly ass clothes, and injecting me with weird substances that me have terrifying nightmares I wouldn’t feel the need to escape!” I yelled back, standing up from the couch.

            “Are you seriously arguing back with me right now?” He stepped closer to me. He was so close that my face was level with his shoulders. I stepped back but my foot caught the couch and I fell back. He snickered. “You are all talk and no show.”

            That pissed me off. “Oh yeah? Take this f*****g cuff of and then we’ll we see how much show I am.” I said shoving my hands into his chest.

            He grabbed my wrists, anger clouding his eyes. His grip was so tight that I could feel the bruises forming, but I wasn’t going to back down now. I’ve gone too far so I might as well take it further. “You all think that you have it figured out huh? I see the fear in your men’s eyes when I can make things happen when I get too emotional. I see them running around, figuring out how to best diffuse the situation. To them I’m a time bomb, just waiting to go off. But you act like nothing is happening. But I can tell that it confuses the f**k out of you more. I’m someone you aren’t sure you can control, right? I heard what they said when I was drugged ‘Marriage may not be able to contain her powers’. So, what’s your plan? Keep ‘sedating’ me until you figure out how to control me?”

            He chuckled again, releasing my wrists. “You think you have it all figured out, don’t you? Tell me, how does that inner turmoil feel? That one that occurs when I tell you to do something. When your fighting between the side of you that wants to rebel and say something snarky and the side of you that wants to submit to me. Doesn’t it just tear you apart? I can tell it does by the way you always hesitate. You think you are so strong, but I could tell the moment we made eye contact in the hall. You knew that you belonged to me, and suddenly your whole world changed, whether you wanted it or not.”

            I took a breath, apparently, I had been holding my breath while he spoke. I hadn’t realized that I was shaking when he spoke to me. Was it because I was angry or scared? Either way we had been oblivious to the shouting outside and the shaking of the room. I took another, deeper breath to calm myself down and the shaking stopped.

            “I can’t control it” I half whispered half sobbed. “What’s happening to me?” I looked at Daniel.

            He shook his head and put his hands on his face, sitting down on the couch across from me. “I don’t know. We’ve never experienced anyone who can use her powers with the cuff on, emotional or not.” He sounded so defeated. I had just met this man mere hours ago, but I felt sorry for him for some reason. I stayed on the couch with my knees pulled to my chest. I was still so tired from the drugs they gave me, and the events of today had made the side effects worse. I felt my eyes getting heavy and my head leaned against my knees and felt myself drift off.