After a nervous swallow, I nodded and held my hands out to him.
He winced and hissed when he saw what Lula had done to my fingers. “Heavens. They roughed you up real good, didn’t they?”
I nodded.
“What’s your name, darling?”
With a cringe, I opened my mouth and truly, honestly attempted to say Mariana, but it came out sounding more like Mrwar…
I tried again, but it only sounded worse, and the more I tried, the more frustrated I became and the harder it got for me to focus on speaking at all.
Sending me a funny look, the man finally asked, “They drug you or something?”
I shook my head and tried to sign that I was mute. But when it came to the part where I had to ball my hands into fists, they wouldn’t curl or work at all, so it basically looked as if I was flailing my arms madly.
“T
