Their traded family

18. Blood

Alana's P.O.V

Dani took care of me and Didi for the past three years. At least they've told us it's been three years; without seeing the sun, it's certainly felt like an eternity.

She died today.

Just like with mama and dada, I watched it happen, and just like with them, I won't ever see her again. I was starting to think of the outside world as dead, too, because it certainly didn't feel like I would ever see that again.

I missed the bugs. I missed chasing them around, watching their little legs crawl over my fingers and hands, I missed observing them and their bright colours, especially if they had wings. Butterflies and beetles had been my favourite.

There are no colours in the Trade. Only white like the rags all of us slaves wore, grey like the tiles we had to mop, black like the appliances we had to cook with, and red like the blood the monsters spilled.

They were all monsters here. All of them but us slaves. We just wanted to go home. And personally, I wanted to eat chocolate and pizza, and see the sky again. I missed the sky. I believe blue had been my favourite colour, though I'm no so sure anymore. Any memories beside the ones etched on these walls were starting to fade.

Mama and dada's faces included. And someday soon, Dani's will be just another blur, too.

Unlike our parents's deaths, hers had not been quick or painless. At least Didi reassured me theirs had been painless. Dani died slowly, day by day, while fighting for us. For me, for my sister, and for every other girl and boy stuck in this house of nightmares. She died slap by slap, shared meal by shared meal, and chore after chore, until she couldn't die again and it was her final time.

They burned her body some time ago, but I didn't know how much. I'd been close to being good at telling time back at school, but there were clocks then, and teachers.

Dani had been our teacher - mine and Didi's. She taught us to read and write, or at least helped us remember, us and every other person who wanted to practice.

I hoped I didn't forget. Not that I would need to know how to do that here, but still. Maybe one day, when Didi fulfilled her promise of making us safe again, maybe then I'd need to know how to read.

"A-Ali?" Didi called, her pale face covered with sweat. I didn't know someone could be this pale - like that one ghosty I'd watched back home on TV - but Didi was. She hadn't eaten in a few days.

"Sorry," I whispered, careful that the bullies didn't overhear us talking. They didn't like it, and even if I was the one making noise, the punishment would almost always be on my sister.

"I-I can do-do it," Didi offered, staring down at my hands clutching the brush.

Vomit crawled up my throat as I stared at my hands, my vision blurring from the tears that threatened to escape.

Don't cry.

It was one of the first rules we were taught here, and yet the hardest one to follow. Especially as I was forced to get my friend's blood out of the carpet.

Dani had been sharing her meals with me and Didi, always saying she wasn't hungry. But she had to be, right? Everyone here but our bullies were hungry. And yet, she said she never was. But I heard them talking, some of the other girls, how'd she'd fainted because of the lack of food - I didn't know she could faint when I took her bread, I promise - and had hit her head hard enough to never get up again.

"Shh," Didi cooed, quickly looking around to make sure no one saw me as my tears fell and my body shook with quiet sobs. She pulled my face into her shoulder, letting me bury it there long enough to still myself, the harsh material of our matching rags scratching my skin. "Yo-you s-sh-should-shouldn't cry, Ali," she whispered in my ear.

Unlike the bullies, she didn't yell at me, even when I broke the rules. I knew that some of the sisters and brothers at my school used to yell at their siblings, and maybe Ed yelled and hit me, but Didi, even when she got hurt because of me, never did. She was the only one that I loved in this stupid house.

And outside of it, I supposed.

"I know," I sniffed quietly, pulling away from my sister and grabbing the brushes, passing Didi hers. "Let's finish cleaning so we don't get in trouble." She looked at me for a second before grabbing the brush out of my hand, the sound of footsteps making our hands scurry over the carpet as if we'd never stopped.

My knees hurt as I dug in, my shoulder screaming in pain from the speed with which I scrubbed. Didi had started shaking again, but, well, she hadn't really stopped since that one night.

Keep scrubbing.

"Didi?" My sister looked at me but said nothing. "Will it always hurt like this?" She knew what I meant, but by the look on her face, didn't know how to answer me.

"N-no, pr-promise." We both knew she was lying.

Keep scrubbing.

I couldn't keep the tears away, even as fear enveloped my whole body and squeezed at my heart like an invisible bear's grip. Dani had helped Didi with her blood that night, and now we were cleaning hers.

Once we were done, no one would remember her, and she would be just one of the girls and boys who died in the house of nightmares known as the Trade.

"Where is she?" I asked Dani, my lip wobbling. My hands were shaking and I felt cold. So so cold.

"Come here, baby," Dani pulled me into her and rubbed her arms over my shoulders, "she'll be right back, okay?" Tears pooled down my cheeks as I glanced at the rest of the mattress. It was dirty and uncomfortable to sleep on, but it was also usually occupied by me, Dani, and Didi. And right now, she wasn't here.

"Will they hurt her?" Danika's eyes softened as she placed a kiss on my forehead like my mama had done before she died.

"Probably, baby. But she will get better with our help just like before, alright?" I nodded but continued to cry.

I didn't want Didi to get better, i wanted her to just be okay. I didn't want her to cry quietly or to stutter when she talked. Before she only did it at school, mama told me that, as well as that she did it because she was nervous when speaking in front of her class, and sometimes, when pups are nervous, they stuttered.

Was Didi nervous all the time then?

Sometimes, she was nervous when she spoke to me, too. She hadn't been before, but she looked all around when she talked to me, and she had a hard time saying some words sometimes.

Dani shifted me off of her, gesturing for me to wait as another girl called her over.

I didn't want to wait, though. So I went to search for my sister. I heard Dani speaking, instead. It was wrong to listen to conversations not meant for your ears, but it was wrong to be hit, too, and one seemed to care here.

"I couldn't protect her this time, Mina!" Dani whisper-yelled. "She's just a pup, what are they doing to her? She's been gone for an hour."

"Do you think they'll r**e her? You know, like, like us?"

Rape? What did that mean? Id heard the grown ups talking about a few times, and they were crying every single one of them. Was it that bad? Would it hurt Didi?

"What does that mean?" I pulled on Dani's rag dress, my friend whirling around to look at me wide eyes.

"What does what mean, Ali?" She stole a glance at Mina, who was already hurrying off at the sound of footsteps coming from the stairs.

"Rape." I answered, making Dani gulp.

Before she could answer me, however, one of the bullies came to our floor - the slave's floor, they'd called it - and threw my sister to the ground.

Dani and I ran over to her, my heart hammering like I had just finishing running a long lap around school before my friend gently lowered herself to her bum, sitting on it as I stood behind her, peaking at my sister over her shoulder.

"Dali? What happened, are you hurt?" Didi did not raise her head, but her entire body was shaking harder than what I thought was possible. Dani slowly approached my sister, cooing at her until my sister's eyes met hers.

Didi's eyes had always been brown like mine. They were red now. Red and big and so, so sad. Sadder than I'd ever seen.

Stepping aside from Dani, I went to wrap my arms around my sister, to make her happy again and get that look out of her eyes, but she flinched away from me.

For the first time, my sister treated me as if I was one of the bullies.

She burst out into a fresh batch of tears as Dani gently dragged me back, my heart breaking until my own tears leaked from the cracks.

Didi looked up at me, then at our friend, before lowering her head.

"I-I'm s-sorry!" She sobbed, snot trickling down her face. Unlike any other time, she made no move to wipe it away, and my older sister's favourite thing was to be clean.

Something was seriously wrong.

"What happened, sweetheart?" Dani asked, but my sister remained there, holding herself without saying anything. "You can tell me, Dali, I will help, I promise!"

"I," she began, a loud hiccup tearing from her throat. I wanted to tear the sound of my mind so I didn't have to hear it over and over again. "I s-said n-no! I-I swear I-I s-sa-said no-no!"

My sister's gaze was on me now. On me, and Danika, and Mina, who'd come closer. It was wild, scared, and still the saddest I'd ever seen it, but I was just confused now.

Dani wasn't confused. She made slow movements toward my sister, and I wanted to ask why - why was she moving so funny? - but didn't dare voice the question when Didi continued to cry as our friend lifted her up and we all saw the blood trickling down her legs.

Dani moved fast, then, and I couldn't tell what happened in the next however long had passed, but suddenly it was no longer day, the monsters had received their dinner, and the rest of the slaves were huddling together for warmth as they tried to sleep.

Didi didn't try. She stayed in a corner, hugging herself, and refused to talk to anyone, even me, as she clutched her rags between her bleeding fingers. Fingers which she'd torn apart herself as I watched, Dani telling me not to touch her for a little while, so I stayed in a corner at the other end of the room.

Sick of watching the endless amount of tears, the blood and the pain, I strolled over to Danika, and she didn't try to smile at me this time.

"What happened to Didi? I know something happened, tell me!" Dani sighed and patted the space next to her on the floor - it was our turn not to have a mattress for the night - and I sat, gulping at the look on her face.

"Do you remember when you were in school, what the teachers told you about boundaries and private areas?" I nodded.

"They told us to scream if anyone wanted to touch those areas, to always say no, and to not let anyone cross our boundaries."

Was that what Didi meant when she told us she'd said no? Had someone crossed her boundaries?

"And do you know why they told you that?" I shrugged.

"They said it was so predators like the rogues don't hurt us." She gave me a little smile and hugged me close.

"That's right. Well, these males, they're both rogues and predators, and when your sister told them no, they didn't listen."

I was brought out of the memory by my sister's gasp, and only after did the pain of a bully's kick register.

"Faster, b***h, you don't have all day!" I bit my lip to stop from crying out, but otherwise continued to scrub until he passed.

It's been a year and a half since I first learned about r**e and how big of a possibility it was in the nightmare house, and I'd been afraid of it ever since. Didi didn't have the luxury to be afraid, not even when they liked to remind her how old she was now, how old she was when it happened.

They said she was eleven now, and that I was eight.

I didn't know of any pup that age that had suffered as much as we had.

A/N

Hi, Treasures! Make sure you join my F-a-c-e-b-o-o-k group Teddy's Treasures for extra content and discussions! Whew, thank gosh this chapter is over, my heart breaks for my poor babies every time! But as much as I hate it, the message they spread is important enough for me (and you guys) to have to push through. I promise it will be worth it in the end!