The Return: Midnight Chapter 15

h wizst woke slowly, coming up from some gloomy place. and so she wished she hadnt. She was in some let on-of-doors place only buildings blocked the horizon w here(predicate) the sun hung forever. Around her were a lot of other misss, al approximately her own age. That was puzzling, world-class of al . If you alikek a random elbow grease start of females off the street in that respect would be unforesightful lady friends crying for their mothers, and in that location would be mother-aged women taking cargon of them. thither powerfulness be a hardly a(prenominal) older women. This place looked much equal oh, God, it looked like ace of those striver wargonhouse places that they had had to pass the last cadence they had come to the puritanic Dimension. The ones that Elena had ordered them non to look at or listen to. plainly this instant reasonable felt surely she was inside one herself, and in that respect was no way not to look at the Stillfaces, at the ter rorise look, at the quivering m stunnedhs around her.She wanted to speak, to find the way there would consider to be a way, Elena would insist to jerk off out. just now first she gathered al the fountain at her command, wrapped it into a cry, and sound inadequately screamed Damon Damon care I re in ally need youAl she heard in return was silence.Damon Its seemly Im at a slave warehouse stand bySuddenly she had a hunch, and lowered her psychic barriers.She was instantly crushed. Even here, at the edge of the city, the air was choked ful of long messages and short cries of impatience, or camaraderie, of greeting, of solicitation.Longer, less impatient conversations nigh things, instructions, teasings, stories. She couldnt keep up with it. It turned into a threatening hustle of psychic sound that was curled like a wave about to break everywhere her head, to crush her into a mil ion pieces.And past(prenominal), all of a sudden, the telepathic melee vanished. decorous wa s able to focus her eyes on a blond girl, a mid receive older than her and about four inches taller.I express, are you okay?the girl was repeating on the face of it shed been enounceing it for a while.Yes, fair express automatically. No Bonnie vista.You might want to hail ready to move. Theyve sounded the first dinnertime whistle, and you looked so out of it, I waited for the second one.What am I supposed to say? Thank you seemed safest.Thanks,Bonnie said. Then her mouth said all on its own,Where am I?The blond girl looked surprised. The depot for run international slaves, of course.Well, that was that. exactly I didnt run away,she pro riddleed. I was spillage right mrequest later on I got a sugarplum.I dont know about that. I was stressful to run away, just they finally caught me.The girl slammed one fist into an surface hand. I knew I shouldnt defecate trusted that litter carrier.Carried me right to the politics and me blind and without a clue.You mean you had th e litter curtains down ?Bonnie was asking, when a shril whistle interrupted her. The blond girl took hold of her arm and began pull her away from the fence. Thats the second service dinnertime whistle we dont want to missy that, because after that they shut us up for the night. Im Eren. Whore you?Bonnie.Eren snorted and grinned. All right by me.Bonnie allowed herself to be led up a dirty staircase and into a dirty cafeteria. The blond girl, who seemed to regard herself as Bonnies keeper, handed her a tray, and pushed her along. Bonnie didnt lay either choice in what she was to hold in, not withal to veto the noodles that were squirming slightly, but she did manage to snatch an extra bread rol in the end.Damon Nobody was tel ing her not to send a message, so she unploughed on doing it. If she was going to be punished, she thought defiantly, she was going to be punished for hard to get out of here. Damon, Im in a slave warehouse Help meBlond Eren grabbed a spork, so Bonnie did too. There were no knives. There were thin napkins, which relieved Bonnie, because that was where the Squirmy Noodles were going to end up.Without Eren, Bonnie would never have found a place at the tables, which were crammed with young girls eating. Shove over, push over,Eren kept saying, until there was room for Bonnie and her.Dinner was a test of Bonnies courage and also of how loud she could scream. Why are you doing all this for me?she shouted into Erens ear, when a lul in the deafening conversation gave her a chance.Oh, Well, you be a redhead and all it put me in mind of Alianas message, you know. To the existentl Bonny.She pronounced it oddly, manakin of swall owing the y, but at least(prenominal) it wasnt Bonna.Which of them? Which message, I mean?Bonnie screamed.Eren gave her an are you kidding look. Help when you foundation, shelter when you have room, guide when you know where to go,she said in a sort of impatient chant, then looked chagrined and added, And be patient with the slow.She attacked her provender with an air of having said e precisething there was to say.Oh, boy, Bonnie thought. psyche had really taken the balland run with it. Elena had never said any of those things.Yeah, but but maybe shed lived them, Bonnie thought, a tingling breaking out all over her body. And maybe somebody had seen her and make up the words. For instance, that crazy-looking cuckoo shed precondition her ring or bracelet or something to. Shed given her earrings away to sight with signs, too. Signs that said POETRY FORFOOD.The rest of dinner was a calculate of picking up food with the spork and not looking at it, crunching it once, and then deciding whether to spit into her Still-writhing napkin, or to listen to swallow without tasting.Afterward the girls were marched into another(prenominal) building, this one fil ed with pal ets, smal er and not so comfortable-looking as Bonnies at the inn. She was now horrified at herself for leaving that ro om. There she had had safety, she had had food that she could actual y eat, she had had entertainment even the Dustbins were clothed in a golden glow of remembrance now and she had had the chance of Damon finding her. hither she had nothing.But Eren seemed to have some mesmeric influence on the girls around, or else they al were Aliana-ites too, because when she shouted Wheres a pal et? Ive got a new girl in my bedchamber. Think shes gonna sleep on the bare floor?And ultimate y, a dusty pal et was passed hand over hand into Erens bedroom a group of pal ets al spread with the heads together in the middle. In exchange, Eren handed over the wriggling napkin Bonnie had given her. Share and share alike,she said firmly, and Bonnie wondered if she thought Aliana had said that, too.A whistle shril ed. Ten transactions until lights-out,a hoarse voice shouted. all(prenominal) girl not on her pal et in ten turns wil be punished. Tomorrow section C goes up.All right Were going to be bloo dy deaf earlier were sold,Eren muttered.Before were sold?Bonnie repeated stupidly, even though she had known what would happen from the first split second she had recognized this as a warehouse for slaves.Eren turned and spat. Yeah,she said. So you can have one more breakdown and then thats it. Only dickens per customer, and by tomorrow you may wish youd saved one up.I wasnt going to have a breakdown,Bonnie said, with al the courage at her command. I was going to ask how were going to be sold. Is it at one of those horrible public places, where you have to stand in front of a crowd in just a shift?Yeah, thats what most of us wil be doing,a young girl, who had been crying quietly through dinner and the pal et-arranging time, spoke up in a soft voice. But the ones they pick out as special items wil have to wait. Theyl give us a bath and special clothes, but its al just so we look more presentable for the clients. So the clients can inspect us more closely.She shuddered.Youre fright ening the new girl, Mouse,Eren scolded. We cal her Mouse, because shes always so scared,she told Bonnie.Bonnie taciturnly screamed, DamonDamon was decked out in his new captain of the guard suit.It was nice, world swart on black, with lighter black piping (even Damon recognized the necessity of contrast). It had a cloak.And he was a ful vampire again, as powerful and prestigious as even he could have imagined. For a moment he apparently luxuriated in the feeling of a job rise up done. Then he flexed his vampire muscles more strongly, urging Jessalyn, who was upstairs, into deeper sleep, while he sent tendrils of Power al over the Dark Dimension, sampling what was going on in different districts.Jessalynnow there was a dilemma. Damon had the feeling that he should take her a note or something, but he wasnt quite sure what to say.What could he tel her? That he was gone? She would see that for herself. That he was sorry? Well, obviously he wasnt so sorry that hed chosen not to go . That he had duties elsewhere?Wait. That might actual y work. He could tel her that he needed to keep fundament up on her territory and that if he were to stay here in the castle he doubted hed ever get anything done.He could tel her hed be backsoon. Soonish. Soonishly.Damon pressed his tongue against a canine and felt the prompt recognise sharpness and length. He real y wanted to try out those legendary Black Ops vs. vampires programs.He wanted to hunt, period. Of course, there was so oft Black Magic wine about the place that when he halt a male servant and asked for some, the servant had brought a magnum. Damon had been having flutes every now and then, but what he real y wanted was to go hunting. And not to hunt a slave and certainly not an animal, and it hardly seemed carnival to wander the streets on the chance that there was a noble fair sex to get to know better.It was at that moment that he remembered Bonnie.In a study of three more minutes he had everything he neede d to do wrapped up, including the annual delivery of dozens of roses to the princess in his name. Jessalyn had given him a very liberal al owance, and already advanced for the first month.In a matter of five minutes he was flying, though that was very bad manners on the street, and doubly so in a market district.In a matter of fifteen minutes he had his hands around the landladys neck, the one whom he had paid very well to make sure that exactly what had happened never happened.In sixteen minutes, the landlady was grimly offering him the heart of her young and not very intel igent slave as recompense. He was Stillwearing his captain of guard suit.He could have the boy to kil , to torture, whatsoeverhe could have the money backI dont want your wicked slave,he snarled. I want my own back Shes worthhither he came to a stop, trying to calculate how many ordinary girls Bonnie was worth. A hundred? A thousand? She is worth infinitely more he began, when the landlady surprised him by i nterrupting.Whyd you leave her in a dunk like this, then?she said. Oh, yes, I know what my own lodgings are like. If she was so damn precious, whyd you leave her here?Why had he leftover-hand(a) her in this place? Damon couldnt think of now.Hed been panicked, half out of his mind that was what organism human had done to him. Hed been thinking only about himself, while little Bonnie fragile Bonnie, his little redbird had been shut up in this filthy place. He didnt want to keep thinking about it. It made him feel searing hot and icy cold at once.He demanded that a search be made of al the neighborhood buildings. Someone had to have seen something.Bonnie had been awakened too early and parted from Eren and Mouse. She immediately had an pulsing to lose control, to have a breakdown at once. She was shivering al over.Damon Help meThen she saw a girl who couldnt seem to get up off her pal et and saw a charr with weaponry like a mans go over with a white alter rod to administer puni shment.And then something seemed to go blank in Bonnies mind.Elena or Meredith might have tried to stop the woman, or even this large gondola they were caught in, but Bonnie couldnt. The only thing she could do was try not to have a breakdown. She had a song stuck in her head, not even a song she liked, but it repeated endlessly over and over as the slaves around her were dehumanized, broken into mechanical, but clean, mindless bodies.She was being scrubbed mercilessly by two muscular women whose whole life doubtless consisted of scrubbing grimy street girls into pink cleanliness at least for a night.But final y her protests led the women to actual y look at her with her fair, almost translucent skin scrubbed stark naked and concentrate quite on washing her hair, which felt as if it were being pul ed out at the roots. Final y, though, she was done and was given an enough towel with which to dry off.Next, in what she was realizing was a giant assembly line, were kinder dive women who stripped off the towel and proceeded to put her on a regorge and massage her with oil.Just when she was starting to feel better she was hustled up to have the oil removed, except that which had soaked into her skin. Women then appeared who measured her, cal ing out the rime as they did, and by the time Bonnie had tramped to the wardrobe station, three dresses were time lag for her on a bar. There was a black one, a verdancy one, and a gray one.Il get the green for sure because of my hair, Bonnie thought blankly, but after she had tried al three on, a woman took the green and gray away, leaving Bonnie in a little black bubble dress, strapless, with a glittery touch of white temporal at the neck.Next was a giant sanitary room, where her dress was elaborated y covered with a white paper robe that kept ripping.She was led to a chair with a hair dryer and the bedrock of makeup, which a white-shirted woman used to put too much on Bonnies face. Then the hair dryer was swun g over her head, and Bonnie, with a stolen tissue, took off as much makeup as she dared. She didnt want to look good, didnt want to be sold. When she finished she had silvery eyelids, a touch of blush, and velvety rose-red delineate that wouldnt wipe off.After that she just sat and finger-combed her hair until it was dry, which the ancient machine announced with a ping.The conterminous station was a bit like the day after Thanksgiving at a big habilitate store. The stronger or more determined girls managed to wrench shoes away from their weaker sisters and pack them on one foot, only to start the process again the coterminous minute. Bonnie was lucky. She saw a tiny black shoe that had a faintly silvery bow coming down the ramp and kept her eye on it while it passed from girl to girl until someone dropped it and then she swooped in and tried it on. She didnt know what she would have done if it hadnt fit. But it did fit, and she went to the next station to get its mate. As she s at waiting, other girls were trying on perfume.Bonnie saw two entire bottles go down the bodices of girls and wondered if they meant to sel them or try to poison themselves with them. There were also flowers. Bonnie was already lightheaded with perfume and had decided not to wear any, but a tal woman bel owed over her head and a garland of sinlesssia was pinned to frame her curls, without anyone asking her permission.The last station was the hardest to bear. She had on no jewelry and would have gaunt only one bracelet with the dress. But she was given two bring down unbreakable plastic bracelets, each with a number on it her identity from now on, she was told.Slave bracelets. She had now been washed, packaged, and stamped, so that she could be conveniently sold.Damon she cried voicelessly, but something had died inside her, and she knew now that her cal s would not be answered.She was picked up as a romp slave and confiscated,the sweetshop man told Damon impatiently. And thats al I know.Damon was left with a feeling he didnt often have. Sickening terror. He was real y beginning to believe that this time he had cut it too fine that he would be too late to save his redbird. That any of several dreadful scenarios might have played out before he got to her.He couldnt stand to visualize them in detail. What he would do if he didnt find her in timeHe reached out and without the slightest sudor gripped the sweetshop man around the throat, lifting him off the floor.We need to have a little chat,he said, turning the ful force of his menacing dark eyes on the bulging ones of his prey.About just how she got confiscated. Dont struggle. If you havent hurt the girl, youve got nothing to fear. If you haveHe pul ed the terrified man completely across the counter and said very softly, If you have, then, by al means struggle.It wont make any divagation in the end if you know what I mean?The girls were put into the largest carriages Bonnie had yet seen in the Dark Dimen sion, three slim girls to a tush and two sets of seats in a carriage. She got a nasty jolt, though, when instead of going forward like a carriage, the whole thing was get up straight up by sweaty male slaves straining at poles. It was a giant litter and Bonnie immediately snatched off her freesia garland and bury her nose in it. It had the added function of hiding her tears.Do you have any idea of how many homes and dancing rooms and hal s and theaters there are where girls are being sold tonight?The golden-haired Guardian looked at him sardonical y.If I knew that,Damon said with a cold and ominous smile, I wouldnt be here asking you.The Guardian shrugged. Our job is real y only to try to keep the peace here and you can see how well we succeed. Its a matter of too few of us were insanely understaffed. But I can give you a list of the venues where girls are being sold.Still, as I said, I doubt youl be able to find your gala before morning. And by the way, wel have an eye on you, because of your little query. If your runaway wasnt a slave, shes Imperial property no humans are free here. If she was, and you freed her, as reported by the baker across the street Sweet-sel er.Whatever. Then he had a right to use a stun accelerator pedal when she ran. Better for her, real y, than being Imperial property they tend to char, if you get my drift. That levels a long way down.But if she was a slave my slaveThen you can have her. But theres a certain needful punishment set before you can have her. We want to admonish this kind of thing.Damon looked at her with eyes that made her shrink and look away, dead losing her authority. Why?he demanded. I thought you claimed to be from the other Court.You know. The ethereal one?We want to discourage runaways because thereve been so many since some girl named Alianna came around,the Guardian said, her frightened pulse visible in her temple.And then they get caught and have even more reason to try it againand it wears out the girl, eventual y.There was no one in the Great Hal when Bonnie and the others were hustled off the giant litter and into the building.Its a new one, so its not on the lists,Mouse said, unexpectedly at her shoulder. Not that many people wil know about it, so it doesnt fil up til late, when the music gets loud.Mouse seemed to be clinging to her for comfort. That was fine, but Bonnie needed some comfort of her own. The next minute she saw Eren and, dragging Mouse behind her, headed for the blond girl.Eren was standing with her back against the wal . Well, we can stand around like wal flowers,she said, as a few men came in, or we can look like were having the best time of any of them right here by ourselves. Who knows a story?Oh, I do,Bonnie said absently, thinking of the star bal with its Five Hundred Stories for four-year-old Ones.Instantly there was a clamor. Tel itYes, please tel Bonnie tried to think of the fairy tales that she had experienced.Of course. The one about the kit sune treasure.