Free Serial Volume Three by Lily White, Jaden Wilkes Page A

rich guy’s return. She had her speech rehearsed, the things she’d say to tug on his heartstrings and get him to let her go.
    He hadn’t been back for a couple days, and she was starting to get worried. It was freezing in the warehouse, even in the smaller room she was in, and she’d eaten the last of the Chinese take out last night.
    The bucket in the corner really stunk and she couldn’t help it. At least she hadn’t had to poop all over herself again.
    She waited, eager to begin her campaign for freedom, but he never came. The chain around her neck wouldn’t let her reach the door, so she couldn’t even open it and see if somebody was out there.
    “Hello?” she called out and waited for a reply. Nothing. “Fuck,” she said and slid back down to the floor, hunched over and huddled to try and stay warm.
    The darkness is what got to her most. She might be able to handle the chain around her neck and the throbbing, most likely festering wound being rubbed raw every time she moved, but the darkness was the worst.
    She would kill for a room with a window, some way to determine what time it was.
    She laughed at her last thought, bargaining for an upgraded prison? How quickly she’d fallen.
    She started to cry again, but more of a weak mewling sound at this point. She didn’t think she had much more left to give. Her only saving grace was the sink being within chain length; at least she wouldn’t die of thirst.
    Last night she’d dreamt of Sarah. In her dream she was living in a little cottage near the edge of a forest. It was just her and her baby, alone and happy and healthy and safe.
    Sarah was older and was running, so Patty had made a game of chasing her around the little living room in their happy home.
    The last thing she remembered before she woke up was collapsing on the couch with Sarah, tickling her chubby legs and delighting in her joyful screams of laughter.
    The loss she felt when she woke was a brittle weight in her chest that threatened to shatter and pierce her heart with the grief.
    She sent a prayer into the universe for the hundredth time since waking that Sarah was okay, that she was being cared for.
    “Fuck you all!” she screamed for no good reason other than just to get it out. “Fuck this, fuck everything, fuck you all!”
    She sobbed until she fell silent, slowly sagged to the side and dropped to the hard floor. She shivered until she slipped into a fitful sleep, dreaming of Sarah and bright sunny days with a clean, warm house filled with love.
     
    ***
     
    The Chinese food was a distant memory. The best she could tell she’d eaten the last of it the day before yesterday. She was starving, and water wasn’t doing much to fool her belly anymore.
    She tore through the cupboards and found some old coffee mugs, a couple packets of sugar substitute, and a glass jar of instant coffee with a few tablespoons left in the bottom.
    It was like manna from heaven above.
    She ran the water until it was hot, put a few grains of instant coffee into a mug, tore into a pack of fake sugar and added a bit. She filled the mug with hot water and did her best to sip and make it last.
    Her stomach roiled as the hot liquid hit, almost making her vomit. She held it down though, and held onto the mug to warm herself up.
    She made it last longer than she’d thought possible, until the water was luke warm and she was ready to make another one. She decided to hold off though, just in case she was here for a lot longer.
    The wound on her neck was itchy; she did her best to scratch it without tearing it open. That was a good sign though, right? If it was itchy, it meant it was finally healing. Maybe she’d end up dying of starvation or at the end of the rich guy’s knife, but infection wouldn’t get her.
    Patty laughed at that, a sharp, bitter noise in the deafening quiet. She’d come to accept her fate; in fact she’d come to accept that she’d deserved it all. Sarah would be better off without a junkie mom