Once Love, Now Destruction

“Responsibilities?” I asked.

“As a slave…” Nicole trailed off.

“Alright,” I nodded, setting my emptied bowl on the ground next to me.

Christian sent me an odd look, “You’re not going to freak out or anything?”

I frowned confused, “Why would I?”

“You’ll have to excuse him, he’s can be an idiot sometimes,” Nicole rolled her eyes, smiling slightly.

Christian glared at his younger sister, but I saw the falseness in it. There was compassion woven deep into his green eyes – like he was a parent staring at a child.

“What are you good at?” Nicole asked retrieving the small bowl and set it gently into the sink.

“I’m really good at gardening,” I started, “and cooking, cleaning, and organizing.”

“So basically everything?” Nicole smiled.

I looked down, “Could you do something for me?”

“Of course,” Christian agreed.

“I have some money in my sock door, I was saving it up for collage, but I need for my dad to have it. He lost his job a while back, and since I’m here could you please leave it on the counter or something. And I have a plant in my bedroom; I don’t know how long he can go without water or sunlight. Could you please bring him back to me, he doesn’t take up much space,” I asked him timidly.

“We can do that,” Nicole smiled softly at me.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

“Now let’s talk about jobs,” I heard Christian sigh.

“Let’s start you off with something easy,” Nicole continued, “What do you think about washing clothes?”

“That’s fine,” I murmured, biting into my bottom lip.

“Let’s go then,” Nicole encouraged, helping me up.

***

After I changed into the velvet uniform, and tied my hair up into a ponytail. I slipped on the flats, they were slightly bigger than my shoe size, but that was okay.

I walked out the door hesitantly and Nicole grabbed onto my hand and led me into a nearby room.

When she opened the door, steam swirled out, making it impossible to see. But Nicole still held onto my hand leading me to the back of the room. She didn’t speak until all of the steam cleared out of the small room.

There were two large tubs, steam rising out of both of them. They were both taller than me, with a wooden bridge along the middle of the barrels. Water sloshed out of the tubs and onto the floor occasionally. There were six other humans in the room, all of them were girls but they were varied in age. All of them were dressed in the same uniform as me.

“Listen up!” Nicole called out her eyes narrowed as they trailed across the room, “This is Elizabeth, now you all better be nice to her or will be consequences,” she warned and the girls cowered against her gaze, and nodded shakily.

“Good,” she turned back to me with a warm smile, “Maggie? Would you help Elizabeth?”

An elderly woman nodded, and Nicole left the room, “I’ll see you later, Elizabeth.”

“Bye,” I murmured and when the woman grabbed my hand gingerly and led me over to a group of girls.

“Now let’s get ye to know everyone, aright,” Maggie spoke softly with a hint of a Scottish accent; she pointed to each of the girls as she spoke, “Diana, Suzie, Noel, and Lilly.” She introduced. But she missed one other girl.

She was small for her age, and was around fourteen or fifteen. She had light brown hair that was cut short, but was still able to be pulled back into a messy ponytail. She had hazel eyes with green specks in them. She had light olive toned skin that was covered in burns and scars. She was all alone on the other tub’s rim.

“Who’s she?” I asked softly, frowning as I saw her push the clothes in the tub with a paddle.

“We don’t know, she doesn’t talk that much,” Diana told me.

“And when she does, no one knows what she’s saying,” Noel added.

I bit my lip and walked over to the girl, I could most likely figure out what she was saying, even if I didn’t know the language, I could get the gist of it.

She didn’t look up when I approached her, but she was shaking, probably from fear. I could hear the girls whispering behind me.

“Hello?” I greeted quietly, not wanting to scare her.

She jumped, and glanced at me, but quickly got back to working. Most of the girls knew English, most likely all of them knew Romanian.

I tried Italian first, “Qual è il tuo nome? (What’s your name).”

Nothing.

I repeated the same thing in Latin.

Again, silence.

I tried again, this time in Greek.

I smiled at her reaction.

She looked up at me shocked.

“Μιλάς Ελληνικά? (You speak Greek),” her eyes widened and jaw dropped slightly.

I smiled nodding, “Πώς σε λένε?Είμαι η Ελίζαμπεθ (What’s your name? I’m Elizabeth).”

“Χαρά (Hara),” she breathed, raking the clothes against the metal board.

“Άσε με να σε βοηθήσω (Let me help you),” I reached into the steaming water, burning my hands in the process.

“Θα το συνιθήσεις (You’ll get use to it),” she murmured.

I copied her actions, digging the fabric into the rough edges of the unnamed object, soap climbed up my arms. And it went on like that; we didn’t say anything more, just worked in silence. But it seemed like something was eating at her, yet she still worked in silence until, I suppose, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Πώς επιβίωσες? (How did you survive),” she asked me, biting her bottom lip.

“Τι? (What),” I frowned, confused.

“Ο λυκάνθρωπος? (The werewolf),” she clarified hiding her face behind the stands of hair that fell out of her ponytail.

“�', τι μ'α�...τόν?" (Oh, what about him),” I asked wringing out the clothes and set them on the nearby clothesline.

“Υποτίθεται ότι θα σε σκότωνε (It was suppose to kill you),” she confessed.

For some reason, this did not surprise me, but I still felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“A (Oh),” I breathed, wiping the sweat of my forehead caused by the steaming room.

“Λοιπόν πώς τα κατάφερες? (So how did you do it),” she asked.

“Δεν ξέρω (I don’t know).”

The steam suddenly floated out of the cramped room and Nicole skipped in.

“How are you doing Elizabeth?” she asked as Hara shrunk away from her.

“Fine,” I smiled softly.

“Chris is on his way over to your apartment,” she told me, leading me towards the door.

“Bye, Elizabeth,” the girls murmured quietly.

“Bye,” I waved my hand slightly, “Αντίο Χαρά (Bye Hara).”

She said nothing, and her head was bent over the bin, the steam hid her face. Nicole closed the door shut.

“What language is that?” she asked, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Greek,” I explained.

“So you speak English, Romanian, and Greek, impressive,” she ticked them off one by one.

“Not quite,” I looked down at the red slippers, “I can also speak Italian, French, Latin, Slovakian, and I was learning Spanish in school.”

She looked at me shell-shocked, her mouth was slightly ajar, and her green eyes were wide.

“Nicole?”

“How fluently can you speak all of them?” she spoke through unmoving lips.

“Pretty well,” I told her, biting the inside of my cheek.

“Huh,” she frowned, but soon smiled brightly, “Let’s get you ready for bed.”

But when she turned us around, a figure was blocking our path.

Alistair.