Chapter 3

He was a fool to let me sit somewhere I can see my surroundings. Forks, Washington- small population (negative) lots of forests (positive), and this deal was closed so if he loses me he loses me- there is no insurance. As a human, he doesn't matter enough to receive a vampiric hunting party even if he does go to them, I'm not worth looking for. I may be a good slave but I am just a slave. He's practically alone and already making mistakes. I focus on memorizing street names and landmarks as we pass through the town.

"I uh, I'm not really experienced with this. I'm in the entertainment business and...and I'm down on my luck in terms of talent lately, a buddy of mine pointed me in this direction. I spent my last dime on you but I think it'll be worth it. I know I'm new but you won't be treated badly- great food, stylish clothes, conditioned freedom. I'm not here to enslave you- in all honesty, I'm doing you a favor. You won't have to live like that anymore now that I own you and your talent, you'll be living a dream for someone in your situation."

I listen numbly. He speaks as if I want to sing and dance like a monkey, but a part of what he says is true. I could live well with this owner... I could eat whenever and whatever, dress how I want...maybe even go outside. To someone else perhaps that would be enough. It just sounds like an awful tease to me, a cruel joke. Tell me I'm free while still holding my leash. No- I will have all of my freedom and I will have it soon. Limited freedom isn't freedom, having stuff, and a full belly but having to ask permission for either...it isn't nearly as wonderful as the thought of starving as a free person. I imagine running into the woods, I imagine looking up from the ground, I imagine running without chains or shock collars. I imagine having no cell. This man thinks a room you can not leave is better than a cell because it has a bed but accommodations do not make a prison. A prison is anywhere a captive sits, be it in a room, a basement, a kitchen...until I am free the world is my prison.

"You will appreciate the life I've planned for you. We'll start small with gigs and videos, I chose our little starting place well. People love a good 'small-town girl goes star' theme. We'll work on your appearance, boost your weight a bit and I'll show you everything it takes to succeed in this industry and then...once I've found other stars and some money maybe I'll even let you go it on your own... Stars only last a few years anyway. Stick with my kid, you'll see its the best possible version of your future. Work a few years, get some goodies, maybe I'll even pay you an allowance, then your free to enjoy what you've earned."

This would have turned nearly anyone else I know...earn money, earn freedom...but it just made me more determined to leave on my own. I shouldn't need to earn, work for, or ask for freedom. Some of the other slaves have never seen daylight, never seen freedom, so a deal like this truly is the best they can dream of for themselves. But I've seen freedom, I've lived it. I watched it be stripped away from my father long before his life was. I valued it, even before they took it from me. Everyone should be allowed to feel free. My mother spent all her adult life chained to tubes but she was always free as the wind itself. She never felt trapped, her freedom wasn't expressed in travel. She felt free when her husband kissed her forehead when I read to her. She was free when she was more than sick, more than a slave to her own body, she was free when she was cared for, when she was listened too and loved. I learned from a young age that freedom is so much more than it appears. Right now, to all the passers-by, I look free. They see me in a car and not a single person knows how trapped I am here. I have no chains on me but right now I can't run or hide or speak my mind. I look at a little diner as we pass it; where a brown-haired girl just sits in the shaded side of the window, watching a man eat cherry cobbler and laughing- so completely free and unafraid.

For now, I will comply, until I know this town better, find routes I can use, places I can go to. I will take advantage of his twisted view of buying me. He wants to feed me, clothe me, introduce me to people and the town. I will use that, just as I have used every moment of my imprisonment to get better, to get to this one town and inexperienced human master, to get to my freedom.

As we pull into a long driveway, regrettably further from town than I could hope for. I suppose he isn't as stupid as he seems. The car stops in front of a tiny single-story home. I wait for him to instruct me or escort me out of the car- which he does after a moment. He is so much slower than I am used too. He takes my elbow and anxiously pushes me into the house as if he were afraid I'd run like this was the deciding moment as to rather or not I was going to agree with him or not. I am sure to walk directly to the house, no swaying, or taking long steps. I made it clear I wasn't going to run. If I did, I know I'd be caught. I can see, just barely through the breaks in the vegetation, a tall and thin metal fence surrounding the area. He is a businessman, a failed businessman, but businessman enough to have afforded me and gained knowledgable acquaintances- his craft is making his 'stars' believe they are winning the game instead of him. He may be new to this but he isn't a complete moron- or his associate isn't a complete moron.

Once inside, He releases me and shuts the door with a sigh of relief and exhaustion. The room is yellow, and the furniture is other mismatched happy colors. It's almost like he tried to pile positivity and happiness into this place- posters of quotes and singers I don't recognize. One said, "good vibes" with a cat-filled background. In addition to the decore, there were instruments and sound equipment. A grand piano sat in the corner with my favored violin. The piano is beautiful but I feel freer with a violin, more alive. I like to create vibrant and fast melodies as they are easier to dance too. The piano is new, I can tell by the paint that it hasn't been moved from place to place, there are no marks on its legs from any misuse. Both are beautiful.

"Tonight you shower, eat, and get situated but tomorrow you're going to show me what you can do and we are going to start making music." He says with a certain hope. As if his dreams are being realized. He grabs me and pulls me to a small room- I'll admit it was nice to see. I haven't had my own bed in years, only shared one with whomever I was ordered to lie with for pains I'd rather not remember. The last time I had a room like this my father just finished fixing my door- it had fallen off the hinges due to an old and unstable frame. He smiled and said" That otta do it," He looked at me and said he had to go somewhere to pay some people but when he came back he'd listen to my book report on Alexander Hamilton for school. Needless to say, nobody ever got to hear that report. It went up in flames with the remainder of our home.

I enter and sit upon the bed trying my best not to cry, not in front of him. I am better than that. I am stronger. He leaves me in my windowless room- nothing is in it except the bed and a small bedside table, a tiny closet with nothing in it. This isn't my room, this will never be my room. Nothing about this place is home, nothing is broken, nobody is smiling at me. I feel the tears push through my efforts and down my cheeks. Silently I cry to my father, my mother. I know my dad was involved in some illegal stuff but he was a good man. He didn't hurt anybody, he helped anyone he could. He was a good father and husband, he listened and paid for mom's medical bills. He could have left us when she got sick, he could have left us both to starve or mom to die but he didn't. He loved us, he did everything he could, everything he had too to keep the lights on and our bellies from shrinking. I don't care if he did drugs, sold drugs, borrowed money, owed money to those people- my father was a good man. He didn't deserve to die that way. I didn't deserve to lose him. We had a shed where he even helped people get off drugs if they wanted too, where he let the homeless stay even though we could barely feed ourselves, he managed to never leave anyone to the cold.I admired him and the people we met who all fought battles that people criticized as if they weren't someone's loved ones, as if they weren't people. My father helped so many who couldn't give him anything more than gratitude and then God decided he didn't deserve to live because he sold some drugs or borrowed more than those drugs could pay off. No one cares about why my dad did what he did, they just want him to pay, and when he couldn't pay they killed him and took me. They sold me to regain what money they lost. They didn't have to kill him or my mom, they just chose too and yet the world decided my dad was the one who deserved this! These fucks get to be fucks forever and my dad died for no reason. They didn't have to kill him, I would have gone willingly to spare him...they didn't have to do what they did, their why for the action is unjust. My father...my mother...they didn't deserve what happened. I don't deserve what happened, I would have never ever complained about my door again if they had just let him live. I would have worked and given them everything I had just to keep my parents. Anything else would have been fine to lose but not them. And now I sit in a room that's not my room... and when I escape, which I will, I will have no one to smile at me. No one will be happy to see me. I will be all alone, but these assholes won't take another year from me. They won't. I refuse to give them anything more than what they have taken.

I could have had a wonderful life with my parents, I could have grown up and fought with them, cried into them when I apologized, introduced them to a boy and wave at them fro the stage of high school graduation. I could have lived, that's what they fought for, that's what they died for- if nothing else- to give me life. He sold drugs to get money to give us life. He borrowed money so mom wouldn't lose her life, so we wouldn't lose the house and the education, my chance at life. So I refuse to believe they died for nothing. I will live, I will experience things they wanted for me. My life is what will give their deaths, their lives, meaning. I won't let what they sacrificed be for nothing, I won't know cages all my life. I refuse and although it's been a dream for so long, I know it's going to happen soon. Soon I will live; for my parents and myself.