Page 102 of Forbidden Fate

Maybe I was brave.

Maybe I was stupid.

Most days, I don’t have a freaking clue.

They plan to send us back together. That’s what Denisa told me before she stopped talking to me.

“They want ransom for everyone,” she said in French, sitting across from me with her knees pulled to her chest. “Then they move us all at once so there’s less chance they get caught.”

She barely looks at me now. They all resent me because I’m holding out. The French girl who won’t give any name.

“Just tell them,” Ioana begs me one afternoon in broken English, tears streaking through the dirt on her cheeks. “Please. Please tell. We go home.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I can’t.”

“You selfish,” Andreea spits.

Maybe she learned that word just for me.

Now Denisa only translates for me when Ştefan tells her to.

Ştefan.

He isn’t the leader. There are older men. Rougher men. Men who speak and expect others to move. But Ştefan speaks enough broken English to talk to me in my fake broken English.

So I let him think he matters.

I let him bring me extra water.

I let him sit too close.

I let his hand linger on my arm without jerking away.

And eventually, I let him take more.

It’s not sex. Not really. It’s survival. My body becomes something I can use to guarantee another few hours of life. Protection. One less beating.

I don’t enjoy it.

But I act like I do. I smile afterward as I lie still beside him on a stained mattress in a room that smells like mildew and cigarette smoke while he strokes my hair as if we’re lovers.

I hate it. I can’t imagine how some people get Stockholm Syndrome and fall for their captors.

That will never be me.

But Ştefan thinks otherwise. I make sure of it.

He sees love in my eyes. He hears soft words and moans from my mouth and throat. And he feels me touch him with tenderness and caring.

Yesterday he brought me an apple. It was bruised on one side, but I didn’t care. It was more precious than a freaking diamond. I nearly cried at the sight of it. I was so hungry. I still am.

I took it, aware of the other girls watching. I’d share it if I could, but what good would one bite do each of us?

“Thank you,” I said to him.