Emerald

I sit and stare. My legs criss-crossed and my back hunched over. My hair hanging in front of my face and my eyes glazed over. My jaw is clenched and my arms are leaning on my thighs. Thoughts swirl around my head. My fingers tap out a meaningless tune on my leg and I lick my cracked lips.

Then the door opens.

They are releasing me. Letting me out. Taking me somewhere. Showing me around.

They really don't get this whole "solitary confinement" thing.

My lips curve up slightly at the thought as I am grabbed roughly by the arms and dragged up, on to my feet. I go limp, not really feeling up to a walk and one of the guards curses and digs his nails into my arms. The other guard shakes me violently.

I do not react.

They bring me out of the padded room. Leaving the squishy walls behind. They have to be padded just in case. In case I try to kill myself. The people who are in charge are smart. 379 days ago I would never have even considered committing suicide. Nowadays, it is all I think about.

My feet are dragging on the linoleum floor as we pass room after room of girls and women. Some no older then ten and some who could be in their eighties. Some come closer to the tight, metal mesh keeping them from freedom, some barely blink an eye as I pass, while others start to scream and cry.

Oh. I think. They recognise me.

Where am I going?

Some girls who have been here long enough remember me from one year and two weeks ago, when the guards had ripped me from my cell – a cell that had been exactly like theirs, when I was exactly like them – and brought me to the padded room and into my new Hell.

Solitary confinement.

I only ever have guards as visitors once a week. Once a week two guards who are fully armed – and male – will escort me to the second door in my padded Hell. They will escort me to a room with a shower where I would have to wash myself with four eyes on me. I'd have ten minutes and then I would be dragged back into my padded room.

The only thing in my room is some padding and a metal hole in the floor with a roll of toilet paper. A proper toilet would be too risky. Ceramic is good for slicing things.

I am brought back to the present situation as more and more screams fill up the hallway. The screams bounce off the off-white walls and cracked linoleum. The artificial light makes me squint and I want to press my hands to my ears because of the noise these girls are making.

I should be worried for myself. For what is about to happen, but mostly I'm just praying for someone to shut those damn girls up.

But no.

The screams of the girls echo around the place. I can only assume they are screaming because they thought I had been set free months and months ago. They had thought I had been saved. Granted a reprieve, and released. They had assumed that their dream had come true for one girl, so there was hope for them.

But I wasn't set free. I was thrown into a sound proof room where nobody could hear my screams. I was locked away like a dark, little secret. All of us are secrets, we're all this place's little secret, as nobody knows about us. But I was darker. Dirtier. Not even the other secrets new what had happened to me.

But now they do.

My hair covers my face in greasy, bedraggled dreadlocks, as it always does. Once upon time my hair was a vibrant, sparkling red. My skin glowed with creamy life and my cheeks were constantly flushed a bright pink, as I blushed a lot. My whole being screamed alive! My personality and mind screamed innocence! And everything about me screamed young!

I feel as if I am none of those things now.

As we come to a steel door that I have not seen since my last trip out months ago, I see two more guards up ahead, guns at the ready and trained on me.

One of them puts his weapon down and opens the door, but the other man doesn't waver. My guards march me through the door and into a lobby.

I blink beneath the red curtain hiding my face as I take in the place.

It's empty of any living soul. There are three dark brown leather couches, with a mahogany table with magazines on top of it. I can only assume that part is for people who are waiting for something.

A savant who has been taken and locked-up for, what seems like, a millennium?

Ooh, I wonder if you can buy us on E-bay.

I drag my eyes from the left and look to the right to see an empty reception desk with piles of paper on top of it and phones.

I don't have long to look as the guards quickly drag me away and into a dimly lit corridor where we pass dark walls. A big, black door looms at the end of this dark place and suddenly, I feel terrified.

This is it.

They are going to kill me. They are going to experiment on me and kill me. They are going to torture me, try to figure out my power, my savant ability.

But I won't. I can't. I promised myself five years ago that they would not find out what I can do and I'll keep that promise.

The guards stop at the door and I stand, keeping my head bowed and looking up through my copper lashes. The door opens of its own accord - it must have a motion detector – and soon, I am being dragged through it and into the room.

I am marched over and then deposited onto a wooden chair, where I sit and keep my head bowed. Unwilling to show my face.

A man is sitting in front of me, across a metal table. He has tanned skin and dark stubble. Mousy brown hair and blue eyes. Handsome I suppose, but with the way he's looking at me, I want to kill him. If my skin will stop crawling.

The walls are black and shinning, gleaming under the harsh light. The floors are the same and the room is cold. Goosebumps appear under my hospital-type gown and I cross my legs and refrain myself from crossing my arms over my chest.

The man across from me sits there, staring at me, waiting for me to crack. But I've not spoken to someone in over a year and half a month, I can deal with silence for a few more minutes.

He cracks first.

He smiles, showing off gleaming teeth and he runs a hand through his hair.

"Good afternoon, girl. How was your journey?" His voice is smooth and thick and I recognise the accent as one from Boston.

I remain silent and just stare at the man, but with my hair covering my face, he doesn't know that.

His smiles becomes broader. "My names Thomas, but you can call me Tom." I highly doubt this man has told me his real name, but I don't contradict him.

He glances behind me, to my guards and raises a bushy eyebrow.

"She doesn't speak." One of my guards tells him and I'm surprised he can actually say anything but curse words. After all, it's all I've heard from him.

"Doesn't speak, eh? Well, we'll have to change that, won't we?" He leans forward on his arms and tries to see me from behind the greasy strands, but I remain aloof. He frowns and rubs his chin.

"Listen, girl. I'm going to be blunt. You talk, and this won't have to get bad, 'kay? And I'm a big guy, and those guys have guns, so this can get very bad, very quickly."

I decide to humour him.

"What do you want to know?" My voice is gravelly and hoarse and comes out as a whisper, but it's still there.

Thomas smiles at the victory. It's the only one he's getting.

He leans back in his chair. "Tell me how old you are."

"Nineteen." I say.

He nods. "And when'll you be twenty?"

"Two months." If my calculations are correct, that is.

His grin widens and his eyes glint. "That's perfect."

For what?

He leans forward again.

"Tell me, girl, have you thought about him? Wondered?"

And there it is, that feeling. That feeling I get when ever I seriously feel like ending it all. That gut-wrenching, breath-taking feeling. The one that fills my stomach with dread and eyes with tears.

But I swallow hard and the tears recede. I wait a second for my voice to strengthen to make sure it doesn't crack.

"About who?"

He grins because he knows I'm playing dumb.

"Your soulfinder."

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed it and I'll update regularly. I love The Benedict Brothers series and I love Joss Stirling. Xavier is my favorite, but as we know Crystal is his soulfinder and the book's coming out soon, I decide to do Will, as I like him too.