"Was it true?" she heard Anna ask making her stop her train of thoughts. That actually made he wonder what the rumor was about to make the atmosphere so tense and Anna was still angry despite carry out her childish vengeance.
"We don't know what you are talking about," Valerie answered immediately shaking her head in a manner that immediately told everyone that she knew what Anna was talking about.
"Was I raped when I was kidnapped?" Anna did not hesitate to ask it out loud despite how hard it was for her to say it. She had lost her memory and hearing what happened to her from someone else was really bad.
Hearing that question from Anna made Valerie to begin crying. Justin joined her immediately on the sofa she sat on hugging her shoulder.
Seeing Valerie cry simply made Anna lose her temper. "Why did you keep it secret from me?" Anna asked standing up. "I have every right to know what happened to me no matter how bad it might be."
Rose who stood away watching felt her heart get squeezed in her chest due to guilt. Anna was going through such a hard time and all she cared about was protecting her reputation. She felt like a really bad bitch. Her guilt led her out of the living room into the elevator and to her room. She felt like she did not have the right to act like she now cares about Anna.
She threw her grey leather backpack on her sofa before falling on the soft sofa which welcomed her into its sofa embrace. She gave her head a slight knock to reprimand herself.
Anna on the other hand, saw Rose leave the leaving room and her frustration simply increased and she wanted to scream as she looked at her parents faces. Her mother was still crying with tears staining her beautiful eyes and her father tried hard to console her mother while mopping the tears on her face.
She sighed and decided to cool down since none of it was her parents' fault. They would never do anything to hurt her. Keeping the fact that a fourteen year old girl who just woke up from coma was molested by her kidnappers a secret from her till they assume she was old enough to take the news in, was not cruel rather it show how much they wanted to protect her in the best way possible.
"I am fine, Mum. I was only angry when I heard it from a student in school and not from you. I was not angry at you or dad for not telling me but at those people that were talking about me in school. And that was why I beat that girl up. I did because I had to vent my anger towards them. I will also not apologize for hitting her. I am ready to go jail if that is necessary."
Valerie sniffled and mopped her eyes listening to her daughter's speech. She opened her mouth to praise Anna for being grown up and matured but tears began flowing down once again as she opened her mouth to speak. She turned her face and continued crying into her husband's chest further wetting his already wet shirt with her tears.
Anna felt her eyes sting watching her mother cry in that manner and she could not keep watching. She left the living room for her room. She glanced at the door of Rose's room for a few seconds before walking into her room and closed the door.
She showed her parents her very strong minded personality while growing up to make them worry less and she could not break the character she built up as a child by crying in front of them. They did enough by taking care of her like their daughter and even giving her the opportunity to bare their family name and being strong was the best she could do for them at this moment of her life.
The tears she had being holding back from the moment she heard the rumor till this moment began pouring out of her eyes washing off all her makeup and tough façade. She slid down to the floor with her back against the door with her hand gripping her chest. Her heart felt just too heavy to be held in her chest. It was as though it as slowly dropping to the pit of her stomach.
It was just too suffocating. What hurt her most was the fact that whoever did that to her was somewhere living well and perhaps hurting other girls like her. They were all innocent little girls with no one to help them. They all turn prey to old monsters without consideration towards their fragile bodies.
The scars on her body were long gone but it seemed some scars don't ever get off, at this point she had to live with her new reputation in school and she obviously did not have any way out it. They were even accusing her of going around with older men at the age of fourteen when all she did was hanging around with her friends and following her mother around.
She cried without restraint since her room was soundproof and she was not scared of anyone hearing her. By the time she was satisfied with letting out all her grievances, she was too weak to stand up right and could only stagger to the couch in the living area and fell asleep.
###
A young man sat in front of a TV as the eighty inches screen kept replaying a video of Anna hitting a girl. He smiled with a lot of admiration as he watched the video for the fifty-fifth time without getting tired. His assistant had to take a lot of effort to prevent himself from shaking his head in pity. His boss was obviously over obsessed with this girl and it was only getting worse.
"I want you to get the girl she slapped and have the boys mess her up before sending her back . . . no, don't send her back, send a picture to the school's website and keep her around. How dare she insult my Anna? Send her body to her parent after five months." The young man ordered the destruction of another girl's life in a manner as though he was ordering for pizza.
The assistant was used to his boss' bloody acts and orders but he had not seemed to have gotten over the involuntary shiver his body always did whenever he gets such an order or whenever he sees his boss' bloody acts. He wondered if it will be possible for anyone to be more ruthless and inhumane as his boss as he walked out of the room to plan with the boys who were supposed to carry out the mission.
The young man returned his attention to the screen and continued watching the beautiful act of 'his' Anna. Anna was very right because some other girl was about to get preyed on and she was lucky to survive it but this girl might not be lucky enough to escape or survive it.
Going back to school, the girl Anna had hit went missing from the VIP room she stayed in at a hospital. She disappeared without a trail just like Anna did. All the security cameras and men could not give any necessary information.
###
"You are my Anna. Don't you remember me?" a male voice told Anna in a husky scary manner.
Anna woke up in the middle of nowhere with everything around dark and endless that she could feel the thickness of the darkness against her squeezing her with every step she tried to take towards the source of the voice.
She knew that voice just too well causing goose bumps immediately appeared on her skin as she recognized the voice. She knew the voice but not the owner of the voice and it made her try hard to move towards the direction of the voice. She felt a strange blend of fear, hatred and desire for vengeance held in her little chest.
"Don't you think it is rude to forget an old friend?" the voice asked her taunting her. The voice sounded slurred but smooth. It was also young and musical, the type of voice anyone would admire with a guy but as much as it sounded good, it also sounded like the voice of the devil – wicked and ruthless.
She screamed in frustration as she tried hard to get to the source and know the owner of the voice but the darkness surrounding her held her that she could not move more two inches after two hours of struggling.
Anna opened her eyes but closed them back as she really wanted to return to the dream and try harder to get to the source of that voice. When she finally sat up after thirty minutes of trying to go back to sleep, she found out she was wet all over from sweating.
She groaned in frustration before dialing Joyce's number to get her cold water. There was knock on the door after about five minutes of ordering for ice cold water and when she opened it, she saw Joyce panting while holding a tray of three bottles of very cold water with droplet of water dripping down their plastic bodies.
She grabbed the bottles from the tray and smiled to Joyce before closing the door and returned to the living area of her room. She uncapped the first bottle of water and immediately drowned down the whole bottle of water before going to the bathroom to take her bath and wash off the sticky sweat on her.