During lunch, the six of us sit down at the usual quiet spot in the garden and talk about what has been going on in class or the problems they're having. However, I couldn't help but feel a sense of fear and anger coming from Michael. It is similar to the scent I got from him this morning, yet it is a bit stronger now.
"Michael," I call out suddenly.
Michael, who sits diagonal from me, moves to face me. "Yes, Lady Viola?"
"Is everything okay in class?" I ask before taking a bite from my sandwich.
"Of course. Why do you ask?" Michael wonders.
"You look bothered like there is something on your mind," I comment, passing the bottle of water to Michael. "Did something happen?"
Michael doesn't answer. He absently looks down at the water bottle in his hands before he locks eyes with me. Even though he doesn't say anything, his eyes are telling me everything.
"Visit me before going to bed tonight. We can talk about it there," I tell Michael as I continue eating.
He just gratefully smiles and resumes eating as well returning his joyful nature as he teases Isaac about the accident he had in class.
After school, Isaac and Michael follow me around as I do my rounds while Xander and Alex are seeing to their squads.
"Isaac, do you mind if I ask you about your time with Black Snow and what they had the kids do?" I ask as I check the estate's garden. "I understand if it might be hard for you, but I need to know as much about them as I can."
"They are evil people," Isaac starts off.
"People? So it's not just men?" I question pulling a few weeds near the plants.
"The men are the ones who beat the kids into submission. The women do the real job of kidnapping," Isaac elaborates. "They find kids who got separated from their parents and tell them that they will help them find them. The women bring the kids to a tent where all the other kidnapped kids are that they found that day and feed them in order to trick them into thinking that they are safe. However, the drinks that they are served are laced with snowberries."
Snowberries are a type of berry that has evolved over hundreds of years to withstand the constant freezing temperatures. When Eshea was still just a small village, one of the kids found a tiny bush of them on the outskirts of the woods and brought it home. The family didn't think much of them and ate the berries. However, snowberries are quite dangerous.
Snowberries' juices contain a compound that causes whoever eats them to fall into a deep sleep. This was so that the plant would not be eaten by predators. The length of one's slumber is determined by how many berries they ate and how big the person is. If a child were to eat five snowberries, she would fall asleep for a few days; but if an adult were to eat five snowberries, he or she would either sleep for just a day or not be affected at all.
During the aristocracy and monarchy times, snowberries were used in the medical field to have patients fall into a deep sleep prior to procedures before anesthesia was created. A special garden was created at each hospital to imitate the cold nature the Northern Country used to have in order to grow more of these berries.
"While the kids are asleep, the women would tend to the kids' larger wounds and have the men carry them into their assigned cages where they await the day a slave buyer purchases them or an auction is held," Isaac finishes.
"You said that the men beat the kids into submission. What exactly is the circumstance for that to happen?" I continue to question as we make our way to the garden shed.
"Most kids are very weak when found, so when they wake up to see themselves in a cage, they give up since they know that they aren't strong enough to escape. Some kids that the women capture, on the other hand, become very disobedient and rowdy when they wake up and find that they have been kidnapped," Isaac resumes carrying a bag of dirt over to its respective pile.
"The men will drag the kids out of the cage into a separate tent where they chain the kids to a metal pole and proceed to hit them with whips and bats until the kids give up or pass out. The cycle continues until the kids who were being defiant become submissive and then auctioned or bought off."
"I'm assuming you were one of those defiant children judging from all the scars on your body," I comment from behind a clipboard.
"What do you mean?" Michael asks, suddenly dropping the bag he has in arms to the ground.
"Isaac, did you really get whipped and beaten that bad?"
"Have you never seen Isaac's back even though you two are in the same room?" I question, astonished by Michael's reaction.
"Isaac would already have at least a shirt on by the time I come back from the showers," Michael replies, picking up the bag he dropped. "Ah! That's not to say that you have to show me your back if you don't want to. You might be uncomfortable showing that to some stranger you just met a few days ago."
Isaac looks over at me then smiles. "You are no longer a stranger to me," Isaac states. "The moment that you became the Young Lady's aide is the day that we became friends. It would be rude to call a fellow aide a stranger since we serve the same master. And maybe we can become a family if you decide to officially join the Winter Family. I don't mind showing you my back as long as you don't take pity on me. The Young Lady does a wonderful job patching up my back every night before I go to bed. I am no longer ashamed of the scars that get left over because I know who was the one that tended to them when they used to be open wounds."
As he exits the shed, removing the apron that protected his uniform from the dirt, Isaac grips my shoulder. "I was sold three times. I was captured when I was just ten years old. At first, I was very obedient because I was still small and had no power, but that didn't mean that I did not have a plan to escape.
"I was first bought at an auction just six months after I was caught. The man who bought me was very kind in the beginning, keeping me for around three years. He fed me a lot of food in exchange for simple chores around the house. I thought that being a slave wasn't actually so bad. It was when he found out that his wife was leaving him that he became mean. He would grab me by my hair and throw me around his office and then beat me with his cane which gave me my first set of scars. He sold me off to Black Snow when I tried to run away one night. That's when I found out about the torture tent. All day they would beat me, but I didn't give in because I was determined to get out of there. However, after five days, I knew that I was going to die if I got another day of beatings, so I retreated for now, faking my submission.
"The second time I was bought was when I was fourteen. This time it wasn't an auction. I was personally bought as a gift to a rich woman's daughter. The daughter treated me horribly. If things didn't go her way at the house, she would take her anger out on me punching and kicking. Some nights she would call me into her room and have me lay with her as she touched me with her small hands. I didn't like any of it, but if I did something to the daughter, the woman would beat me. I needed to save as much strength as possible in order to escape.
"Needless to say, that one year I spent there was a living nightmare. I tried to escape during the evening of one of the daughter's strolls through the greenhouse. However, as soon as I reached the exit there were two guards on the other side of the door. That lead me to be sold off again to Black Snow where I spent another five days in the torture tent.
"The last time I was bought was when I was sixteen. The man appeared completely normal. He wasn't menacing or had any inclination of evil. It was when he brought me home that I found out that I was going to be this man's sex toy. He said that he liked how beat up and rough I looked and that it was a huge turn on for him. The man kept me in a room with no windows. Just a door to a bathroom and a door to the hallway. The door to the hallway was locked from the other side, so I couldn't escape.
"Every night, he would come to my room and make me do horrible things. He would take out his frustration on me, and I would be in excruciating pain when he would finish. Sometimes I can still hear his disgusting voice in my head or feel his hot breath on my neck. In the end, he sold me back to Black Snow when he got tired of me two years later.
"During the trip back to the tents, I saw the steel walls that bordered the city. I made a break for it when the men took me out of the cage and turned their backs to me to grab another kid that they bought back. One of the men noticed me running and came chasing after me with a whip in hand to hit me with. A few of the lashes landed on my back which would cause me to fall into the snow. Every time I got back up, they would be just a few feet closer. When I made it to the wall, I gave it every last bit of energy I had left to turn into a bat and fly over it and into the city."
"Why didn't you turn into a bat any other time to escape or bite your enemies to suck their blood and kill them?" I ask as the three of us head back to the main house.
Isaac looks ahead, but he tightly clutches his fists. "I lost my parents a year before I was captured, so they couldn't teach me properly. However, they would tell me stories about how they would turn into a bat and traverse through the snow to find shelter. My parents said that it takes a lot of energy to turn into a bat, so I shouldn't do it when I'm weak because it could end up causing a bad reaction. When a vampire eats appropriately, he doesn't feel the effect of turning into a bat because he has plenty of energy to spare. I was a weak child who barely ate anything, so I couldn't turn into a bat even if I was forced to.
"I didn't bite anyone because my parents always told me that vampires shouldn't drink from live prey. They said that it would be disrespectful to bite someone out of nowhere without their consent. Even during the harsh times in the snow, my parents were always living up to the vampire code of ethics. Every time I thought about killing these horrible people by sucking their blood dry, my parents would pop up with their 'no-biting rule' and make me stop."
"Well, aren't you a good boy for holding up that one rule?" I joke trying to make Isaac smile.
Isaac glances down at me and smirks. "You say that, but having such a beautiful young lady beside me all day does give its own set of temptations," he replies snobbishly.
I jerk my blushing face up to Isaac to find him laughing. I punch his shoulder then run behind Michael.
"Don't worry, Lady Viola! I will save you from this evil vampire," Michael shouts holding my hand in his while he stretches out his other hand towards Isaac. "You shall never bite the young lady's precious neck, you fiend!"
"Stop me if you can!" Isaac yells as he runs after me chasing me through the yard with Michael following behind him. "I will have your blood as my feast!"
"Who will save me from this hungry man?" I loudly ask laughing as I head to the door that leads into the main house.
When I open the door, I collide into a hard object nearly falling backwards. A sudden warmth wraps under me. I open my eyes to find Xander holding me in one arm while the other grasps the top of the door frame. Isaac and Michael catch up and stop behind me.
"Are you okay, Master?" Xander asks as he raises me back up.
I fix my clothes then look back up. "I'm fine. We were just playing around on our way back to the house."
Xander peers behind me to examine Michael and Isaac. "As long as you're safe, that's all that matters," he nonchalantly reminds, judging the two guys. "You should come inside now. It's getting dark, and you need to finish looking over some documents that the mayor sent over today for a new construction site."
"Okay," I dreadfully reply, slowly sliding my way past Xander.
As Michael and Isaac begin to walk up to the door, Xander stops them. "You two need to be more careful with Master."
"What's your problem?" Michael interrogates, glaring at Xander.
"Winter Vessels are extremely fragile people. If Master gets hurt in a certain spot, she could break."
"What do you mean by break?" Isaac questions looking worried.
"According to Delic, Winter Vessels each have a thin spot somewhere within them. If that spot gets hit, the whole body will suffer, and Master will be rendered immobile."
"Then where is this spot, so we know what to look out for?" Michael continues to interrogate.
Xander, irritated by Michael's attitude, turns away from him. "We don't know where it is," he mutters just loud enough to be heard.
"What do you mean you don't know? Why don't you give us some complete answers?" Michael drills.
"Winter Vessels are all different," Xander barks at Michael. "What might be a weak spot for one isn't for another. That's why we have to be very careful and vigilant when guiding Master. If she breaks, then this whole city is doomed to have the same fate as those on the outside."
Michael pushes Xander from the doorway. "We get it, Mr. Guard Dog. It's not like we were taking our jobs lightly in the first place. As long as she is in my field of scope, I won't let anything happen to her." With that, Michael walks away towards my room leaving Isaac and Xander standing outside.
"I fragile spot, huh?" Michael whispers to himself. "I think I might know where it is."