Page 13 of Brave
Lying on her stomach, Puppy blinked until her bedroom came into focus and she remembered where she was.
“I don’t think you’ve ever slept this late before. Rough night?” her mother asked, sliding open the closet door. Plastic hangers clattered as she pulled out matching clothes.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Puppy murmured. She felt the light plop of pants and shirt being draped over her blanketed feet.
“We’ll get you some melatonin to help with that,” her mother breezed. “Up, up!” She clapped her hands. “I’ll put lunch on the table.”
And out of the room she went, the door closing softly behind her.
Burying her face back in her pillow, Puppy muffled a groan and then glanced at the clock on her nightside table. Panic drilled straight through her when she read noon on the digital display. It hit her heart and her breath caught.
Ethen would never have allowed her to sleep this late, not even when she was sick. Six a.m., every morning without fail. That was when the menagerie got up and started their routine. Exercise first, then showers, then chores. Pony did the cooking, breakfast and coffee; Puppy packed the lunches, straightened the kitchen, and then they each got ready for work. Just because he was in jail and even though there were only two of them left, that didn’t mean the routine was allowed to deviate.
Kicking back the blankets, Puppy bolted upright, but froze when she saw Pony. Sitting on the edge of her cot in nothing but the harness she’d slept in, Pony studied her, silent and unsmiling. Her hands on her knees, her back straight. Her pale face was drawn, and the dark half-circles under her eyes seemed more like black-eyes in the shadows of her bedroom, since her mother hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on.
“I don’t think I’m feeling well,” Puppy hedged. Grabbing her clothes off the foot of the bed, she went naked to the adjacent bathroom and quickly shut the door.
After only the briefest hesitation, she locked the door—yet another of Ethen’s rules she was breaking—and backed from it until her heel hit the side of the tub. She sat before she fell, and there she stayed, hugging her clothes to her chest while her heart raced in dread. Did Pony know?
The flare of panic became sharp enough to slice. Jumping for the bathroom sink, she looked inside the cupboard where she’d hidden last night’s horribly mismatching outfit, wadded up with the wet towel she’d ruined. All were gone.
The bottom fell out of her world, and her stomach went with it.
Retreating back to the tub, she crawled all the way in it and sat huddled in the bottom, hugging her clothes and trying not to cry.
She was caught. Although there was no way Pony could know exactly what she’d done, she had the wet towels from Puppy’s illicit self-punishment and she had the clothes she’d gone to Black Light in. All of that, she knew, would be laid out for Ethen the next time they went to visit him. He would bully her until she admitted what she’d done, and then he was going to punish her.
Pressing her clothes over her mouth, she tried not to hyperventilate. Ethen could go fuck himself. She didn’t care about Ethen. He couldn’t lay so much as a finger on her while he was in prison.
But he wasn’t going to be in prison for that much longer.
He was getting out, and when he did, then she would have to go back to him because if she didn’t… Pony…
She pressed her hands harder over her mouth, smothering the squeak of dismay she just couldn’t kill.
A creak of a floorboard right outside the bathroom door let her know Pony had got up from her cot and was now standing right outside.
She couldn’t hide in here forever. She couldn’t even hide in here all day.
Bowing her head, with shaking hands, she got dressed. Jeans today, with sparkles on the back pockets and a pink sweater with cat ears and whisker lines drawn on the tummy. Her mother had even found pink socks to match it. She hated pink, but she put it on and, trying not to look as guilty or scared as she felt, forced herself to open the door.
Pony got dressed too, staying right there so she could stare at her with grim, carefully masked accusation deep in her blue eyes. She stepped back when Puppy tried to slip out the door past her but followed right on her heels as she gathered her shoes to put them on. “Where did you go?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Puppy whispered, her eyes on her shoes, because her hands were already shaking and it didn’t matter anyway. Pony knew she was lying. Pony always knew.
“Where did you go?” Pony asked again, her brittle tone a little harder.
“Girls,” her mother called down the hall from the kitchen. “Lunch is ready!”
Puppy hurriedly tied her shoes and jumped up, dodging past Pony, who again stepped out of the way, only to fall into step right behind her. They came down the hall together, with Pony not more than a step behind her, and Puppy hanging her head with guilt.
Sinking into her seat at the table, Puppy stole an immediate sip from the glass of milk waiting for her and kept her stare locked on the grass weave patterned place setting so she wouldn’t have to look at anyone else.
“Have we got great things planned for today?” her mother asked, a little too brightly.
“I want to go to Master,” Pony said, sitting directly across the table from Puppy.
Stomach rolling, Puppy sipped her milk.
