XXI

It took the police officers about five minutes of ransacking her place before they discovered her safe. She mentally cursed when she saw one man walk toward the kitchen where she stood and placed the safe on the island counter.

"Well what do we have here? " the detective questioned sounding intrigued, he looked at Bella and motioned for the box

"Give me the code" he demanded and she all but shook her head

"I don't think I can do that" she said.

"This can go the easy way, or the hard way Ms Ray, choose carefully" he said. She could hear it his voice, a certain tone of laughter, as if to egg her on in defying him on purpose just so he could have an excuse to actually arrest her.

Sin knew that she didn't want to open the safe, regardless of whether the man really worked for the Hawaii police department or if he was on duty for someone else, because what it contained would fuck her over either way.

"I believe she's doesn't have to, if she doesn't want to" Xavier defended and the detective all but smirked

"Perhaps she'll feel more compelled to back at the station then" he said signalling one of the men to cuff her hands.

She resisted the urge to kill the young man before her as he dangled the steel clasps before her, she hated confinement and chains. However, she would bid her time, they were too 

many of them and she was without a weapon.

Although Xavier made to protest, one shake of her head halted his attempts as he took his own cell phone out to make a call. She wondered as she was headed outside, just who it was he was calling, if they would be of help at all or not. It was approaching the evening as the sun readied for its slumber and she preferred to look at the view of it, rather than the looks she received from Lilah and Milo.

From concern to panic and worry, humans and their emotions, she scoffed in her mind. Neither would help, so why feel them at all to begin with. Perhaps she should have known by the fact that she was shoved in a private car rather than a police cruiser instead, that something would go wrong,then again maybe she did, hence she didn't care for the tearing of skin she felt as she tried to get out of her cuffs, alas, the young man had made sure to give the steel no breathing room with how tight he had locked them in.

The drive took much longer than it should have, listening to nothing but silence as the detective sat on the passenger seat and the other police officer drove the car. It was when they started driving out of the city that her heart spiked up and the Bobby pin in her hand did nothing but fall behind her as 

she failed to get it in the key hole of the cuffs. It was when they drove into an area with a lot of containers that she asked.

"Where are we, where have you taken me?" she asked and although she sounded calm, her mind was not and she heard them chuckle.

They said nothing as they parked the car in a barely lit area still surrounded by nothing but towering stacked containers. They got out and the detective opened her door only to manhandle her arm in order to pull her out. When she stood on her feet, the man her height shoved her back against the car only to make her hiss on impact from the irritation on her wrists.

He smirked at that, only to lick his lips as he trailed his eyes from her bare feet to the exposed skin of her legs and thighs and to the peaked buds of her breasts through the cotton of the shirt she wore.

"It's a pity that I got strict orders not to touch you, but I wonder" he started pressing against her front, trailing his finger on her thigh causing her to jerk and hiss with a snarl

"Would it make a difference?" he asked "Being that you've possibly already been touched by someone else" his words made questions run rampant in her mind. And Sin could only wonder who it was that sent him, and she spat

"Get your filthy hands off me before I do it myself" only to shove her knee before his, causing him to groan in pain. She should have expected it then, when he cussed and stood back up with anger on his face, the brutal sting on her cheek as he backhanded her and her face could do nothing but turn at the impact.

"Bitch" he spat before he punched her gut for good measure, causing her to bend over from the pain.

Taking advantage of her vulnerable bent position, he took out the syringe from the inside of his suit jacket and she could only still when she felt something pierce the back of her neck. She knew she had fucked up then, her lack of attempt to escape with the hope of finding the perfect moment to make her move. For as she felt her lids get heavy, she knew she was screwed and she had no one else to blame but herself.

So much for having been a Class A assassin and the best in her class, she couldn't even get out of tight cuffs, how disappointing. Of all the training she had ever received, she couldn't escape to save her life when it most mattered. The thoughts, the disappointment and anger ate away at her and not only in reality but they had seeped into the darkness of her dreams as 

well.

As she came to into nothing but darkness she knew she was in one of the containers she had seen, whether she was moving or not, that was the question. She didn't know how long she had been locked in, cuffs rubbing raw against her wrists, she could easily ignore the pain with the grogginess she felt.

She tried to keep her mind strong, from counting to trying to remember the colours of things she loved the most, from the ocean to the sunset, to the array of candies and the taste of ice creams, to the new colourful closet she had. Then to the image of Cassidy and her antics, her smiles, Xavier's lips and kisses, to his touch and the firmness of his muscles. She thought of anything and everything to distract her mind from the eternal darkness and the scent of the urine she couldn't keep in.

It was with her incapability to no longer hold back from messing on herself along with her period that she knew for just how long she had been confined within the tin of a container. Two weeks and counting and she was beginning to feel the effects of not only the lack of movement in her bones but the lack of food in her stomach as the first hunger pain struck.

It had been so long since she had felt the pain, she found it funny how nostalgic it felt as it brought back the memory of the house. And that became all that haunted her dreams, the memories from the house, the cursed house that had fucked her mind in a ways no one could ever surpass.

***********************************

The little five-year-old sat on the ground of the kitchen, a bowl of charms on her lap as she ate freely. For no one else was in the house and she was left alone as usual. Perhaps it was why she was startled when her supposed new big brother strolled into the kitchen only to stop. Her doe black eyes clashed with his own browns, wide with surprise and fear, for the boy intimidated her.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" he started walking toward her only to stand before her.

"Little mouse came out of her hiding hole" he grabbed the bowl on her lap and gave it a look. She knew she was in trouble minute his face turned from amusement to anger

"Are these my lucky charms?" he questioned his tone low as he glared at the little girl only five years younger. She stilled then at the question for she wasn't allowed to eat unless given the food to eat, and that never included the breakfast she loved. She had thought she could get away with it, but oh how wrong she was.

"I asked you a question!" she startled as he angry spat and she gave a hesitant slow nod as her eyes watered. He smirked then and said, knowing fully well the effects his words would have on the frightened little girl

"Then I guess we'll have to wait for my mom and dad and hear what they have to say, won't we little mouse?" her eyes about bugged out of her face in absolute terror.

All she knew was that her foster father was terrifying with the scowl he always wore in her direction and her foster mother wasn't as kind as her own mother used to be. She didn't give her belly kisses and tickles nor did her eyes have her mother's kindness.

It was when they sat down for dinner that she knew they already knew, simply by the fact that she didn't even have a plate before her as she was forced to watch them eat their dinner. She felt her little tummy rumble then and they all looked at her and she could only shrink into her seat.

"Are you hungry sweetie?" her foster mother questioned sweetly, but she knew that there was something wrong with her smile, her little brain told her so.

"But you already ate, didn't you?" came the question. And she gave a timid nod, and the woman's face turned cold then.

"Then you don't have to eat again. You know what? come on, let's go to your room" she said getting up, and Bella trembled as she dropped of her chair and fiddled with her hands. She really didn't like her room. And perhaps just so, considering that it was nothing but a broom closet that had no light, and it was common knowledge that little girls were afraid of the dark.

"In you go" instructed her foster mother, and Little Bella's heart all but stopped when she saw the key in the woman's hand as she walked into the confined space. And she knew there would be no way for her to leave the door slightly open just to let the little light creep in. Grasping the door handle, the woman said with her pointer finger aimed at her

"Now you will remain in here and think about what you did wrong, and the consequences of it" with her final word she closed the door and Bella heard her lock it. And she knew she wouldn't be let out for hours on end.

She sat against the wall with her knees pulled to her chest, eyes clenched shut as she tried to free her mind and not think of the monsters that lived within the dark. Her eyes leaked salty waters then, as she wondered why her new family didn't love her. She cried for her mom and dad and the little hunger pains that assaulted her tummy.

She jumped startled then, her heart painfully seizing when a hand beat against the door. Although she knew the weird sounds were the antics of her foster brother, with her eyes clenched shut and her very active young mind, it made it hard for her to not think that a huge monster was trying to get at her.

**************************************

Torturing and traumatic are such experiences to a young mind, they left behind a trail of scars that will never be healed, that perhaps it was sound that she woke up with a start at the sounds of clanking steel and groans of the sheep outside, only to fall back into sleep. She was knocked out when she felt it, the bruising assault of water.

Not mere cold water from a bucket, however, a torrential beating of water from a hose and she wondered as she could barely breath from the sudden assault, if whether they were using a fire truck hose or not. She had no energy to react when cold aggressive hands dragged her out only to drop her onto the concrete floor.

She cared little for how exposed she was, from the shirt that exposed the swell of her breasts, to the lack of cover it provided her lower parts. She had simply put the oversized shirt on that afternoon, and hadn't bothered with underwear for she hadn't expected she would be laying on the ground before him again. She hadn't expected to arouse his sick mind as his eyes fell on her beaten body as she let out shallow breaths.

Deacon could only resist the urge to take her as she was, just to punish her some more for what she had done and put him through. Despite a part of him not liking the image of his sweet Bella barely clothed before his men, he made no move to help her up.

She didn't fight the unconsciousness when it claimed her again, for she felt tired, drained and confused as to what the hell was going on, and all she knew was that she didn't want to feel the pain anymore, from her stomach, to the rest of her body shivering from the cold damp ground and windy weather.

All she became certain of as she went back under was that she was back in the city, from the familiar noise of it, to the chill that came with it, the deeper kind that went beyond her veins. Deacon let his man pick her up and place her into the car, and they drove back to his home, the one he was now in charge of since his father renounced his Don-ship to him.

He simply smiled the kind of smile dripping with satisfaction, for his Bella was finally home with him, and despite having a wife now, he thought, once Bella became the person he would make her to be, she would be a perfect replacement of his soon to be ex-wife. Sure the woman was a freak in bed, but he was most annoyed by the notion of what it implied, nor was she Killer Sunshine.