Eventually, Zelda sang, “I want to be like other girls, scrape up my knee like other girls can, just to be free like other girls….”
“Get to be!”
We stood up, dancing around and singing.
She sang, “To speak for myself.”
I smiled, “To sing way off key.”
We were a duet for, “Marry someone I’ve met who likes me for me.”
I sang, “No escorts!”
She sang, “No manners!”
“No nursemaids!”
“No worries!”
Together we sang, “No hands folded perfect…like holding a lily.”

Before we could continue, Zelda grabbed my hand, shaking it twice. I smiled. We spun under our hands. When facing each other again, we hit our left hands together, then our right a little higher, and our left again a little higher than that. We hit our right hands a little lower, gripped hands, and then brought our elbows down as if cheering and screamed, “Boom!” We spun around, letting go and facing away from each other and hitting both hands together while they were by our sides. We gripped hands. Zelda jumped as I bent over, making her flip over me. My back ached, but that didn’t bother me. We were now facing each other, and she pretended to hold a gun to my chest. I used my right hand to knock her hands out of the way and used my left to hit her forehead. We highfived with our right hands, held them, bumped hips twice, and then went through the series of claps from Miss. Mary Mack (you know, hitting our shoulders with our opposite hands, hitting our thighs with the hand on the same side, clapping, and then highfiving our right hands, clapping, our left hands, clapping, and our right hands again). We then blew kisses to either side of each other, bumped fists, locked them, pulled our hands back, and brought them back together in a handshake.

This was the long version. Zelda immediately went to the short version, pumping my hand twice. We went through it up to facing away from each other, and then I hit her left hand with my right, her right hand with my left, and then spun, highfiving and grabbing hands, bumping our hips. The rest of it was all the same.

I figured I’d describe it, instead of just saying that we did our handshake, the long and short version.

Once done doing the handshake, Zelda hit my forehead, “Should’ve had a V-8!”

I laughed and dove for her. She moved, sticking her tongue out.

“Don’t make me go all crazy white girl on you,” I warned her.

“I’ll match your crazy whiteness, girl, so don’t you mess with me!”

“You’re reverse double-stuffed, sister, so I don’t know what kind of front you’re trying to pull!”

“Fo-shizzle!”

We fell over laughing, unable to help it. Once we calmed down, I remembered a song we had memorized a while ago and haven’t sung or even thought of for a long time. I decided to start it.

“It’s not the east or the west side.”
She took to it immediately.
“No it’s not.”
“It’s not the north or the south side.”
“No it’s not.”
“It’s the dark side.”
“You are correct.”
I decided to change it after that.
“We ran out of chocolate chip cookies.”
“No! Don’t tell the Wookies!”
“But they aren’t on our side.”
“Without the cookies, we lose power.”
“It must be a job on the inside.”
“Maybe while we were in the shower.”

I stared at Zelda. She looked back at me. After ten seconds, we both screamed, “STALKER!!!” and fell over laughing again.

This happy moment in the midst of all the pain and torture felt so out of place that it made me laugh harder. I was still laughing when Zelda randomly started singing again.

“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight….”
“Oh, I just can’t wait to be king!”
Random, but hey, they both have to do with lions.

“You’ve rather a long way to go, young master, if you think…”
Zelda’s voice was so close to Zazu, and the accent so precise, I could imagine she was the one doing the voice in the movie.

“No one saying do this!” I jumped to my feet. She stood up slowly, “Now, when I said that I….”

“No one saying be there!” I pointed to one spot, and jumped to another. She sighed, “What I meant was….”

“No one saying stop that!” I tickled her. She pushed me away, laughing, “Look, what you don’t realize….”

“No one saying see here!” I made faces at her. She screamed, “Now see here!”

“Free to run around all day!” I ran in circles around her, throwing cartwheels and having fun. She watched me, smiling and laughing, “Well, that’s definitely out….”

“Free to do it all my way!”
Zelda decided she wanted to skip a bunch of the song.

“Everybody look left!” She commanded. We made a big show of looking to the left.

“Everybody look right!” That was me. We looked right.

“Everywhere you look I’m…,” she jumped in front of me, striking a pose, “standing in the spotlight!”

I pulled her back, taking her place, “Not…yet!”
“Hakuna Matata, chica!” She said, hugging me from behind. I laughed.
“It means no worries for the rest of your days!”
“It’s our problem free philosophy!”
“Hakuna Matata!”
“Hakuna Matata?”
“Yeah, it’s our motto.”
“What’s a motto?”
I flicked her nose, “Nothing, what’s a-motto with you? Haha!”
“You’re so predictable.”

I tilted my head and took the back-ups for Predictable by Good Charlotte, wondering if that was where she was getting at, “So predictable.”

She immediately started singing part of the song, and I began wondering if we had some form of telepathy or if we just knew each other too well.

“Now everywhere I go, everyone I meet, every time I try to fall in love, they all wanna know why I’m so broken. Why am I so cold? Why I’m so hard inside. Why am I scared? What am I afraid of? I don’t even know. This story never had an end; I’ve been waiting; I’ve been searching; I’ve been hoping; I’ve been dreaming you would come back, but I know the ending of this story; you’re never coming back. NEVER!”

She grit her teeth angrily and switched to the end without a second thought.

“Everywhere I go for the rest of my life! Everyone I love! Everyone I care about! They’re all going to know what’s wrong with me, and I know what it is!”

“I’m ending this right now!”

As you can guess, that so-o-o-o-o wasn’t Zelda.

Sheik Wolf

3.3
I apologized to Mickey, and we proceeded to have a Rock Band tournament with me on vocals and him on guitar. We kicked butt. After an hour or two, my grandma came over with my eight-year-old cousin. He played base. She played drums. All four of us were on hard, and we still beat it with flying colors. Shows how much of a life my family has.

Once bored with that, we decided to have a Disney Song Sing-Along. We found every single Disney song we loved, put them on a quick list on Youtube, and proceeded to sing and dance in our own little party. Once we got to I’ll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan, Mickey and I did all the motions, or at least pretended to. Grandma and my cousin clapped and laughed, since we looked professionally ridiculous.

My parents came home when Grandma went to the bathroom. They told us to stop being immature, but they never turned the music off. My grandma jumped into the room and sang, “I’m brushing up on looking down. I’m working on my….”

She proceeded to roar exactly as Simba does in the movie.

My parents looked at her. It was silent except for the song for about five seconds, and they both my parents screamed, “Oh, I just can’t wait to be king!”

So much for being immature.

We continued dancing and singing and messing around, realized it was too late to make a nice dinner, and ordered pepperoni pizza.

Then, we all had Klondike bars and watched The Grinch Stole Christmas, even though its not Christmas time.

It was a typical day of bonding for my family, even though it only happens every so often.

Mickey pulled me along with him when he was going to leave, and we faced each other on the porch.

“I’m sorry for overreacting,” he said, cutting straight to the point.
I shook my head, “You didn’t. You were right.”
“But you aren’t going to listen anyway, are you?”
I smiled slightly, “Bye, Mickey.”
He ruffled my hair, his eyes sad, walked to his car, and drove away.
I went back inside.

Grandma was blasting “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and pretending to strip in the middle of the living room. Seeing me, she screamed, “Don’t look!”

I was laughing too hard to even wonder why she didn’t mind my parents staring at her dance, yet she minded me watching.

Of course, she didn’t mind me watching when my mom and I joined her in making up so-called sexy moves for the dance.

The song immediately changed to Don’t Trust Me by 3Oh!3.

My Grandma sang all the words up to the ones about Helen Keller. Then, she said, “That’s degrading, what was going through their minds!”
What about the rest of the song, Grandma?

Instead of asking that, I just sang the words instead.
“Sexist!”

I was surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth, so I replied, “Grandma, I’m a girl too, and an admitted feminist.”

She stared at me in complete shock, “You’re female?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

Yes, the way she said it deserved all the question marks and exclamation points.

I fell over, laughing hysterically, and had to go outside before I could calm down.

I love Grandma.

Sheik Wolf

3.4
Don stood in the doorway. He pointed to me and motioned for me to follow him. I cursed in my head.

Dang.

Sheik Wolf

3.5
At this point, Esme, Rosalie, and Alice were all dead.

As the Tralfamadorians would say…so it goes.

------------------------------------------

Surprisingly, I ended up in the shower, seething water flowing over me and the scent of watermelon shampoo filling the air. I sang. I mean; I was in the shower. Obviously, I’m going to sing. I would dance too, but that’s a little dangerous.

My cuts, scrapes, bruises, and every other injury Don placed on my body stung as if I had a torch to my skin, but I was so happy to be under the water that I barely noticed. Eventually, I closed my eyes, sighed, and turned off the water. I pulled the shower curtain aside.

Noah was standing there, eyes on me and a towel in hand. He smiled at me. I swallowed, a little scared, and then suddenly I was a little angry. I scowled at him.

“I’m not allowed to dry myself off?”
He tilted his head, “Want more bruises, SweeTart?”
I closed my mouth, my eyes flashing angrily.

He smiled happily, using the towel to wipe the water off my face. His touch was surprisingly gentle, relaxing me a little. His hands slid down my arms, relaxing my muscles even more. I closed my eyes, letting him move the towel over me slowly and gently, with a touch I never expected to feel here. He lifted me off my feet and set me down on the toilet to dry off my feet, and then he shocked me.

He kissed me, and it wasn’t the kind of kiss I’ve been getting the whole time here. You know, the this-is-going-to-lead-to-rape kiss. It was simply a kiss.

It was soft and sweet and lifted my spirits just a little. It gave me hope that I might actually be able to survive this, go home, and know what its like to kiss without fear, to…go all the way without fear. Maybe one day, I won’t be scared anymore.

Noah pulled away, and I raised an eyebrow when I saw that he was blushing. Dude, he’s seen me naked before. He’s done things to me before. What the hell is he blushing about?

He glared at me, “It’s too hot in here.”
I rolled my eyes, “Sure.”

His hand clenched around my throat and his face was suddenly right in front of mine, “Don’t make me hurt you.”

His group was loose enough so that I could talk, and I did.

“Oh, as if you aren’t going to do that anyway.”

--------------------------------

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, and no, I will never learn.

---------------------------------------------

Some time later, I was back in the room with Zelda. This time, there was a new girl there. She looked scared to death upon seeing me in a tank top and shorts. I didn’t understand why until Zelda told her, in all seriousness, “She’s a pain in the butt. You won’t have that problem.” She used the other word besides butt. That’s not the point. I understood that the new girl was scared because of the bruises and such.

I rolled my eyes, “If we were on a beach, I’d kick sand in your eyes.”

Zelda wrapped her arms around my knees, pulling me down onto the mattress beside her, “And I’d shove a shell up your butt.” Once again, she used the A-word.

The girl was looking back and forth between Zelda and I. Eventually, she asked, “Do you two like girls?”

We glanced at each other, and without a word hugged each other and snuggled, “Oh yeah. You?”

She whimpered, “No! I want to go home!” She turned around and punched a wall.

I shook my head, “You’re going to be a pain in the butt too, aren’t you?”

Zelda laughed, “We were kidding. We aren’t lesbians. We’re best friends.”

She sighed in relief, “Well, that explains why you can cuddle without looking awkward.”

Zelda and I glanced at each other. That’s normal?
I held out my hand, “I’m Sheik, but in their eyes I’m SweeTart.”
Her eyes grew wide, “You told them the wrong name?” I pulled my hand back.

Wow. This girl is going to be a handful. I took a second to take in her appearance. She had pitch black hair and super dark eyes. She was bigger than Zelda yet smaller than me, although she was older than us. She’s obviously a scared-y cat. This is going to be fun.

“It’s a nickname, almost like a stage name. You’ll get one, too. We just happened to choose ours. I’m Zelda, or Bloody Mary.”

She nodded slowly, “I’m Marta. I hope my nickname can be Yoda.”
You know, I think I’m going to like her. Let’s test the theory.
I turned to Zelda, “Earth. Sky. Day. Night.”
She smiled, “Sound and silence. Dark and light.”
Yoda blinked, “One alone is not enough. You need both together.”
Zelda and I went into duet, “Winter. Summer. Moon and sun! Lesson number one.”

“Like a rock!” Yoda jumped to her feet, punched with it, “Huh! Huh! You must be hard. Huh. Huh!”

“Like an oak!” Zelda jumped up, pretending to have a staff, “Mm-mah! You must stand firm. Huh. Huh!”

“Cut quick!” I stood up, swiping at Zelda, “Like my blade! Think fast! Huh. Huh! Unafraid.”

Someone knocked on the door. Yoda jumped, stared at the door, and inhaled slowly. Zelda and I stepped closer, our hands slipping into each other’s. Suddenly, Yoda let out a roar. We stared at her, ignoring the opening door. She shrugged, “It’s a dragon breath….”

Zelda and I laughed. She thought we were insane, especially since we were still laughing as Don walked in with Monty and Jack. Monty grabbed Zelda, and Jack grabbed me. They dragged us out of the room. Yoda stared at us the whole time. Don closed the door behind us. They took us down a hall, and into two separate rooms. Both Zelda and I were still laughing until the doors closed. I could hear her. As soon as the door closed, leaving Jack and I alone, I stopped laughing.

Why?

Chains were hanging from the ceiling. I was strung up, same as Lucy in Iron Jawed Angels, same as Zelda and I were one of the first days we were here. I don’t remember which one. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been here anymore.

Jack smiled, “What Don did to you is going to seem like a love-tap.”

I sighed and couldn’t keep myself from mumbling, “That’s reassuring….”

Sheik Wolf