to need a team of maids, and the cooks had such large responsibilities that they had needed two.
Now, though, they came out of the house in waves, with her father's screeches of rage echoing in the large mansion. Her mother, she couldn’t help but notice, was silent, standing there with her hands folding in front of her black pantsuit, hair still perfectly done.
The door of a black Ford Explorer was held open for her. She looked back at Frankie and the other staff members and realized that, even if she did come back, this would be the last time she saw them. She grabbed onto him and hugged him, crying her heart and soul out into his white, starched shirt.
The goodbyes were said in a blur, everyone saying that they would miss her and remember her, and she them. In truth, she believed that the staff was her real family. Not her father. Not his family. Not her mother’s family. But her mother...She stared back into the house with watery eyes, and saw nothing but her mother’s grave face.
And then she stepped into the car and it closed in her face.
It was a silent, painful ride. The men in the front said not one word to her, and it took a whole two days before they actually entered Colorado. She often stared at the men, waiting for the guns to be pulled out and a shower of bullets to rain around them. They were dressed in straight black suits, both dark haired and wearing sunglasses. When they stopped at a hotel, they got two bedrooms, theirs adjacent to hers and the door open at all times.
The strong call for security, though, was lost on her. It wasn’t as if they treated her with respect, or even if she were alive. Instead, it was like she was an object that couldn’t get scratched but had no meaning besides deliverance. But, then again, she guessed that’s what she was.
When she should have been sleeping, she thought of the people that would be looking over her. Who was it, she thought. Who was going to have to change their lifestyles just to watch over a girl that was unwanted by even her own father?
That question was answered shortly after the long night at the hotel. Colorado, she found out, was a very cold place. Very dry place. Very beautiful place, with trees and land and kind people.
But that, of course, changed when they started to travel farther into the forests and mountains. The setting reminded her like something out of Beauty and the Beast, simply because of how dark it got, and how quickly the setting turned ominous.
“Did you guys miss a turn?” she asked thinly, turning her head to look out of the window again. The only time she had asked them a question was when she had to use the bathroom.
The one in the passenger side turned his head, and gave a short, abrupt, “No”. And then he turned around and went back to his stony silence.
Jamie wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her backpack to her chest as if it would keep her safe. The car didn’t have headlights on, and she didn’t think they even planned to turn them on at all. Her skin crawled.
Something white flashed outside of her window, making her scream and drop her bag. “Oh my god, did you see that?” Her high-pitched voice had the men turning a cold shoulder on her, and it didn’t help her nerves at all. Her stomach roiled, and she thought that at any moment, the car would be flipped over and they would all be eaten alive.
Her fears, she later learned, were useless. Nothing came after their car, and they didn’t die. Instead, the men drove calmly on the paved path, farther into the forest than she could have ever imagined.
Hate, for her father and everything he had done, shot through her. Why was he doing this to her? Why wasn’t he giving her a chance? Jamie felt tears sting her eyes -- why did this have to be happening to her? Right now, she could be with Alexis at the mall, with Carry playing Tennis, or emailing her pen pal.
In no time at all, the car pulled drew up short and, half asleep, she barely registered the squeak of wrought iron gates. Jamie lifted her head from her arms and blinked, staring out into the dark. The care smelled of leather, men, and her own tears. Had