Dream of Me: Book 1 The Dream Makers Series (20 page)

“I figured you would want me out of the way so that you and your guests could have a nice time,” Emma told her. She fought the urge to pull her arm out of the tight grasp. Her parents had never handled her so roughly. Oh, she had been spanked on occasion but never had her mama smacked her or hit her out of anger.

“I wants you out here where I can be keeping an eye on you. You can serve us and make yourself useful.”

Emma didn’t like the sound of that. “Are you sure? I’m terribly clumsy at times.” She was fibbing but she figured it was allowed if she was attempting to protect herself. Emma had a feeling being around the type of men her aunt entertained would not be in her best interest.

“Well, you better not spill anything on my guests or you’ll be punished. Didn’t my dear sister teach you bout sparing the rod n spoilin the child?”

Emma nearly snorted out a laugh. The idea of that woman spouting out Bible verses was about as ridiculous as a politician swearing on the Bible that he would be honest and put the people’s best interest first. Truly it was laughable. But Emma swallowed it down and simply nodded at her aunt.

One by one, Mildred’s friends began to arrive and with each new person the leering looks and snide comments increased. Emma couldn’t bring herself to appear meek or afraid. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of thinking they were getting to her. Instead, she met their gazes head on with a challenging one of her own. Her mama and daddy hadn’t raised a coward, and she would not lower herself in front of the likes of those people.

“She’s a pretty little thing, Milly,” one particularly shifty man said as he licked his fingers after having ripped his piece of turkey apart. Emma stood in the kitchen waiting for her aunt’s orders. Every so often her aunt would yell, ‘fill that glass, girl’ or ‘get us more food, you ingrate’. Emma bit her tongue over and over to keep from saying things that would only cause a flare in her aunt’s temper. She endured the looks from the men and the snide comments from the women. The final straw was when a man her aunt called Rat reached out and ran a finger down her cheek as she refilled his glass. Nobody would touch Emma without her permission. Her mama had always told her that her body belonged to herself, and no one had the right to touch it in any way.

Emma couldn’t stop her hand from flying up and slapping the disgusting appendage away from her face. Her eyes narrowed on the man called Rat, and she gritted her teeth as she spoke. “Didn’t your mama teach you any manners? I do not want you to touch me; please don’t.” Only her mama’s insistent reminders to be respectful had Emma saying please, though she knew this man did not deserve her respect.

“She’s a feisty one, Mildred,” Rat laughed as he continued to watch her. “You should sell her; she’d bring a pretty penny.”

“Sell her,” Mildred snapped. “She ain’t but. . .” She paused and looked over at Emma. “How old are you, girl?”

Emma straightened her shoulders as she stepped back away from the table. “I’m eight years old.”

“See, she’s only eight. What would I be selling her for?”

Rat’s eyes lingered much too long on Emma, causing her stomach to roll. “She’s only a few years away from breeding age; until then she could be put to work in a man’s house cooking and cleaning.”

“Why can’t she just be kept in my house to cook and clean? She’s my kin,” Mildred said as she smacked her food.

“She needs to be trained by a man if she’s to be a proper slave.”

Emma was pretty sure she was going to vomit all over the floor if she had to listen to any more of Rat’s disgusting talk of selling her and making her a slave to a man. Emma wasn’t stupid; she knew exactly what kind of slave he was talking about.  She would run away before she let that happen.
I’m not a victim,
she told herself. It was her mantra as she continued to listen to the disgusting, vile people who sat around the table eating food in celebration of a holiday that they didn’t even understand. When Mildred raised her glass and hollered, ‘Merry Christmas and all that crap’, Emma wanted to stomp her foot and tell them all how disgraceful their behavior was at such a time. They were supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus, and instead they spoke of disgusting acts and illegal things that no eight-year-old should ever have to hear about.

As the night grew later, the group became increasingly sluggish due to the alcohol they consumed and the drugs they were openly doing in front of her. When they were all finally gathered in the living room―lying around like lazy, fat rats―she began to walk slowly backwards toward her room, keeping her eyes on them all the while. As she made her way down the hallway, her eyes roaming the group wearily she wondered where Raphael was. She couldn’t see him and so she thought maybe he was standing guard using whatever cloaking power it was that angels had. She didn’t wonder about it too long because she was simply too tired to give it any more thought.

As she closed the door behind her, she turned the lock and then pressed her back against it and slowly slid to the floor. She wasn’t a victim, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared. Emma knew she would be foolish to not be afraid. The people currently on the other side of her wall were shameless, morally bankrupt degenerates with no conscience; at least that’s what her mother would say. They had nothing left to lose and her daddy told her those kind of people were the most dangerous sort. She was only eight years old. She had ten years left until she would be considered an adult. How was she going to survive ten years with a woman who cared nothing for her and would do nothing to protect her from the likes of people like Rat?

Emma didn’t realize she had fallen asleep sitting there on the floor until she was startled awake by the sound of the doorknob to her room turning. She reached up to make sure the lock was turned and let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. The knob continued to jiggle and Emma heard a string of curses from a deep yet very slurred voice. She stood up but her stomach seemed to remain on the floor as she backed away slowly from the door toward the window. Her eyes darted to the bed where her coat lay and in the process noted that Raphael still wasn’t there. When the jiggling turned into the sound of a shoulder against the door, she knew she needed to get out of there.

Emma grabbed her coat and quickly shoved her arms into the sleeves. As quietly as possible she pushed the window open, though she was sure whoever was on the other side of that door could hear her panicked breathing. Thankfully, Raphael had thought ahead and already greased the old, rusted window so that it wouldn’t make any noise should she ever need to use it to make a hasty exit. Emma could feel the cold air on her face as she began to climb through the window. She didn’t flinch when she heard the door give way to another hard shove but she tried to move more quickly. She thought she was going to make, but her movement was impeded by the prickly leaves on the bushes planted right in front of her window. Her first leg was touching the ground and she had begun to lift the other when he grabbed her.

“Gotcha,” the deep voice growled. She recognized the voice—Rat.

Emma attempted to pull her leg out of his grasp but he was much too strong for her. His other hand took hold of the braid in her hair and yanked her head back. She let out an involuntary cry as a sharp pain radiated through her scalp. He jerked her through the window and back into the dark room. Emma’s arms flailed out in front of her, desperate to grab anything that she could use to pull herself away from her attacker. It was useless. Her arms were just too short. When he tossed her onto the bed, she looked around frantically for anything that she could use as a weapon. A hand connected with her face before she could get her arms up to block the blow. She screamed inside her mind for Raphael. He was her guardian, her self-appointed protector, and though she didn’t know why he hadn’t been there that night, she knew he would come. He had to, because if he didn’t, things much worse than being slapped across the face were going to happen.

R
aphael took in a sharp breath as the desperation of Emma’s cry filled his mind. He knelt, head bowed in reverence, before the Creator which was the only reason he had not been with Emma that night. He had done as Darla asked and made sure the child arrived to her aunt’s safely, but then his Maker had called and he had to answer. Raphael had known it would be about Brudair but he had been surprised by the Creator’s questions.

“The child is in need,” the deep voice said as it radiated into his soul and covered Raphael in peace that only the Creator could give. “You have been guarding her?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly.

“Continue to do so. The purpose I have for her is great, and she will bear many burdens before she fulfills it. Go now, keep her safe, but do not interfere with her free will. Understand this Raphael, what happens tonight must happen. She will become the woman I have destined her to be partly because of her experiences.”

“As you will it,” Raphael responded. He did not stand until he had traveled from the Creator’s presence. When he arrived outside of Mildred’s home, he immediately felt the darkness and evil that saturated even the air around the shack. Raphael’s head snapped around to the window on the side of the house where Emma’s room was located and he immediately appeared inside of the room.

“STOP.” The power given to him from the Creator had the man, whose hand had been reared back to hit Emma once more, frozen. “Emma come here.” She climbed quickly from the bed but before she moved to Raphael’s side she pulled her leg back and kicked the man in the shin.

“That’s for being such a nasty person,” she snapped and then hurried to stand behind Raphael.

Raphael’s lips twitched at the young girl’s spirit. She was a fighter and based on what the Creator had said about the burdens she would face, she was going to need to be a fighter.

Using his will alone, Raphael turned the unmovable man to face him. The fear in his eyes was unmistakable, as was the utter hatred. This was a man that did not like to be humiliated and would retaliate for such a thing. The man’s eyes widened further when Raphael took a step toward him.

“This child is under my protection as ordered by the Creator. To stand against the Creator is to face your own destruction. You will not touch her again. If you attempt to, you will face my wrath. Now, leave.” Raphael gave the man a small push with his power, forcing the man toward the door. He could tell that Rat was trying to turn around and face him, but he was powerless to do so under Raphael’s command. Once the door was closed, Raphael turned to look down at Emma. Though her face was bruised from a blow that he had not been there to stop, she held her chin up high and her shoulders were pulled back. She was beaten but not defeated.

“I am sorry that I was not here,” he told her as he knelt down before her. He attempted to make his tone sound gentler for her sake.

“The point is that you got here in time,” she told him. “It could have been much worse than a smack across the face.”

“Are you alright?” He was glad to see that she was holding herself together, but it also worried him that she wasn’t shaken by the incident. “Would you like to go to Darla’s?”

Both of their heads turned toward the living room as they heard a crash followed by an unintelligible shout. She looked back at him and nodded. “I think that’s a great idea.”

When they instantly appeared in front of Darla and Wayne’s front door, Emma frowned at him. “How come we walk everywhere in town if you can just do that?”

“Because it would probably alert the other humans that I am not normal if we suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Although if it only happened once they wouldn’t remember but repeatedly and it gets harder to influence them to forget the shock.”

“Oh, right, that makes sense.”

Raphael knocked on the door, even though the house was dark and it was obvious that everyone inside was asleep. It was late, but he knew that Darla would not care. After several minutes, the locks on the door began to turn. When the door was finally pulled open, it was a drowsy Serenity that stood before them. She took one look at Emma and her eyes narrowed in on the puffy, swollen cheek. “Who did this?” she asked him at the same time motioning for them to enter. Her voice was tight with emotion and Raphael could tell she was attempting to keep her cool for the sake of the child.

“One of Mildred’s acquaintances,” he told her.

“Where were you?” Serenity snapped. “You said you would protect her. How did this happen?”

Raphael’s face didn’t change as he answered. “I had been called by the Creator and was in his presence at the time of Emma’s attack. As soon as I was aware of the trouble, the Creator sent me to intervene.”

“It was one strike too late, don’t you think?” Her voice was growing louder with every question. She had a right to be angry; he would not deny her that. But his response would probably only anger her further, so he simply said nothing. The only thing that consoled Raphael’s shame at not having been there was that he knew he would be with her from now on with the blessing of the Creator behind him. She would still face adversity, but he would be able to protect her from most of the evil that came her way.