At first I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be seeing. There was a girl in the room with long brown hair, but nothing else, so it couldn’t have been her.
At least, that’s what I believed until I heard a wrenching sob come from the room. I knew that sound; it was the sound that I had heard the night that Betje was sent away.
“Lieve?” I asked, my voice shaking.
The blonde hair turned toward t
he door and wiped tears angrily away from her face.
“This isn’t a fucking freak show! You can all stop staring at me like I don’t belong!” she yelled, throwing a plate toward the door.
“Lieve!” I exclaimed happily, shoving the doors open. I cut my foot on one of the pieces of the broken plate, but I was so overjoyed at that moment, that I didn’t let the pain bother me.
“Minnie?” she asked, suddenly looking so pitiful that my heart broke.
“Yes; it’s me,” I confirmed falling to my knees in front of her chair.
Lieve put her arms around me and began to cry harder than I had ever heard from her before. I let my head rest on her lap as she brushed her hand over my hair, saying how sorry she was and that she knew that this was where she truly belonged now. She said that this was a set up and that she had fallen for it. She said that she had already bargained for my release and that I would be going back to Betje. She also said that I would never see her again but begged me not to worry about her.
I pulled away from her at that and grabbed a cloth napkin off of the table. I used it wipe her tears away.
“Lieve, you know I would never leave you here. This place ... It’s much worse than being in Kerstan’s,” I said lowering my voice.
“You don’t understand,” she said with a chuckle and fresh tears.
“What is there to understand? When I leave you leave with me. That is the bargain or we both stay,” I replied firmly.
“Luuk isn’t who you think he is,” she said with a sniffle. “I need you to leave and trust that I’ll be okay.”
She pushed me gently but firmly away from her. She nodded toward the door and when I refused to get up, she reached down and yanked me to my feet. She put her hand tightly around my arm and dragged me toward the door. She gave me a quick hug, a small kiss on the lips, and a gentle shove through the open doors, before she pulled them closed tightly and used a chair to lock herself in.
Eleven
Betje
It had been three months since Minnie had come back and still no signs of Lieve. Kerstan wouldn’t speak of her and if you dared to ask him where she was, he would correct you with a stern slap to the mouth.
I was proud to say that it still didn’t stop me from asking from time to time.
I had tried everything I could to pry information out of him. Asking questions incessantly, offering him sex for any piece of information, which he took, but never complied with a word about her whereabouts.
“I don’t fucking understand this!” I yelled in frustration. I was sitting on her bed and I became angrier, colder as the days rolled by without her.
Was she dead? Was she hurt? Was she ever going to be set free?
“I’ve told you to stop worrying about her. Even though she seemed scared, she kind of seemed at peace with everything,” Minikin said from her bed at the end of the room.
“That’s bullshit! I can’t believe you just left her there!” I seethed at her. “She went through so much to get us both back and you just let her. She loved you, Minnie.”
“I know. And I love her too, but getting slapped around or fucked by Kerstan for information obviously isn’t getting you anywhere,” she retorted. “If you know Lieve as well as you think you do, you know she’ll be okay. You also know that she’ll find her way back if that’s what she truly wants to do!”
I shook my head in disbelief. These months without Amity had made me cold and bitter. Nothing would be able to fix me if I couldn’t see her just one more time.
I was sick and tired of being the good girl of this goddamn brothel. I was sick and tired of being the push over and I was fucking sick and tired of being the one that was always sit around and just wait.
Unfortunately, Kerstan had already warned that anyone that left without his knowledge or permission, he would make sure didn’t come back. To his house or any house.
“Goedemiddag dames,” he said tiredly, suddenly appearing in the doorway. Everyone in the room except for me answered him.