Her uncle who had only stepped inside failed to utter any words. His expression holding similar to the one her aunt had shown when she had seen Penny arrive at the door as if they were not expecting her. It was obvious that they had sold her. Penny didn’t know why she had agreed to come here even though she had a slight knowledge of what had occurred that day before she was taken to the slave establishment.
“I don’t know what you are speaking of, mister,” her uncle spoke to Damien and upon Damien’s twist of neck to look towards the elder man, the man gulped softly, “Where have you been all this time? When we came back you weren’t there…we thought you left,” her uncle continued with the charade. The man has missed the threat Damien had given to his wife due to which he continued to run his mouth.
Both the husband and wife couldn’t believe their eyes, finding their niece here who appeared to be having a better life right now, “Did you run away with this man? How shameful!” exclaimed her uncle where his wife closed her eyes in embarrassment. The woman didn’t know how to convey to her husband that Penelope had found out about the truth.
Penny continued to stare at him with a bleak expression on her face. Now she realized why she had come along with Damien. She was angry at them. Angry for promising things that they could not keep up.
“Why did you bring me here?” the three people in the room heard Penny ask, “I would have continued to live my life alone after my mother’s death. You wouldn’t have to look after me,” her voice came out quiet which didn’t appear angry, “I would have looked after myself. At least I grew capable of it. Why did you take me from there, bringing me here if you couldn’t keep up your word of having to look after me?” Penny’s words turned sharp at the end as she looked at her relatives, her eyes narrowing down at the deed they had committed without understanding the consequences of what she would have had to go through if her luck had turned worse.
“We didn’t do anything you claim that we did. Running away with a stranger and coming back, the audacity of yours-” her uncle went on but before he could say anything more, his wife raised her hand for him to stop.
“What do you mean why?” asked the woman, “Instead of being grateful you are throwing tantrums like a child. You should thank us for bringing you home here. Providing a roof over your head-”
“I never asked you for it!” Penny responded back with her eyebrows furrowing, “Nobody even asked you to bring me here. We had other relatives who never came forward. You could have done the same which wasn’t hard.”
Her aunt laughed, like a soft chuckle as if Penny was being delusional, “Did you hear yourself clearly? Are you saying you didn’t wish to get out of that village where people despised both you and my sister there? Ask yourself that if you weren’t happy when your uncle and I offered for you to stay with us.”
“I was happy because I thought I had a family if not my mother…but who would have thought that you brought me here only with the intention to sell me to gain money,” Penny shook her head in disappointment.
Her uncle who had been keeping up the farce since he arrived home dropped the facade while ignoring the man and speaking to the girl, “Don’t look at us for what we have done, Penelope. If you look carefully right now your life is much better than what you had before. Good clothes, and shoes. No scratch on you while we are the ones who are still unfortunate. With all, we have done and given you, the shame you put on us. How ill-mannered,” tched the man. Not knowing who the person was who had come home with Penelope, he went on to say, “In spite being who you are now,” he said without using the word ‘slave’, “You are living a better life. Keep up playing doll and maybe this man will take you like a side wife. At least you won’t have anything to-Argh!”
The man yelped when Damien twisted his fingers in the opposite direction which wasn’t the way the fingers folded themselves. He pulled them far enough such that his voice echoed back by the small house while spilling out of the open door and windows.
“Scream more loudly and I will make sure your wife will have your precious four fingers in her hand that won’t be attached to your body any longer.”
Penny felt her heart skip at the sudden screaming due to being startled. Though her uncle was in pain and her aunt distressed as she tried to plead with the vampire, Penny felt nothing for them after listening to what they had to say. It seemed that since the very beginning she was only a scapegoat they were raising to sell her out so that they could make a living out of her.
It might have been true that Penny was currently wearing good clothes and shoes, her current living condition was somewhere where she didn’t have to work but that didn’t mean she had the freedom to do what she would want to do. Her status from being a human had fallen down to a slave in the society where people would not respect her which was what pained her.
All this time, Penny and her mother had gone through a lot of trouble. She had no life from a young age where people only kept her away in distance, to have no one speak to outside where people shunned her family. It had been a painful phase of her time but she had learned in time to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what people had to say. After all, people always spoke.
“Could you please iterate what you were saying again, human?” asked Damien without lowering his strength on the man’s hand and continuing to have the same grip, “Most of you humans sure are disgusting little beings. Is that how you speak to your niece? Let’s take this outside, shall we?” he gave out a charming smile before he pulled her uncle out of the house with her aunt first following them in fret and later Penny.
Most of the villagers had come to the house with pitchforks or other tools in their hands to chase the vampire who had stepped in here, “How unwelcoming.” Some even held fire lit by the woods as if that was going to scare him. It only showed Damien how illiterate the village men were with respect to a lot of things.
“Leave him right there, vampire! Unless you want to die!” spoke one of the village men who held a shovel in his hand.
“Courage is a very important and admirable quality until you don’t realize what is there in front of you that turns to foolishness,” Damien responded back to the man.
