New to the Family

Freedom Fantasy

Author's note: Short update, but I wanted to get it out :)

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Jared's alarm went off before the sun had risen. I groaned and buried my face into the pillow. Jared sat on the edge of the bed and stretched his arms up over his head. He dragged his feet across the floor and into the bathroom.

I remembered the knife hiding under the bed. I crawled to the edge of the bed and looked under. The knife was sitting there untouched. I grabbed the knife, and I wedged it between the mattress and the boxspring. The sound of flowing water was coming from the bathroom.

I grabbed my glasses off of the nightstand. I looked down at myself to see I was still only wearing Jared's flannel shirt. I hurried over to the closet and I grabbed one of my sweaters and a pair of leggings. I turned to see Jared leaning against the bathroom door with his arms crossed. His eyes scanned over my body and he smirked. I held the clothes up to my chest.

"You look cute," he said. I looked down at my feet. "You can get changed."

I nodded my head, and kept my eyes down. I changed out of his shirt as fast as I could, but my fingers fumbled with the buttons. Jared watched me with that stupid smirk. I avoided his gaze as I made the bed. Jared did not move.

"I am going to help Lindsay with breakfast," I said.

"Okay, beautiful," he said. "I will be down in a minute."

I nodded my head and hurried out of the bedroom. When I got downstairs, Lindsay was holding Jenny's hand. She put her other hand on Jenny's shoulder and was trying to force her to sit down in one of the dining room chairs.

"Can I help you with anything, Lindsay?" I asked.

She looked over at me with a smile.

"It would be great if you could start the eggs, Leah," she said before redirecting her attention to Jenny. "Mom, I need you to sit. I'll bring you breakfast."

I went back into the kitchen and opened the fridge. I tried to suppress a smile when I looked at the contents of the fridge. It looked all untouched. It was like I never snuck any food. I cracked a few eggs into a bowl and whisked it with a fork. Lindsay came back into the kitchen and took the bowl from me. She scrambled the eggs while I put the bread in the toaster.

"You're so helpful," Lindsay said. "It is so nice to have you around the house. Jenny has been getting worse lately and is taking up a lot of my time. I love her nonetheless, but it was hard to get my chores done."

I stopped buttering the piece of toast in my hands. Was their brainwashing already working on me? I offered to go down and help Lindsay with no prompts. I had fallen into their mundane routine.

"I was so excited to finally get a daughter," Lindsay said. "I feel like I have waited so long."

Jared and Theo came down the stairs, and went into the dining room. Lindsay poured the scrambled eggs into a bowl, and handed them to me. I brought them to the table and sat down beside Jared. I reached for the spoon in the bowl, but Jared grabbed my wrists.

"What do you think you are doing?" he asked.

"I'm hungry," I said.

"Not until you eat the meat first," he said.

Gabe walked into the dining room. The corner of his lips tugged into a smile when he saw Jared's grasp on my wrist.

"How was your night, Leah?" Gabe asked. "Were you hungry?"

"No," I said.

"Jared, make sure she does not eat," Gabe said.

"I will," Jared said.

"You'll kill me," I said. "You're going to starve me to death."

"Leah, that will not happen," Gabe said as he took a seat at the table. "You will get desperate enough to change your mind."

"I doubt that will happen," I said.

"Jared, I suggest you go deal with Leah now," Gabe said.

Jared let out a deep breath and yanked my arm. He stood up and pulled me onto my feet. He dragged me out of dining room and over to the fridge. He pulled out the platter of meat, and pinned me up against the counter with his body. I looked to the side so that I did not have to look at the dish of human meat.

"Leah, I am hungry so I do not want you to have a meltdown," he said. "Just eat the meat."

"No." I shook my head. "I will never eat that."

"You already have, Leah," he said. "You ate it for so long, and you had no complaints."

"I did not know what it was."

"That shouldn't matter, we eat it to make sure that you are healthy."

"It's sick and disgusting."

Pain exploded across my cheek. The sound of his slap echoed through the house. My eyes watered as my cheek tingled with a painful burn. I brushed the tears away from my eyes, and saw Theo was staring at us. Gabe and Lindsay were talking like nothing had happened.

"Show us a little respect," Jared said. "This is embarrassing."

"I am not eating that," I said. "I'll be sick if I eat that."

"You're making yourself sick."

"I can't eat it."

"Then I guess you'll have to starve."

Jared opened up the fridge and put away the plate. I cradled my stinging cheek with my hand. Jared looked back at me after he closed the fridge door. He pulled my hand away and examined my cheek.

"It hasn't left a mark," he said. He let go of my hand, and his fingers trailed down to my collar bone. He pulled the neck of my sweater down to get a better look at my throat. "That did bruise a bit."

There must be bruises lining my throat from when Jared choked me. My hands shot up to neck. Jared kissed my forehead before taking a step back.

"I hate punishing you," he said. "And I hate watching you starve yourself. I hope you come to your senses soon."

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My stomach grumbled all throughout the day. Lindsay told me to sweep the house, and that helped keep my mind off of my hunger. I was relieved when Lindsay did not ask me to help her with dinner. I took my time cleaning the floor so that she would not ask for help. Being around food would be torture to my empty stomach. I was going to have sneak food out of the fridge in the middle of the night again.

The knife was stuck in the bed. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I would have to do a lot more than steal some food. I was going to have to plunge the knife into Jared's chest. While he was choking on his own blood, I could get the key off of him and run for my freedom.

I did not want to kill them. Even if they were murderers, I did not want to kill them. I would rather run to freedom and have the police arrest them. I wanted Jared and Gabe to be confined to in a jail cell for the rest of their lives. I wanted them to know what imprisonment was like.

Thinking about the knife hidden under the bed was a distraction from my hunger. I stayed in my fantasy world of freedom until Jared came back inside.