Author's Note: I'm so sorry for this short update. I adandoned all my homework to do it. Please vote and comment and if you haven't yet please start to. Your support means everything. Than you!

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Not another word was said about me having children, but I always felt their eyes burning into my skin. They were waiting for me to say something, and I was well aware of that.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Emme and her baby. How she must have cried so hard when they told her it was a girl. I wondered if she begged and pleaded for them to keep her. I know I would have done the same. Jimmy and Charles have told me that girls couldn’t survive and I would just get attached and even more upset when she dies. But I don’t know if I could let my own child be killed.

My mind went straight to Taylor. How could he possibly kill his own daughter? Did he feel any kind of pain when he snapped his baby’s neck? I couldn’t imagine Jimmy doing that. He is so much nicer than the rest of his family. Jenny had told me that he was always much more sensitive than his cousins. Maybe he could convince Charles to let us keep her. If we had our own house than Jimmy wouldn’t have to listen to his orders.

My thoughts were keeping me up every night.

--

It was dark outside, but they hadn’t come in from outside yet. Dinner was warming in the oven and I pulled the multi-coloured crocheted blanket off of the back of the couch and wrapped it around myself. I curled up into a ball on the couch. I pulled one of the books out of the end table and started flipping through the pages.

I was never much into reading, but I liked it when Jimmy read it to me. He hadn’t read to me since when I first came here and he read me Lord of the Flies. I hoped that he would do it again soon, but I was too afraid to ask.

The door creaked open and I heard a clicking noise make its way across the floor towards me. I lowered the book and then felt a large weight jump up onto me. Something wet ran up my face and I threw my hands out to feel something soft.

There was a dog on my lap.

“I see you’ve met Buster, Jules,” I heard Tommy say.

I pulled my face away from the dog that was licking my face. It was a large golden retriever, with long, smooth locks of yellow fur. I could see the drool dripping out of his mouth and he had a red collar tied around his neck.

“Buster?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“Yeah, that’s what his collar says,” Tommy said. He reached out for the dog’s collar and twisted it so that the metal was in his hand. I saw “BUSTER” written across the tarnished metal.

I could hear the door creak open again and Buster jumped off of my lap and run back into the kitchen. I saw fine strands of his fur cover the couch and the front of my black sweater. I cursed under my breath when I thought about having to clean that up every day.

“Hey there,” I heard Jimmy say in a soft voice.

I got up off of the couch and went into the kitchen. Jimmy was sitting on the ground and was running his fingers through his long fur. I smiled to see him so happy as the dog rolled over and began running his belly. The door opened up again and Charles walked in.

“The dog may be a new member of this family,” he started to say, “but he is not staying in the house all the time.”

I sighed in relief to know that I wouldn’t be spending all day picking up dog hair. I heard a door slam shut and Tommy walked into the kitchen. I turned around and realized that he was in the basement. He dropped a bone onto the ground and I felt my stomach twist.

The basement is where they had dragged those people down when they had come onto the property. The last people they had brought down there were those hitchhikers a couple of months ago. I didn’t think that they’d keep their bones.

“He’s staying out in the yard,” Charles told them. “He can stay out with the chickens. And he only eats after us. We’re running low on food and we won’t be wasting it on an animal.”

We were running low on food? The last people were those hitchhikers and I don’t ever remember cooking any meat that was something else. They were three people, but I had no idea how much meat came off of a person. That was never something they bothered to tell me.

“Yeah, for sure,” Jimmy said, getting up off of the floor.

“He can eat the bones, Dad,” Tommy told him. “We don’t use them and they’re all that dogs need.”

“We’ll see about that,” Charles told them. “Is dinner ready, Juliet?”

“It’s waiting in the oven,” I said giving him a light smile.

He smiled back and nodded his head.

“Good,” he said. “Now, boys, go wash up. We’ll leave the dog inside for tonight and only tonight.”

I went over to the cupboards and started to set the table. They all went upstairs and the dog stayed down in the kitchen with me. He stared at me as I pulled the roast out of the oven and set it on the counter. He watched me as I put the potatoes and vegetables on the table.

He abandoned me when Jimmy came back downstairs. He ran over to him and he started to scratch him behind his ear.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?” Jimmy said looking up from Buster to me.

“Yeah, he is,” I agreed. “You’re Dad said we’re low on food, so wouldn’t we…um…you know…with the dog…”

Jimmy started to laugh at me as I trailed off. He shook his head and continued to scratch the dog.

“Come on, Julie,” he said continuing to laugh. “We’re not monsters.”