The gun went off, sending a fierce jolt throughout Ambrosia's body. Ambrosia flinched and dropped the gun immediately her eyes widening watching the product of her actions unfold.

Ivy had fallen back onto the ground and screamed in agony clutching the lower left of her stomach. Her hands frantically rubbing against the gushing blood, she cried out for her sister. Ambrosia staggered towards her sister with paranoia inching up her spine.

Ivy whimpered, her face was sour, and her eyes watered immensely. She looked at her sister and began to sob. Ambrosia found herself kneeled by her little sister and she touched her face and with shaky hands moved her arms aside to see the hole that spouted the metallic liquid.

"Fuck, Ivy!"

"I-I can't breathe...Brosia," Ivy gasped between her whines of pain. Ambrosia opened her mouth but the number of words she had running through her mind refused to release themselves into existence.

Ivy was about to kill her and now she lay writhing—withering like a flower whose life had long passed them.

"I'm sorry-no It's going to be okay Ivy just—I can call for help-"

Ambrosia's words were caught from her mouth as someone pulled her back by her hair. Another associate of Avril's had grabbed her and she thrashed violently against his body as he dragged her away from her sister.

"IVY!" Ambrosia screamed wildly as the world around her blurred through the dense veil of her fear-induced rage, "Let go of me, please don't kill her!"

Pitiful screams could be heard from both of the girls as Daniel emerged from behind indicating he had been eavesdropping, he pulled his gun out. Ambrosia felt her knees grow weaker, but the man holding her head like the scruff of a dog forced her back up.

Daniel cocked his gun and aimed for Ivy, who had forced her self back onto her feet.

"Wait, give me anoth-another chance!" Ivy cried out with enough force to shake the very soul of Ambrosia.

"It was either you or her, boss man's orders," Daniel replied shaking his head in a way that deemed Ivy a disappointment. Ambrosia looked away from the demise of her sister, she couldn't think.

There was nothing to think about, except that her sister was about to die...and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Ambrosia felt the core of her body tighten and surged with pain. The tips of her finger tinged with fire and her throat burned through the strength of her screams. Ambrosia looked away, nevertheless, she couldn't even do that; her captor had forced her head back to the crime.

The sound of Ivy's slumping body was enough to send Ambrosia into a fit of gagging, repulsed by her own failed efforts to prevent this and the starkness of her death. The splatter of blood that shot out from the back of her head and the thing liquid that began its coverage along the back patio's floor.

Daniel shoved his gun back into his holster and glanced at Ambrosia.

"Come here," he said in a nauseatingly calm tone.

Ambrosia was forced to drag her numb limbs to the scene of her sister. The blood cascaded down the bullet whole that was so precisely cratered between her grimacing eyebrows. Ambrosia trembled at her eyes, she could see the pain, the last glint of a troubled soul that flickered in her lost eyes.

The sun dims in the core of a dead eye.

"It was either you or her, Ambrosia," Daniel chuckled at his own words and bent down to pick up the dead girl's gun. He turned to Ambrosia and offered it to the shaky young woman who stared hypnotized by the increasing amount of blood that spread around her feet.

Ambrosia couldn't even formulate a coherent sentence and instead, petrified, she took the gun from him and he smiled. Daniel reached up and touched her cheek, Ambrosia recoiled from his touch and made a noise similar to an injured animal.

Daniel laughed, flashing a taunting smile.

"Easy there, you're one of us now."

Ambrosia clicked out of her dazed expression and let her face mold into a scowl. She then locked her arms and pointed the gun to align with his mouth.

"Fuck you," she hissed.

Daniel stood unfazed, he ran a large hand over his brown hair and smiled again. His voice was cool and calculating as it usually was when he was threatening Ambrosia.

"Let's imagine a scenario where you do manage to pull that trigger after the trauma you just caused yourself, then you miraculously manage to kill all twenty-five guys in this house and escape naively thinking that we don't have more guys on the outside," Daniel rubbed his cloudy blue eyes and proceeded, "once you pop that baby out, your both dead—or maybe you'll be killed before that?"

Ambrosia swallowed her saliva and glanced behind her where the second associate had his gun pointed straight to her back. Ambrosia dropped her arms in obvious defeat and hung her head, she could feel the same old tears recycling themselves again.

Daniel let his large hand rest on her head with an unrecognized gentleness.

"Take her to her room," he ordered the associate, "Oh, and Ambrosia, dinner is at 6:00 please dress formally."

Ambrosia now completely devoid of her true senses walked silently with the man back to her room. She collapsed on her bed and coiled her body into the warm fabric. Her skin was inflamed with goosebumps as she weakly laid her mind to rest in the certainty that she was completely uncertain of what her life was anymore.

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Although she detested everything that went on in the Hill residence, the dinner spread was amazing. Well, it looked amazing, and looking was about all Ambrosia could do. If she even tried to imagine the taste of something her only reaction at this moment was to throw up.

She wore a shimmering viridian green dress, and dangled from her ears were two pearl earrings paired with a necklace harboring a single large white pearl. The jewelry was given to her by Daniel, in the middle of her preparation for dinner.

He said it was a gift to make her feel better.

Ambrosia sat at the base of one side of the long dining table, on the other end was Avril. He was dressed in the minimal, scarlet red tuxedo, his greasy face, shaved of all facial hair, was shimmering in the low lit candlelight.

"How unfortunate things have become for Miss Ivy, Ambrosia, but first shot first serve," Mr. Avril spoke with phony politeness. She did not reply and only stared at the porcelain plate in front of her.

A few other members of Avril's little drug gang sat spread along with the table, all earnest taking their fill of the food that the maid, Tania had hired, had cooked. Ambrosia had forgotten she was still here, cursed to live in this hell, like her.

Daniel sat to the left of her and casually cut through a piece of steak, he glanced at Ambrosia and smiled letting his velvet voice slip through the uncomfortable silence.

"But so fortunate for you, of course, Ambrosia."

Ambrosia looked up from her plate and glared at him with eyes that threatened him. Daniel only tossed his head back to remove the hair from his eyes and continued to eat.

"Yes she is, to be apart of this family is an honor...an honor that Miss Ivy couldn't maintain," Avril chuckled and forked a slice of ham, "and maybe she never deserved at all."

Ambrosia watched as the middle-aged man slowly put the whole slice into his mouth and chewed on it like an animal, nearly slobbering over himself.

"Good thing I had your calls recorded, I would have never guessed Dante would order my services like that, paying me cheap because of her, he'll reimburse me in due time!"

"So boss, this girl's gonna take the little sluts job?" A nasally voiced man near Avril's side of the table questioned. Avril swallowed the chunk of food he had in his mouth and reached for another slice of ham.

"Perhaps."

As if Ambrosia had a target stapled onto her head, multiple men along the table turned their eyes to her and some snickered in their devilish ways, others just openly stared at every inch of her body.

Ambrosia wanted death, several times during the dinner she flirted with the idea of going into the bathroom and getting her gun and shooting herself while she sat on the cold tile floor.

"Ivy was always too sensitive, under all that teen angst and sexual frustration from being raped-"

Ambrosia's head snapped up and her eyes met Avril's, everyone had stopped eating.

"Oh yeah, the little serpent told me everything about her past, funny enough she told me things even you didn't know, Ambrosia," Avril stated with a content look.

"When she was what, seven? That boy—your friend's brother, raped her at the carnival, Ivy was never the same after that, she wanted older more mature men...everywhere she went."

Ambrosia clutched the fabric of her dress in her lap and watched him eat as he lavishly disgraced her sister.

"She was head over heels for Dante apparently, he wasn't really into little nymphs so he recruited her instead, to make deals with people like me," Avril continued scanning the room with his beady eyes. Some of the men laughed.

"She was too young to understand herself anyway, always lamenting to me about her depression, loneliness, but never blamed it on you Ambrosia."

Mr. Avril took up his wine glass and drank before taking yet four more slices of ham and stacked them on his plate along with a dollop of spinach and mash potatoes.

"Good thing she's dead, now she doesn't have to suffer anymore, looks like you finally helped her like you always wanted to, Ambrosia."

This statement had only furthered Ambrosia's guilt for the death of her sister.

Ambrosia had been clutching her dress so hard the veins in her same had begun to push themselves to the surface of her skin. Her eyes were like stone, boring into the face of her repulsive oppressor. She wanted nothing better to feel the life drain from his heavy body. He took up another sliver of ham and the other men began to eat again.

"Isn't that cannibalism?" Ambrosia hissed her question like the snake she had felt herself forming into, the serpent her sister was.

"Pardon, I couldn't hear you-"

"Isn't that cannibalism, you eating pork like that?"

There was a sudden tongue-click from the side of Ambrosia and her eyes reached Daniel who side-eyed her with a look of warning, he mouthed.

"Don't."

Mr. Avril had put down his fork and was chewing with a fresh intensity awaiting her next words.

"Your a slimy, disgusting piece of shit, a selfish pig who just eats himself up, choke on a dick-"

"I gave you and Ivy the choice to survive here, and you took it!"

Avril slammed his balled fists onto the table and stood up his forehead dripped with sweat and he thrust and accusatory finger at Ambrosia.

"You stupid bitch, your as much of a selfish pig as the rest of us!"

Ambrosia rose to her feet and rushed out of the dining room and to the stairs. A collective chorus of laughs ensued from the place she had just left and overwhelmed with a sense of shame and the painful sting of fighting back her emotions she ran up the stairs to her room. Behind she could hear the swift steps of someone else as she entered her room in a frantic search for her gun. Ambrosia flipped over her clothes and pillows and found it tucked in her dresser.

Ambrosia cocked the gun and ran into the bathroom. Her eyes were hazy with water as she pulled the gun up to her temple.

This is the only way out of here.

She closed her eyes.

Then Ambrosia felt a forceful hand grab her wrist and yank the gun away casting it into the sink. Daniel had stopped her and wrapped his hands around her body trapping her head against his chest.

"Ambrosia, Ambrosia...relax!"

Ambrosia puhed back and could barely make out his face in the darkness of her room, lit by murky and icy moonlight. Their breaths were both heavy, hers bearing the weight of tears, his bearing the duty to stop her from what he knew she was about to do.

"You need to watch your mouth with Avril, he spared you."

"He made me kill my sister!"

"No, he didn't..."

"I need the gun," Ambrosia whispered, she had really lost it. Her mind was swirling with nothing but the nihilistic end of her life.

"No, you don't," Daniel whispered. His light eyes along with his hands that had grabbed, her arms, pinned her back, "and that baby doesn't either."

Ambrosia attempted to hold back her whimper as the natural cry of her soul seeped through the windows of her eyes. Her baby, how could she forget her baby.

Elias' baby.

"I don't—I can't do this."

"Yes you can, Ambrosia, you have to, like the rest of us here you have to live through this fear and eventually overcome it," Daniel's grip on her arms softened and Ambrosia reluctantly let him slide his hands down to her own.

"I know your scared Ambrosia, most of these guys are, they just know how to hide it well because Avril has an iron grip on all of our necks," Daniel assured and squeezed her hands slightly before reaching to touch her stomach tenderly.

"I know you're a fighter Ambrosia, and your baby will know it too."

Ambrosia flinched back and turned herself away from him.

"Don't touch me there," she spoke lowly.

"I'm sorry I—" Daniel let out a sigh and discarded the rest of that sentence. His eyes traced her discretely and then his fingers silently moved towards her dangling earring so he could examine the pearl quietly. Ambrosia felt her face heating up to the human touch against her and she tried to move but only allowed a way for his hand to slip underneath her chin.

"Do you like my gift?"

"No," Ambrosia said curtly and Daniel smiled slightly in response.

He stood over her, exploring her face with a newfound appreciation and his thumb smoothly made its way underneath the bow of her bottom lip. He pulled his thumb down in such a way that her quivering lips would part ever so slightly.

Ambrosia was lost somewhere that she was ashamed was even a possibility at this point in her life. She was in pain, immense stress, and again like the everlasting motif of her life, a distraction came.

Daniel took his other hand away from hers and ran his hands through his hair before sighing deeply.

"I really hate seeing you like this." He cupped her cheek and Ambrosia let him feel the wet trail that her sorrow had left on her face.

His tranquil mask suddenly broke character and he looked down at her as if he was sharing the burden she was forced to carry.

"Somehow, you still manage to look so beautiful to me."

Ambrosia's heart was pounding even though her brain cursed its every gush of adrenaline that was coursing through her body. What was all this affection?

What was she supposed to do? Where was she going to go?

All she had left, was the warm arms of a stranger. A stranger who smelled like rustic oak and soft orange flower. A stranger that she had known for nearly a month now, who was the only person who would talk to her and ask her about her day as they ate over breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

"Relax, alright?" Daniel insisted and leaned toward her face letting his lips rest against her cheek.

It was soft, but it was enough to send single shock of flames through Ambrosia.

"What are you doing here?" Ambrosia wavered keeping her hands close to her sides as Daniel rested his forehead on her own. He did not answer her and only closed his eyes.

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