The child was wrapped in a tattered old dress, but that might only
be to keep warm, because he or she was also wearing a pair of trousers.
Elena couldn’t even figure out whether it was a boy or a girl until the
child gave her an unexpectedly sweet smile and whispered, “I’m
Lakshmi.” !思!兔!網!文!檔!共!享!與!在!線!閱!讀!
“I’m Elena,” Elena said.
“Better hurry, Elena,” Lakshmi said. “Guardians will get here
soon.”
Meredith and Bonnie had gotten the dazed slave woman to her
feet, but she seemed to be in too much pain to understand if they meant
to help her or kill her.
Elena remembered how the woman had huddled in the shadow of
Elena’s own body. She put a hand on the woman’s bloody arm and said
quietly, “You’re safe now. You’re going to be fine. That
man—your…your master—is dead and I promise that nobody will hurt
you again. I swear it.”
The woman stared at her in disbelief, as if what Elena was saying
was impossible. As if living without being beaten constantly—even with
all the blood Elena could see old scars, some of them like cords, on the
woman’s skin—was something too far from reality to imagine.
“I swear it,” Elena said again, not smiling, but grimly. She
understood that this was a burden she was taking on