Tempest was the youngest in her room.

She was also the most obedient.

Atleast for a while.

Next door to hers was a room filled with older girls.

For the first few years, her captors would spend the majority of their time there.

She'd wonder why the men in charge would make pained groans when they never seemed to be the ones being injured.

She heard the familiar choking and gurgling from the older girls that she'd became accustomed to.

Seen the bruises in the shape of a handprint on their necks and their blood red cheeks as opposed to the words she couldn't read that were carved into her own smooth skin.

The older girls would never speak.

Not as they'd spoon feed Tempest and her companions with mushed up food and certainly not as they'd clean up her blood from her assigned mattress.

The next words Tempest learnt to repeat during her beatings were what she'd overheard from her roommates.

'Stop.'

'Please.'

'I'm sorry.'

After that, the men encouraged her to speak during their 'play time', as it satisfied their fucked up fantasies.

When they realised she hadn't learnt how to speak, they allowed the older girls to read them age inappropriate novels on their visits to encourage a certain type of behaviour in the smaller kids.

And that was their own downfall.