Yes, Master

June 17, 1987

Momma's got a new boyfriend.

He's mysterious, and strange. I could never really describe him, or classify him as, "normal." Mom never found anything wrong with him, and neither did my 14 and 7 year old brothers, Joel and Derrick. He was just a normal man, a loving man to my mother.

But I thought different. He gave me looks. He watched me intently. A 37 year old, watching a 17 year old? Nothing seemed right in such context. He paid more attention to me than my own mother, his own lover. She never picked it up, but I did, on that very first day he came into my life.

And I remember the summer evening that changed my life forever. He was there. Why wouldn't he be? He was everywhere I was. He was acting more unusual than normal, keeping me away from the outside world practically, telling my mother I had certain, "boundaries" I couldn't cross. How she had to watch me, see where I went.

A day of June, an evening, should I say. Joel, Derrick and I were out in the backyard, of our large, grey Victorian home, which was surrounded by the Autumn trees and their warm colours of leaves. Innocently playing tag.

I always got along better with Derrick. Being the youngest of us 3, he was very shy, and desolate from us. But I was always there for him. I stood by his side, I held him at night when he got scared, and I guided him through his first two years of school, and I planned on doing more with him throughout his life.

But I never got the chance. Because on that evening, suddenly, everything began changing.

I heard a motor coming down the long, winding dirt road that led to our house. Who'd be coming over here? We were the only people that lived in these parts of the forest. And as it drew closer, I stopped, and listened.

The wind blew in my face, and the only sounds I heard were the rustling of the leaves on the trees, and my two younger brothers behind me, panting heavily as they watched me from afar.

And then the back porch door opened, and I heard quick footsteps drawing closer and closer to me from behind. But I still watched, and I listened carefully to that motor.

And suddenly, a black, sleek, expensive car came rumbling slowly down the road, and I felt a firm grasp on my arm, and I turned around, and Vincent Gilman, Mom's boyfriend, is glaring at me, with a mysterious, yet dangerous glint in his black eyes.

"Ms. Maddie Vega, you are coming with me."  He mumbled in a deep tone.

"You have become part of the System of Sovereignty."