Dark Friends by Mark Butler Read Free Book Online Page A

nightmare.
                  “I'm sorry” she offered pitifully.
                  'You have issues, bitch. If you ever hit me again, I'll kill you” Lily said in anger, rising to her feet and scampering away.
                  Amelia was left alone, realizing that Lily was only trying to wake her for the morning headcount. She felt bad that she had struck Lily, but she also felt a small release . It was as though a small box of tension had traveled from Amelia's heart to her fist, then from her fist into Lily's face. Releasing that tension had felt good. Sometimes, she thought, people should be punished for doing something stupid. As she dressed and prepared for the day, Amelia wondered if that pleasure was how Ellis felt all the time.
                  That morning Ellis got a telephone call. A couple had been approved to take a girl of their choosing and raise her. Ellis hated it when this happened. It came once a year and he was powerless to deny the State's mandate. When a couple completed the rigorous screening and application process, they were permitted to take any girl that they wished from any orphanage they wished, and they had chosen Lisson. He knew exactly how it would all play out, as well: A happy, middle-aged couple would show up the following day and smile to Ellis, the man would shake his hand and the woman would smile nervously at Ellis' dark glare. They would ask him about all the girls education, their dispositions and their histories. They would want to tour the facility. Ellis would politely decline, claiming that he didn't want to get all the girls' hopes up that they might be chosen. He would suggest, rather,  that maybe they could describe what kind of girl they were looking for, then he would select several girls who fit that description and present them in the main lobby. He would pre-select the girls himself, obviously, and they would be cleaned and oiled, to appear healthy. They would be under the strict belief that Ellis was in total control of the situation, so they would not say anything that he didn't want them to say. One girl would be chosen, she could be seventeen years old, which was rare, or she could be three to five years old, which was far more likely. Ellis didn't care how old they were, all that mattered to him was that they kept their mouths' shut once they left his guardianship. In truth, he thought, the girls would never speak of the things that happened at Lisson, so strong were their beliefs that they were dirty and at fault. If they made any disturbances with their new family, they could be sent right back to Lisson. After planning out the best way to deal with the State's intrusion , Ellis felt considerably better.
                  That afternoon, Ellis got another telephone call. It was the couple, who had been given his number. They would be arriving in fifteen minutes. He waited.
                  Once the couple were there and the niceties were over, Ellis asked them what they wanted; they wanted a girl no younger than eight but no older than thirteen. They wanted a girl who was sweet and smart. She had to be a blond, they insisted, because they were both blond. She had to have deference to authority and a sincere work ethic. Ellis nodded to their stipulations, then sat them in his office while he gathered the girls who fit the description. He had not expected them to be so specific, so he dismissed the girls who he had already gathered. Instead, he went to the laundry room and selected six girls who he thought might get the couple to leave, then he marched them to the lobby. Along the way, a wave of blond hair caught Ellis eye from a window, so he instructed the girls to continue to the lobby and that he would catch up. Ellis went out to the flower garden and saw the blond. He told her to follow him.
                  The couple selected the blond girl from the gardens, surprisingly so, because