"Are you busy?" Not really. Marcus is taking Hope to the castle, but I've seen that before. I thought I might catch up on some reading." Well... Would...you come sit with me, for a while?" What's wrong?"Shawna came around the sofa with a look of concern."Does something have to be wrong for me to want to talk to you?" Normally, yes," Shawna admitted, frankly, crossing her arms."Look, I'm not sure anything's wrong, I just... I want to know what's going on. With you and Marcus, and Hope, I. The next month I wasn't as fortunate and missed my period. By my next missed cycle was feeling nauseous and knew without a doubt that I was pregnant.Momma had her double twins about ten days after I went back to work and Ronnie was glad to see there was a good assortment as half were girls. The two boys were sold off within a day to someone we didn't know, over momma's strong objections. The babies were born with low birth weights and he hired a midwife to help care for them. He still refused. "I woke up later, feeling better. I looked at the calendar--the haze had gone away. Head still buzzed a little, but maybe not so bad. Can't complain, I guessed. Could have been a who-o-o-ole lot worse.Then I remembered the whole thing.I jumped out of the command car."Thanks, soldier," I said. He was off like a rocket, back to headquarters, where they didn't shoot at you. Much.Looking around, I saw troops scattered all over the rocks, looking confused. Then I noticed a guy with a flexible. I was never the property of Steven Bonnet. He never owned me and he had no legal right to sell me. I will never sign myself into slavery. I am not your property!” she screamed defiantly.Howard was hoping for that kind of reaction. However, he didn’t expect her to be able to read the document and understand the import so quickly. He had suspected that the slut might be educated. Now he knew that for sure. It made owning her so much sweeter. He was barely able to read and write. It had taken him.