POV: Baby Juliet (Still the Boss, Currently Kidnapped)
The world was perfect for five whole minutes. I was at Kiara's, drawing masterpieces with a marker that tasted kinda funny. Big Brother Julian was playing his guitar, making the coolest boom-boom sounds. It was my own personal concert.
Then his shiny rectangle lit up. His face got all twisty and serious. Grown-up face. The boring kind.
He talked to Kiara in a low voice, gave my hair a ruffle, and said, "Be good, little rockstar. Ten minutes."
I should have known. Grown-ups are the biggest liars about time. Ten minutes is forever when you're a baby.
After he left, the fun stopped. Kiara tried, but she's not lijah. The squiggles got boring.
Then the door went BOOM!
Not a nice knock. A scary, splintery sound. Two giant men stomped in. They smelled like rotten burgers and trouble.
Kiara screamed. A real, scared scream. One man put sticky tape on her mouth. Her eyes got huge and wet. This was a very bad game.
The other one looked at me. His eyes were like little black pebbles. No smile.
"There she is," he grunted. "The little cash cow."
He picked me up. His hands were rough. He didn't hold me right. He held me like a bag of potatoes. Rude!
I activated my number one weapon: The Eardrum-Shattering Siren Scream. The one that makes Riven drop his weights.
The man just laughed. A nasty, gravelly sound. "Yeah, you scream, princesa. Nobody's coming."
He carried me out to a dirty car and shoved me into a scratchy seat. We started moving. I saw Kiara's house get smaller and smaller until it was gone.
That's when the screaming turned into the shaky, hiccuppy cries. The ones that make your tummy hurt. Where was Julian? He promised. My giants always come. Why weren't they coming?
The car stopped at a yucky building. The inside smelled like sad and old cigarettes. The man dumped me on a dusty couch that made me sneeze. A-CHOO!
I was tired. My diaper was wet. My heart felt heavy. I just sat there, sucking my thumb. It didn't taste good.
Another man came in. He had a snake tattoo on his neck. He leaned in close, his breath smelling like onions.
"Well, well. The famous Fernandez baby. You're a lot smaller than I thought."
He poked my cheek.
Big. Mistake.
My mouth moved faster than my brain. CHOOOOMP.
I sank my two sharpest teeth right into his finger.
"AYE! YOU LITTLE ALLIGATOR!" he yelped, shaking his hand. "She bit me!"
The first man sighed, like I was a very annoying problem. "Told you. She's not a toy."
They left me alone. The door clicked shut. A lock turned.
The quiet was the worst part. No Ms. Rachel. No brothers arguing about business. Just the buzz of a single, angry lightbulb and my own shaky breaths.
I curled into a ball. This was not how a queen should be treated. Julian was going to be in so much trouble when my brothers found him. And they would find me. Because I'm not just a baby.
I'm a Fernandez.
And my brothers are the monsters who make other monsters pay rent. And right now, these two idiots were about to be evicted.
l looked at the locked door with my most serious baby glare.
But I knew. Soon, the real monsters would be here. And they wouldn't be bringing pacifiers.