Tomorrow Still Belongs To Me

The Warning

Amara barely slept that night.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Kelvin's face — not the tired, guarded expression he'd worn when he first came through the factory gates, but the flicker of fear that crossed it the moment she mentioned her father's notebook.

"You need to leave."

She could still hear his voice, low and urgent, like he was afraid of being overheard.

And then the words that had frightened her most.

"They're already watching you."

Amara lay in the darkness, staring at the water-stained ceiling while rain tapped softly against the damaged roof. Drip. Drip. Drip. The same sound she'd heard the morning her father left for work — a sound she hadn't noticed then, but couldn't stop hearing now.

Only a few days had passed. It felt like another lifetime.

She turned toward Daniel's bed. He was asleep, his teddy bear tucked beneath his chin, one small hand resting on its worn head even in sleep. Amara watched him for a long moment, something tightening in her chest.

Whatever was happening, she couldn't let Daniel become part of it. He had already lost enough.

She reached for her phone. 2:17 a.m. She sighed and set it back down.

Her father's notebook was still in her bag. She had read the same pages so many times she could recite them from memory — Line Three, Kelvin's name circled twice, the warning scrawled in her father's rushed handwriting. And now there was Ethan Cole to make sense of, too.

She still couldn't understand how he fit into any of it. He'd said he knew David, but when she'd pressed him — asked if they'd worked together — he'd said no. So where had they met? Why did he know about Line Three? And why had his eyes gone straight to her bag the moment he mentioned it?

Amara turned onto her side, pulling the blanket tighter.

She needed answers. But more than that, she needed to be careful.

---

The next morning, Daniel woke first.

"Amara?"

She opened her eyes slowly, still heavy with the little sleep she'd managed.

"What is it?"

"Are we going to see Dad today?"

She pushed herself up. "Yes."

He smiled, small and hopeful, and climbed out of bed to grab his teddy bear off the floor. "Can I take him?"

"You take him everywhere."

"He wants to see Daddy too."

She managed a smile. "Then he can come."

Daniel hesitated, studying her in that quiet, too-perceptive way he had. "Are you okay?"

The question caught her off guard. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You were awake last night."

"How do you know that?"

"I heard you." He shrugged like it was obvious. "You always say you're fine when you're not."

Amara reached over and pulled him into a hug before he could see her face. "You're getting too smart for your own good."

"Dad says I'm observant."

The words knocked the smile right off her. She remembered her father's laugh, his promise of chicken every Sunday, the kiss he'd pressed to her forehead before he left for the last time.

"I'm proud of you, Amara."

She swallowed hard. "Come on," she whispered. "Let's get ready."

---

At the hospital, the nurse told them their father was stable.

Amara was starting to hate that word. Stable didn't mean safe. It didn't mean he would wake up. It only meant he hadn't gotten worse.

They were allowed a few minutes at his bedside. Daniel went straight to him, setting the teddy bear beside their father's still hand.

"I brought him again," he said softly, then launched into an update — Mrs. Grace's cooking, the neighbor boy's broken bicycle, how he was certain he deserved two pieces of chicken when their father finally came home.

Amara stood at the foot of the bed, watching, smiling through the ache in her throat. For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Then her father's fingers moved.

Amara froze, then stepped closer. "Dad?"

Nothing. She checked the monitor — the numbers steady, unchanged. Maybe she'd imagined it.

Then his lips parted. Barely.

"Dad?" She leaned in.

A faint sound escaped him, too soft to make out.

"Is Daddy awake?" Daniel asked, going still.

"Shh." Amara bent closer, her pulse hammering.

Her father's lips moved again, and this time the word came through, cracked and dry.

"Don't..."

Her heart lurched. "Don't what?"

His eyes stayed closed, but his mouth kept working, fighting for the next word.

"Trust..."

She held her breath. "Who? Dad, who?"

His fingers twitched against the blanket. Then, so quiet she almost missed it —

"Kelvin..."

Amara went completely still.

"What did Daddy say?" Daniel asked, looking between them.

Before she could answer, the monitor's rhythm changed, and a nurse rushed in.

"Please step outside."

"But he just spoke."

The nurse's eyes snapped to her. "What did he say?"

Amara hesitated. "Kelvin."

Something shifted in the nurse's expression — quick, almost invisible, gone as fast as it appeared. But Amara caught it.

"Who is Kelvin?" the nurse asked, too carefully.

"My father's supervisor."

The nurse glanced toward the hallway, then back at Amara. "I think you should speak with the doctor."

"Why?"

"I can't discuss it here."

She turned back to the machines, and Amara took Daniel's hand and led him out, glancing over her shoulder at her father's closed eyes.

He had warned her. Don't trust Kelvin.

---

The doctor found her in the hallway a few minutes later.

"Your father's condition hasn't changed," he said.

"But he spoke."

"Briefly?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

She hesitated. "His supervisor's name."

The doctor's brow furrowed. "Kelvin?"

"Yes. Why does that matter?"

He glanced toward the room before answering. "When your father was brought in, he wasn't able to speak clearly. But before the accident, the medical team received information that he'd been found near Line Three."

Amara's chest tightened. "So?"

"The factory's report said he was performing his normal duties."

"And you don't believe that."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't sound convinced."

He was quiet for a moment too long. "Miss Daniels, I'm a doctor. My job is to treat your father — not investigate his workplace."

"Then why tell me any of this?"

"Because you asked."

She studied his face. There was something else sitting behind his eyes, something he wasn't saying.

"Is my father going to wake up?"

"We don't know."

"Will he remember what happened?"

"If he recovers enough to speak clearly — possibly."

"And if he doesn't?"

He looked at her with something close to pity. "Then you'll have to find your answers elsewhere."

He walked away before she could ask anything more.

Find your answers elsewhere. The words followed her down the hall.

She looked down at Daniel, who was gripping her hand tightly.

"Amara? Is Daddy going to be okay?"

She crouched in front of him. "I don't know."

His eyes filled with tears.

"But we're going to keep believing he will," she said, pulling him close.

"I believe you," he whispered against her shoulder.

She wanted, more than anything, to believe herself too.

---

That afternoon, Amara sat outside the hospital while Daniel ate the sandwich Mrs. Grace had packed. Her phone buzzed against her leg.

Unknown number.

Her stomach dropped. The same thing had happened yesterday.

She picked up. "Hello?"

Silence stretched on the other end.

"Who is this?"

Nothing — then a man's voice, low and flat. "Stop asking questions."

Amara stood, her whole body going rigid. "Who are you?"

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"What did you do to my father?"

A pause, longer this time. "Your father should have kept his mouth shut."

The blood drained from her face. "You know my father?"

Silence again. Then, quiet and deliberate, the words that stopped her heart cold.

"We know about the notebook."

The line went dead.

Amara stared at the screen, her hand shaking.

"Who was that?" Daniel asked, looking up from his sandwich.

She couldn't find the words.

They knew about the notebook. But it was hidden in her bag — which meant someone had been watching her closely enough to know it existed at all.

She scanned the hospital entrance, the strangers walking past, the nurse wheeling a patient down the corridor, searching every face for one that lingered too long.

No one stood out. No one looked back. And somehow that was worse — because whoever had called her didn't need to be standing there. They already knew where she was.

"Amara, you're shaking," Daniel said, setting down what was left of his sandwich.

"I'm fine." The lie came automatically now, worn smooth from use.

"You said that yesterday too."

She forced herself to breathe, to steady her hands before he noticed how badly they trembled. "Finish eating. We need to head back soon."

He didn't argue, but he kept glancing at her sideways, the way he did when he sensed something was wrong and didn't have the words to ask what.

Amara slipped her phone into her pocket and pulled her bag closer against her side, the notebook a small, hard weight against her hip. She thought of Kelvin's warning. She thought of Ethan's strange questions, the way his gaze had lingered on her bag like he already knew what was inside it. Two different men. Two different warnings. And now a stranger on the phone who knew things he shouldn't.

Someone was watching her. Someone had been watching her for longer than she realized.

She stood, took Daniel's hand, and started toward the hospital doors, forcing her steps to look calmer than she felt. They were almost inside when a voice from behind the reception desk stopped her cold.

"Room 17-B," a nurse was saying into the phone at the desk, her voice hushed but not quite hushed enough. "No, don't let anyone up there without clearance. Not until Dr. Reyes says otherwise."

Amara froze mid-step.

Her father's room was 14-C. She had memorized every number on that floor, every door between the elevator and his bed. She had never once heard anyone mention Room 17-B — not in all the time she'd spent sitting in that hospital, not from a single nurse, not from the doctor who kept looking at her like he knew more than he was allowed to say.

Daniel tugged at her hand. "Amara? Why did you stop?"

She didn't answer. She was still staring at the nurse, who had gone quiet the moment she noticed Amara watching, her expression sliding into the same careful blankness Amara had seen in the room upstairs.

Whatever was behind that door, it wasn't nothing.

And somehow, she was certain, it was connected to her father — to Line Three, to Kelvin, to the notebook hidden in her bag, to every warning she'd been given and ignored.

Amara looked down at Daniel, forced a smile she didn't feel, and led him toward the elevator.

But her mind was already climbing three floors higher, toward a door with a number no one wanted her to know existed.