THE DAY I MARRIED MY NIGHTMARE..

CH 12..

The stinging in my right palm was a hot, throbbing pulse that beat in perfect, agonizing sync with the frantic hammering of my heart. I sprinted through the twisting, labyrinthine alleys of the industrial slums, my boots skidding over slick patches of oil-stained asphalt and rotting garbage.

The tears came down hot and fast, cutting clean lines through the layer of soot and dried sweat that coated my face. I wasn't just crying from fear anymore; I was weeping from the sheer, suffocating humiliation of it all. Enzo’s disgusting, oily voice echoed inside my skull, a predatory whisper that made my stomach violently churn.

Ten times. Anytime. Anywhere.

"Animal!" I choked out into the dark, a ragged, breathless sob tearing from my throat as I threw my weight onto the rusted green bicycle.

I pedaled with a feral, manic desperation, my bruised ribs screaming in protest with every movement. The rusted chain rattled violently against the metal guard, a harsh, mechanical countdown echoing through the pitch-black corridors of the slums. The towering, clinical white lights of the elite hospital across the river felt a million miles away now, an unyielding fortress of stone and bureaucracy that held my little girl hostage.

One thousand euros. The number was an absolute, crushing weight pressed against my chest, suffocating the air right out of my lungs. The deadline was eight o'clock tomorrow morning. If the bill wasn't cleared, they would dump Marta, fragile, broken, and clinging to a mechanical ventilator, into the freezing, understaffed warehouse of the public municipal ward. It was a death sentence wrapped in administrative protocol.

By the time I skidded into the narrow alleyway behind our laundry shop, my lungs were burning like I had swallowed hot coals. I didn't care about locking the bike; I let it slam heavily against the faded, damp plaster of the exterior wall, the metal frame groaning as it hit the ground. I threw my weight against the warped wooden back door, bursting into the kitchen like a hunted animal fleeing a pack of wolves.

The kitchen was still warm, the heavy, comforting aroma of the garlic and olive oil pasta, earlier still hanging thick in the humid air. But the peace we had fought so hard to build hours ago was entirely gone, replaced by the cold, stark reality of our ruin.

Beatrice was standing by the wooden worktable, her large, calloused hands gripping a damp dishtowel so tightly her knuckles were white. The second the door slammed shut, her head snapped up. The moment her eyes locked onto my frantic, tear-streaked face, the wild state of my hair, and the violent tremors shaking my entire frame, the breath caught sharply in her throat.

"Baby..." she breathed, dropping the towel instantly as she rushed across the room toward me. "Oh, Mother of God, child... what happened? Where have you been? Nico told me you ran out like a madwoman.."

"I went to Enzo," I whispered, my voice cracking completely, stripped of all its usual slum-bred venom, leaving behind only the raw, bleeding vulnerability of a terrified girl.

Beatrice froze in her tracks, her eyes widening in pure horror.

"You did what? Soteria, no.."

"I had to, Beatie! I had to!" The dam broke entirely, and I collapsed forward, my knees buckling beneath me as the sheer weight of the night finally crushed me to the floorboards.

Beatrice lunged forward, her powerful, calloused arms catching me before I hit the wood. She sank down onto her knees with me, pulling my shaking body tightly against her chest, wrapping her thick apron around me like a shield against the rest of the world.

"The hospital..." I sobbed into her shoulder, my fingers gripping the faded fabric of her apron with a desperate, white-knuckled strength. "They won't keep her there, Beatrice. A woman... a cold, clinical monster in a tailored suit came into the room. She looked at Marta like she was nothing but a bad debt on a ledger. She said because we are from the slums, because we have no elite insurance or benefactor, we have to pay a non-refundable deposit. One thousand euros. By eight o'clock tomorrow morning, or they will pull her off the machines and dump her in the public wards to die."

Beatrice let out a sharp, ragged gasp, her strong frame shuddering violently against mine. I could feel the sudden, fierce heat of her own tears soaking through my hair, but she didn't interrupt. She just held me tighter, her large hands rubbing desperate, soothing circles into my back as I wept.

"I went to Enzo's den," I choked out, the humiliation burning fresh in my throat, making me violently shudder. "I asked him to put it on our tab. I told him to double the interest, to take the shop, to take anything. But he... he laughed in my face, Beatrice. He pulled out a brick of euros and told me it wouldn't be a loan. He said... he said I had to sleep with him ten times. Whenever he called. Anytime. Anywhere."

I felt Beatrice’s entire body go rigid as iron beneath me. A low, terrifying growl rumbled deep within her chest, a primal, maternal fury that vibrated through her bones.

"I slapped him," I whispered, my voice trembling as I held up my right hand, the palm still red and throbbing. "I hit him with everything I had left. I split his lip open and ran. I didn't take the money, Beatrice. I couldn't do it. I couldn't let him touch me. But now... now Marta has no one. I failed her. I failed our little girl. The clock is ticking, and by morning, she’s gone."

I buried my face in her chest, howling with a raw, agonizing grief that tore at my bruised ribs, my tears flowing in a desperate, endless flood. I felt completely broken, shattered into a million useless pieces against the unyielding cruelty of the wealthy district and the predatory filth of the slums.

For a long time, the only sound in the dark, cramped kitchen was the ragged pattern of our breathing and the rhythmic, distant dripping of the loose valve on the washing tub. Beatrice didn't speak. She just held me, rocking me back and forth on the floorboards of our ruined sanctuary, absorbing the violent tremors of my panic into her own unyielding strength.

Slowly, the fierce, terrifying tension in her frame began to soften, replaced by a deep, profound tenderness. She pulled away slightly, her large, warm hands coming up to gently frame my face. She used the rough, calloused edges of her thumbs to tenderly wipe away the hot tears streaming down my cheeks, looking deep into my eyes with an absolute, unshakable intensity.

"Listen to me, baby," Beatrice said, her gravelly voice surprisingly steady, carrying a quiet, authoritative warmth that instantly cut through the chaotic noise in my head.

"Look at me, child."

I forced my eyes open, blinking through the blur of my tears to look into her weathered, heavily lined face. The fierce, indomitable spark of the slums was burning bright and steady in her eyes, completely devoid of the panic that was currently consuming me.

"You did the right thing," she whispered

fiercely, her grip tightening on my shoulders.

"Do you hear me? You did exactly what a daughter of this house is supposed to do. You protected your dignity, and you refused to let that filthy pig crawl over your soul. If you had signed that paper, if you had let him touch you, it would have killed me faster than any loan shark ever could."

"But Marta.."

"Marta is fighting, and she is alive right now," Beatrice interrupted firmly, her voice carrying a deep, unyielding weight.

"And as long as there is breath in our lungs, we do not give up. The wealthy elites think they can frighten us with their ledgers and their deadlines because they have never had to fight for a single crumb in their miserable, pampered lives. They think one thousand or ten thousand euros is a wall we cannot climb. But they don't know us, Soteria. They don't know what we are capable of when our own blood is on the line."

She leaned forward, pressing her forehead gently against mine, her breath warm against my skin.

"Everything is going to be alright, little bird," she whispered, her voice softening into a deep, maternal lullaby that I hadn't heard since the freezing night she pulled me from the rain six years ago. "I promise you. We will find a solution. Tomorrow morning, the sun will rise, and we will cross that river together. We will talk to the doctors, we will find Father Damon, we will knock on every door in the city sector if we have to. But tonight? Tonight, you need to stop running."

"I can't sleep, Beatrice," I wept, my hands clutching her wrists. "Every time I close my eyes, I see the ventilator. I hear the clock ticking."

"You will sleep because your body is broken, and a soldier cannot fight a war without rest," she commanded gently, her watery grin returning to her face as she kissed the top of my head.

"Come now. Stand up."

With a tenderness that defied her massive, imposing frame, Beatrice helped me up from the kitchen floor. My bruised ribs twinged sharply, but the suffocating weight in my chest had eased, replaced by the steady anchor of her presence. She led me out of the kitchen and up the narrow, creaking wooden stairs to our small, shared loft bedroom beneath the corrugated iron roof.

The room was cool and dark, the faint, soothing scent of lavender water and clean linen clinging to the walls. Beatrice pulled back the heavy, patched blankets of my small cot, guiding me to lie down. She tucked the sheets tightly around my shoulders, shielding me from the freezing draft that crept through the cracks in the window frame.

She sat down on the edge of the mattress, her heavy weight causing the springs to creak softly. She reached out, her rough, calloused fingers gently stroking through my messy, tangled hair, smoothing the wild strands away from my face just like she used to do when the nightmares of my childhood threatened to consume me.

"Calm your heart, baby," she murmured in the quiet dark, her voice a low, steady hum that seemed to push the terrifying reality of the hospital further and further away into the shadows.

"Let the panic go. For the next few hours, the world cannot touch you. The hospital cannot move her until the deadline, and Enzo cannot cross my threshold. You are safe here. Close your eyes, my beautiful, stubborn bird."

I looked up at her silhouette in the dim light, my hand reaching out from beneath the blanket to weakly grasp her thumb.

"We will save her, Beatrice ? Promise me."

"I promise you, with everything I am," Beatrice whispered, leaning down to press a soft kiss against my bruised jaw.

"We will find a way tomorrow. Now, sleep."

As her warm hand continued to rhythmically stroke my hair, the absolute, bone-crushing exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours finally caught up to me. The heavy, dark tide of sleep began to pull me under. The phantom ticking of the eight-o'clock deadline didn't disappear, but for the first time since the accident, my breathing slowed. Surrounded by the scent of lavender and the unyielding protection of the only mother I had ever known, I let my eyes close, sinking into a deep, dreamless oblivion, desperate for the strength the morning would demand.