Chapter 5
1414 Words
Consciousness didn't return all at once.
It crept in slowly. Like pain testing the edges of my body before claiming it fully.
Somewhere in between I could hear them talking. But I couldn't quite get what they were saying.Words floated in and out, muffled, like I was underwater.
My head throbbed, each pulse a drumbeat against my skull. My limbs felt heavy, disconnected,as if I were wrapped in someone else’s body. Panic stirred, but I couldn’t move enough to let it out.
Then a shadow shifted in the corner of my vision.
“Mummy”. The tiny voice called from a small figure huddled beside the bed.
I blinked trying to remember where I was.
Then it all came back. My father's weak plead and gunshot. The rain. Her begging the stranger.
“Mummy’s up”.
The voice came again. I turned my head struggling to focus.
“Who's_” my voice came out all croaked,raw and dry.
“Daddy’s sleeping.” The tiny voice informed me. “I wanted to sleep with you here.”
Before I could say anything more, she crawled beside me, curling against my side as if we’ve done this a thousand times.
How long was I out for?
The little girl stared up at me with eyes so full of hope and love. That she couldn't pull away from her.
“Alba”. A voice called from outside the hall.
The little girl's eyes lit up with excitement. She pointed at the door, grinning. “That's daddy!”. She exclaimed,with so much excitement. “Daddy in here”.
A moment later the door opened.
And there he was.
The stranger from the other night.
The stranger behind the wheel that had decided my fate like he was deciding his next meal. But had helped either way.
He stepped inside quietly filling the narrow doorway and room with his dark controlled presence. Dark shirt, sleeves pushed up to the elbow revealing tattoos that crawled up along his forearms.
His eyes went to the child curled up against me.
Grinning.
Then to me
Awake.
Relief flickered across his face,so quickly that I almost thought I imagined it.
“Alba,”he said calmly.”I told you to let her rest. She needs it”.
The little girl pouted. “But mummy’s up now. I just wanted to sleep by her side”.
There the word was again.
Mummy
It echoed in my head.
I looked down at the child still pressed against me. Her hair smelled faintly of strawberry. Her hand clutched mine so tightly like she was preventing me from leaving or I would disappear again.
My chest tightened.
I didn't know her.
But something in me reacted anyway.
Instinct.
Fear began to creep up my spine.
But I refuse to dwell on the fear that was creeping in.
I looked to him for an answer. “What… what is this?”.
My voice despite it sounding raw and cracked.Trembled.
Despite my effort to steady it.
“You were unconscious,” he said. Measured. Controlled. “She refused to leave your side.”
That didn't answer my question as to why she was calling me mummy.
“How long have I been unconscious?.”
“Two days”. He replied.
The words hit harder than they should.
I have been asleep for two days.
“Where am I?”. I asked.
“In my house”.
Simple. Direct.
For the first time since I opened my eyes. My eyes flickered around the room. High ceilings. Soft lighting. Expensive furniture. The painting on the wall was black and grey. Nothing about it felt like home. It felt like some hotel room from the movie she and Cara usually sneak around to watch when father was home.
“Why is she calling me that?”. I forced the question out before the little courage I had gathered slipped away. “Why is she calling me mummy?”.
He didn't give an answer immediately.
He stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. The sound felt louder than it should have
“She's five,” he said at last.” She lost her mother three years ago and has not said a word. Until she saw you laying there”.
Something ancient and primal stirred under my ribs.
Alba pressed her face against my ribs as if on cue, fingers curling tighter in my shirt and whispers. “Mummy”.
“She doesn’t usually…” He paused. His jaw tightened slightly. “She doesn’t attach quickly or calls a total stranger her mother. She hasn't even called me daddy in three years until two nights ago”.
I laid perfectly still. Fearing that any sudden movement will put me on the spot.
“Then why now?”. I whispered.
His gaze held mine. Steady. Searching.
“You tell me”.
A chill ran down my spine.
It wasn't possible right.
I couldn't possibly be the reason.
“There must be a mistake here. I can't be the reason why she's speaking again, right. I mean I just got here and this is the first time I am even seeing her.” I hurriedly explained.
I had asked for help not to be someone else's cure, especially not to a child.
He wasn't listening to me anymore, he moved to the other side of the bed ready to take the little girl away. The moment he touched her she screamed and tightened her hold on me. Pinching me.
I heard hurried footsteps. Running towards the room just as he let her go.
“What's going on?”. A male asked. A voice filled with so much threat.
I looked at the new faces that had joined, then back at the child who was now laying on my chest.My palm rested against the back of her head before I even realized I’d lifted it.
The room went very still.
Too still.
Every man in it noticed.
They noticed the way my hand curved protectively around the back of her head.
The way she melted into me instead of fighting.
The way her breathing evened out.
Like she belonged in my arms.
A man with dark blonde hair, dressed in white button down that was left open revealing a chest that was covered in tattoos with no skin out of place that wasn't covered up by the ink. His expression is dark and unreadable. Another beside him with watchful eyes as ever. They weren't watching the little girl, No.
They were looking at me.
And at him.
He hasn't moved.
His hand was still half-extended where he had tried to pull her away. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered it.
“She hasn't reacted like this to anyone”. The man with the dark blonde hair spoke.
It wasn't an accusation.
It was a fact.
“Alba, my little angel come here”. The man called out to the little girl so sweetly.
She refused.
Instead her fingers tightened around my arm again digging into my skin hard enough to sting . “Don't let them take me away mummy”, she mumbled, voice trembling now. “Please.”
Something in the room shifted.
Something fragile.
“No one is taking her.”
The words were meant for Alba.
But his eyes were on me.
Searching.
Measuring.
“I'm not her mother”,I said softly more to myself than to anyone else in the room.
“No, you are not”. He agreed.
But there was something in the way he said it that made my stomach drop.
The man stepped forward slightly. “Boss… this isn’t normal.”
“I know,” he replied.
Silence again.
This time it was heavy, calculated.
Then I felt it.
The shift in power.
This wasn’t just about helping a wounded woman anymore.
This was about something none of them could explain.
She flinched violently in my arms, panic flashed across her face when one of the men shifted his weight.
“Shh, I am right here”. I whispered instinctively, brushing her hair back.
The child’s fingers curled tighter around me, not like a child afraid.
Like someone who had finally found something she’d been waiting for.
And every man in that room saw it.
Including him.
- Writer
