Chapter 185
VALERIE:
I should have known something was terribly wrong when Jo woke me up so early to talk about feeding my sweet nephew, Lucian. I should have known something was off and I should have asked what it was. But I did not.
I did not because I believed that if anything was wrong, she would tell me. But I was wrong about that too. What could a ten year old possibly understand, right? Right.
I held baby Lucian in our room and pressed his head on my chest, I tapped his back gently, trying to stop him from crying. But he would have none of it. I looked towards the empty bottles on the table.
The one with the breastmilk had already been emptied, it was only the formula left. I bet Jojo did not know Lucian ate so much whenever she was not around him, because that was the only way I could explain her leaving only two bottles behind when she knew she was going to be away for this long.
Lucian could sense the absence of his mother, and it caused him to cry out loud. His shrill screams and wails bothered me. No matter how many songs I sang to calm him down, no matter how many toys I dangled in front of him, he paid me no mind and continued to scream, while trying to reach out to something I could not see.
I was starting to get worried. It was already 11am and she had been gone since 5:30am. Why was she staying out so long? Bringing mum from the hospital was not supposed to take over five hours.
I carried Lucian and walked to the dressing table where his half empty bottle of formula rested on. I picked it up and tried to stick the sucker in his mouth, but his face contorted with cute anger and he turned away.
Understood. He did not want to eat.
Perhaps he was tired of staying in the room. Maybe a change of atmosphere and some TV would make him stop crying. I held him tight and walked out of the room. I closed the door behind me and walked down the stairs. He continued to scream at the top of his voice, while I tried to calm him down.
I got to the living room, and I picked the remote control from the glass table in the middle of the room. I turned the TV on and tuned to a kiddies channel, praying to the goddess that he’ll be mesmerized by the numerous colours and songs that he’ll stop crying.
For a while, it worked. He stopped crying and stared at the TV screen. The only thing he did was make little frustrated noises, and it was easy to kiss him out of it. For the first time in a few hours, I was at peace. I sat on the couch and held him in my arms, while he watched a cartoon about rabbits and bunnies.
The whole house was at peace. Until it wasn’t.
I started to hear noises from outside, and they weren’t good sounds. At first, I decided to ignore. The guards outside were probably having fun with themselves. But it continued, and it did not sound like people were having fun – at all.
I carried Lucian in my arms and stepped away from the couch. He must have been pissed that I disrupted his view of the television because he started to scream with all the strength of his tiny vocal cords again.
I walked to the window and pushed the curtain open just a bit. Enough to let me see what was happening outside, and enough to keep me hidden inside.
What I saw caused fear to wash over me with an a strong current. Three men were being punched and flung to the ground, and they were the part of the men asked to guard the house. I could tell by their uniforms.
I looked to the right and saw the same thing. The men who had been asked to keep watch over the house were being attacked! Some of them had been beating so badly that their faces were disfigured.
There was blood everywhere.This material belongs to NôvelDrama.Org.
I moved away from the window and took three steps backwards. I turned off the TV immediately and looked around the living room.
Lucian continued to cry, as though he had gotten a sense of what was happening outside. I was scared, confused. If the men outside were being attacked, it could only mean that we… we were also under attack!
I turned the TV off and ran upstairs. My heart raced at an intense speed that almost crippled my breathing. I did not stop running until I had gotten to the last floor of the house. I searched for the last room and turned the key to open it.
Once it was opened, I rushed into the room and closed the door behind me. I locked the room with the key and looked around. Frantic, I rushed to place a crying Lucian on the empty bed in the room.
I tried to carry whatever my strength would allow me, to block the door. I picked up the chair from the dressing table in the room and placed it behind the door. I pushed the bedside drawers with all my strength, beads of sweat rushed down my face and touched the tip of my lips. I could taste the soured saltiness of my own fear and confusion.
Soon, the door was blocked with a chair and three bedside cabinets.
We were safe. Or we would be, if I could get Lucian to keep quiet.
I carried him in my arms and took his sucker out of the pocket of my pyjamas. I placed it in his mouth and he seemed to accept it, but he spat it out in less than a minute.
By the goddess!
I placed his head on my chest and tried to whisper lullabies to him.
“Please Lucian. I need you to stop crying.” Tears started to run down my eyes. We were two crying children alone in the house, with a swarm of assassins outside. I could have called someone, maybe Jojo or the alpha, but my small phone was in our room. And I could not risk stepping out of this room again.
Lucian’s cries were audible, and it was definitely going to sell out our hideout.
I started to hear footsteps on the floor boards. So many footsteps at once, and they were all headed in the direction of our room.
I closed my eyes shut and pressed my lips close.
They were coming closer, and closer. My whole body froze with fear, and so did my heart.