Then footsteps entered the room. Heavy. Slow.
Confident in a way that made my heart rattle. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who believed he had every right to be wherever he pleased. The soles scraped lightly against the tile, stopping just beside the bed.
Raina squeezed my hand even tighter, her heartbeat fluttering fast beneath her skin. A shadow stretched across the floor. I angled my head to look, but she covered my mouth and pulled me back against her.
Her eyes searched mine with a mixture of terror and determination I had never seen. I knew then that she had seen the person before she ran in, and that whoever stood above us was not supposed to be here. The mattress dipped as a hand pressed on it from above.
I heard slow breathing. Controlled. Measured.
The kind of breathing someone used when they wanted to stay calm while doing something dreadful. My chest tightened with recognition. It was my estranged former partner, Corwin, a man who had ignored the restraining order as though it were nothing more than a bothersome suggestion.
He had always been meticulous, always careful, and always furious when life slipped beyond his control. He had once promised that walking away from him would become the biggest mistake of my life, and I had believed it was empty anger. I had been wrong.
The soft sound of the newborn fussing broke the thick stillness. Corwin moved toward the bassinet. His silhouette blocked the faint hallway light filtering under the curtain.
He opened a drawer, the metal tools inside clinking softly. Before anything could happen,… The night I delivered my newborn son should have been a quiet memory wrapped in the soft hum of hospital monitors. Yet everything shifted the moment my eight year old daughter hurried into the room with panic tightening her small face.
Her sneakers tapped lightly across the floor as she pushed the curtains closed and glanced toward the hallway with a fear so sharp it made my skin prickle. “Mom,” she whispered, leaning close enough that her lips brushed my ear, “please get under the bed. Now.
Please hurry.”
Her name was Raina and she had never spoken like that before. I wanted to ask a dozen questions. I wanted to stand and shield her.
Instead I felt the instinctive jolt of danger and obeyed. My body still ached from labor, my legs still weak, but I followed her to the floor and crawled beneath the metal frame. The cool tiles pressed against my hips as we squeezed together in the narrow space.
Raina clutched my hand, her fingers trembling. The newborn slept in the bassinet, wrapped in a mint colored blanket, unaware of how the atmosphere in the room had transformed into something tight and breathless. I tried to speak, but Raina gave a tiny shake of her head and pressed a finger to her lips.
Then footsteps entered the room. Heavy. Slow.
Confident in a way that made my heart rattle. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who believed he had every right to be wherever he pleased. The soles scraped lightly against the tile, stopping just beside the bed.
Raina squeezed my hand even tighter, her heartbeat fluttering fast beneath her skin. A shadow stretched across the floor. I angled my head to look, but she covered my mouth and pulled me back against her.
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