Chapter 5 Willow
WILLOW
The two police officers who came into the room first stand up, and one of them nods to me.
“Thank you for your time, Ms. Hayes,” he says. “We’ll make that call to your grandmother.”
They file out, leaving me alone for a bit. Before I can sort through the tangle of thoughts and emotions crashing around inside me, a nurse comes in. She refills the water and asks if I need anything.
“Um, no. Thanks.” I shake my head.
“Alright. You’re set to be discharged soon,” she says.
I barely hear her, just nodding mutely as I pick absently at the blanket on the bed.
I have a grandmother.
Not just an adopted mother, a woman who never seemed to truly grasp what the word ‘mother’ was supposed to mean. Not just someone who used me for her own ends more than she ever took care of me. No, I have someone related to me by blood.
I keep coming back to that thought over and over again. It’s been a fucking horrible twelve hours, going from one awful thing to the next, and this single fact is like an anchor. I keep it close to my heart, as if it can keep me afloat in the chaos of my life at the moment.
I’ve always felt so alone. It’s always been just me, working and scraping and saving and getting fucked over by Misty and trying to start over every time she did something shitty.
Then, with the Voronin brothers, something changed for a little while.
I felt like I found somewhere I could truly belong… until I realized I was nothing to them.
Just another diversion.
Just someone they could use.
But now I have some kind of family. The thing I’ve always wanted.
I remember being a kid and lying in bed after Misty did something shitty, getting lost in the fantasy that someday one of my real family members would show up and take me away from her.
As I got older, I started to realize it was probably never going to happen, but a little part of me hoped that there was someone out there. An uncle. A cousin. Something. Surely my parents had some family, and maybe they were still alive and would want to know what happened to me.
But no one ever came, and I didn’t know enough about who I was before the fire to know how to reach out to anyone. So it was just me.
And now… that’s all changed, in the blink of an eye.
An hour or so passes, and I jump slightly when there’s another knock on the door.
“Come in,” I call, and it opens to reveal one of the cops and an older woman.
“Ms. Hayes,” the cop says, smiling a little as he gestures the woman inside. “This is Olivia Stanton. Your grandmother.”
I suck in a sharp breath, staring at her. My grandmother hovers in the doorway for a moment, studying me in the same way I’m looking at her.
Her hair is mostly gray, but I wonder if it was once blonde like mine. I stare at her face, trying to see anything of myself in it. Our noses look similar, and there’s something about her chin that reminds me of my own.
Olivia looks stunned. She blinks at me several times, then steps into the room, coming closer.
“Curtis,” she says softly.
I frown in confusion. “What?”
“My son,” she clarifies, reaching up to brush away a tear that falls from her eye. “I can see so much of my son in you. It… it really is you.”
Curtis. My father.
I don’t even know how to feel about finally learning my dad’s name after all these years.
Or about having this woman here. I feel awkward, like I don’t know what to say or how to act.
When I was a kid, I imagined throwing myself into the arms of a long lost family member and feeling safe and happy, but I obviously can’t do that now.
I’m just… so shocked to have her here. To be looking into the soft brown eyes of the woman who raised my father. Who knew my family. Who is my family.
The cop who ushered her in steps out, closing the door behind him, and Olivia sits down next to my bed, taking my hand gently.
Her hand is warm and dry, the skin a little wrinkled with age. She has a couple of rings on her fingers, and they’re warm against my hand.
“Um,” I hesitate, stammering now that I know it’s my turn to talk. “I’m Willow.”
Olivia smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners even as more tears shimmer in them. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to meet you, Willow. Your mother named you Roselyn, but of course, I’ll call you by the name you’re used to.”
That’s another shocking bit of news on top of everything. That I used to have another name. It’s hard to imagine being anyone other than Willow Hayes, but it makes sense that I was someone else before.
“Can… can you tell me what happened to me?” I ask her. “I never really knew. I always assumed that my parents died in a fire, but…”
I trail off, and Olivia nods.
“Of course. You went missing when you were little. Your mother did die in a fire, and in all the chaos, you went missing. We were never sure if it was a kidnapping or an accident or something else. Your father died a year or so after that.” She looks down at her lap with a soft sigh.
“I think it was from a broken heart. He’d just lost too much. ”
My heart clenches, emotions welling up in my chest. I don’t remember my father at all, but it’s so sad to think of him alone after losing his family. He wanted to find me, but he never did, and that must have hurt even more.
“His father—my husband—died a few years ago,” Olivia continues. “I wish he could’ve lived to see you. To know that you were still alive.”
There’s so much more I want to ask. I want to know everything about my parents. Everything about the life we had before the fire, and about what happened afterward. But I don’t even know where to start with those questions or how to ask them, or even if it’s appropriate to ask.
Before I can work it out, a nurse comes in, giving me a businesslike smile.
“You’re free to go, Ms. Hayes,” she says. “You’ve got the all clear. You’ll need to take it easy for the next few days, and if you have any complications, please don’t hesitate to call or come back to the emergency room. You went through a lot.”
I nod and thank her, waiting for her to leave before I start to slowly clamber out of bed. My old, shredded clothes were taken away, leaving me with a plain pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt with the hospital’s logo on it.
I step into the bathroom to get changed out of the hospital gown and then come back into the room to see Olivia still sitting in the chair by the bed.
“Uh, I guess… I should go home,” I tell her, shifting my weight awkwardly from foot to foot. I’m anxious to get out of this hospital, but I don’t really want to say goodbye to her yet. I don’t know quite how to say goodbye, either. I have no idea how to act around her.
“Where is home?” my grandmother asks, her brows drawing together. “The police told me you were adopted when you were fairly young. Do you live with your family?”
Something sour twists in my stomach at hearing my grandmother refer to Misty as my family. But I just shake my head. “No, I have my own apartment.”
Honestly, it feels weird to be thinking of that place as home. I haven’t been back there since the Voronin brothers charged in and made me come stay with them, and I barely even thought of it while I was at their warehouse. But now it’s all I’ve got.
Olivia says something else, and it takes me a second to realize she’s asking where my apartment is.
“Oh, it’s the Lakeview Terrace complex,” I tell her. Which is some kind of hilarious naming, considering there are no lakes or terraces anywhere near where my building is.
Judging from the face Olivia makes, she has no idea where that is, so I rattle off a few landmarks and the nearest cross streets. Her eyes widen a bit as she rises to her feet.
“Willow…” she says haltingly, twisting her fingers together. “The last thing I want to do is show up in your life and tell you how to live it. But I do know that’s not the best area. I don’t want you going back there alone. Especially not after you were just attacked.”
Part of me wants to tell her I’m not worried about it. With Ilya dead, it’s not like anyone else will be after me. But there are the Voronin brothers to consider, and if they find out I went back to my old apartment, there’s nothing to stop them from barging in the way they always seem to do.
“I…”
“Please,” Olivia says. “Let me take you to my house and put you up. Just for tonight, so you can rest up somewhere safe.” She laughs a little, shaking her head.
“Well, it’s actually morning by now, but you still need to rest. I don’t know all the details, but it sounds like you’ve been through an ordeal, my dear girl. ”
She doesn’t know the half of it, and hearing someone express this kind of care for me has me reeling. But she’s right. It’s been a long night, and the last thing I want right now is to be alone.
“Okay,” I tell her. “Thank you.”
She smiles at me, and it’s full of relief, as if she wasn’t sure if I would accept or not. It feels… odd to have someone be this happy that I’m going to stay with them. But I’m too tired to really process what I’m feeling right now, so when she ushers me out of the hospital room, I follow her.
We make our way outside, and I’m surprised to see that the sky is streaked through with the pinks and oranges of early morning. It really is morning.
It’s wild to think that the whole ordeal with Ilya was only a few hours ago, and that me walking out of the Voronin brothers’ warehouse didn’t happen weeks ago.
In a way, I feel like all of that happened to someone else, and the me who’s walking out of this hospital with her grandmother is someone else entirely. But since it still hurts to think of the three brothers, that’s definitely not true.
“Willow.”
A deep voice calls my name, and my footsteps stutter as my head whips up.
As if thinking about them has summoned them by some kind of magic power, the Voronin brothers are crossing the hospital parking lot, heading straight toward me and Olivia.
I blink, my skin burning hot before turning ice cold.
It’s them.