4. Mina
Mina
Somehow, I thought death would be quieter. Strange noises surround me, mangling together, in a cacophony of sound. There’s a weird smell here I don’t recognize. I try to look around, but everything is black. Are my eyes closed? I try to open them, but nothing happens.
I start to notice my body hurting… everywhere.
At first it’s mild discomfort, but the more I notice it, the faster it grows into a deep throbbing pain, as if I’ve been hit by a truck.
I didn’t think you were supposed to feel pain in death.
Unless you went to hell, then maybe you would.
My mother did tell me that’s where I belong, have I finally died and gone to hell?
Memories flash through my head. My mother. The knife. It all comes flooding back, and one of the noises around me grows louder.
It starts to separate from the others, drowning out all other noise as I focus on it. It’s a high pitched beeping sound, and it’s slowly getting faster and faster.
I flash back to the nightmare of being attacked by my mother again and pain ripples through my body.
The stabs to my shoulders. Beep.
The gash up my abdomen. Beep.
The cuts on my legs. Beep.
My finger. Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyes grow damp, even though they won’t open.
“What’s happening?” a scared voice asks. I know that voice.
“Her heart rate is picking up,” another familiar voice answers.
Someone squeezes my right hand.
“But why?”
Max. I recognize his voice now. If I have their voices with me in death, maybe it won’t be so bad here. I try to squeeze his hand back as my breathing steadies, and the beeping starts to slow down.
More noises start to penetrate my mind. Somewhere, a door opens, followed by an unfamiliar voice. “Dom, it’s time. CPA is here.”
“I told you no!” Dom’s voice is sharp with anger, making my hand squeeze the person holding mine a little harder. Why is he so mad? Is he mad at me?
“Look, I’ve held them off as long as I can, but she’s seventeen, and there’s no sign of her mother,” the other man says. If I was dead, this was a very strange conversation I was listening to.
“I don’t care. I’ll marry her, then she’ll be under my care.”
The man sighs heavily. “Dom, you can’t marry a minor without her parents or guardian’s permission.”
“But she doesn’t have parents here!”
“Then you need to get her emancipated.” I hear a loud bang, like someone threw something against a wall.
“Chief! She can’t be emancipated while she’s unconscious!” Dom yells.
“But you can marry her while she is?”
“Ahh!” Dom groans in frustration.
Did Dom just say he’s going to marry me?
As more of my senses come online, I start to come to the conclusion that this isn’t death.
I think I’m in a hospital. As the noises start to filter through my cloudy brain more clearly, I make out the distinct sounds of beeping machines and the sharp smell of antiseptic.
I recognize it from the few times I was given something to help heal my injuries.
But if I’m not dead… That means they’ve saved me, just like they said they would.
The door opens again, proceeding a woman’s voice this time. “Good afternoon, I’m Julie Peters, and this is Roger White. We are from Child Protective Services, and I’ve been assigned to Mina Davies case. Can you tell me what all the yelling is about?”
CPA? No! They’ll take me away from my guys. I can’t let that happen, but as much as I try, I can’t open my eyes or make a noise.
“You don’t need to be here. She has a family, she has us,” Dom says firmly.
Dom! He won’t let them take me away. He always told me that they’d take care of me, I just wish I trusted them enough to tell them the truth before it got to this point.
“That’s not how the state sees it,” she replies.
“You can’t have her.” The hand holding mine squeezes as Max speaks.
“I assure you, I’m just here to speak for her best interest. What is your relation to her?”
“I’m her boyfriend.” I grip the hand as hard as I can, which isn’t much. Hearing Max call himself my boyfriend sends a shiver through me that makes me desperate to open my eyes and look at him. Does he really mean that? Or is he just saying what he thinks will keep them from taking me?
“I thought you were her boyfriend, or was it husband?” another man asks.
Husband?
I hear a small laugh. “I might have gotten a little ahead of myself, but I will be her husband one day, so it’s just semantics at this point.” I know that voice, too. Ben. What is he talking about?
“Look, not to be rude, but none of this matters. She’s a minor with no parents or guardian.
It doesn’t matter who her boyfriend is. You can’t marry her without parental permission, and she can’t be emancipated until she’s awake and goes through the proper legal procedures to do so.
She will be placed in the system for now until she’s fully emancipated or a parent or guardian steps forward,” the woman tells them in her no-nonsense voice.
“Then I’ll adopt her,” Dom states. If my eyes were open right now, they’d be the size of saucers.
The CPA agent stutters for a second before she speaks. “Y-you can’t just adopt her like that. She’ll have to get approved for the adoption process first, as will you. It could take months.”
“Then I’ll be her foster parent.”
She sighs. “It’s the same thing. It will take months to get you approved.”
“She’ll be eighteen before we can go through any of these channels!” Tucker’s southern voice chimes in.
“Well, then you may as well wait. She’ll only be in foster care for a few months. Then, when she turns eighteen, she can move in with whomever she wants. But only when she’s eighteen and not a moment before.”
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” Max exclaims, sounding frustrated. I feel the same way, too. But I also feel so cared for, knowing the guys were trying every angle they could think of to be able to get me to stay with them.
“Her ID isn’t even real. You can’t place her in foster care if you don’t know her real identity,” Ben tells them, sounding just as frustrated as the others. He knows my ID is fake?
“Well, we will look into that. It’s all part of our process,” she tells them. “Now, if you will kindly give us some space, we need to speak with the doctor.”
“You want us to leave? You can’t even prove who she is. You don’t know her, but we do. We’re not leaving you alone with her,” Jasper spits out, sounding angry.
“I’m sorry, but it’s time for you to leave her in our care. I assure you, we’ll take good care of her, and I will have her call you to let you know she’s okay.” No, don’t leave me!
“She can’t even speak!”
“We’re not leaving her.”
“Over my dead body.”
A chorus of angry voices rise around the room on my behalf.
If there was a time for me to wake up and tell the truth, it would be now.
Squeezing Max’s hand as hard as I can, I use his reaffirming grip to give me strength as I grapple to open my eyes.
It takes me longer than I’d like, my eyelids as heavy as lead when I try to blink.
I hear Max’s whispered voice, sounding like he’s inches from my face. “Sweetheart? Are you in there? Are you coming back to me? To us? This would be a really good time for you to wake up.”
I squeeze his hand to let him know I heard him and he softly gasps.
“Mina?” I try to turn my head towards his voice, but I don’t think it moves at all.
I try to pry my eyes open, but it’s just so hard, like being stuck in that state between sleep and awake.
Tears of frustration start to build, but I try to fight through it. I can do this.
Voices continue arguing around me, but Max’s voice is a steady anchor in my ear. “That’s it, Sweetheart, you can do it. Come back to me now. It’s been a little rude of you to sleep through the first few days of being my girlfriend, but I can probably find it in my heart to forgive you.”
A smile tries to form on my lips, and the room seems to go quiet.
“Now, I know I didn’t actually ask you, but I was going to, and you sort of decided to take a long nap, so I had to make the decision for you. You should have heard how mad Atlas was when I told him. He had the biggest pout on his face.”
I can picture it, and it makes me want to smile even more. I keep trying to pry my eyes open, and the tiniest sliver of light breaks through before everything goes dark again.
“It’s not my fault, though! When Ben proclaimed himself your husband, I knew I had to act quick to be hubby number two.
Since Dom is going to adopt you, I guess that makes him your daddy, so then he’ll be my daddy-in-law.
And since Jasper is my twin, we’re a package deal.
You knew that, of course, so that’s four of us.
Then the others can either get in line to be brother husbands, or they can be your daddies too. Whatever floats their boat, you know?”
“Max, if you ever call me daddy, I swear to god I’ll stab you in the dick,” Atlas growls.
“Atlas! I can’t believe you just said that. Did you forget she was stabbed? Multiple times?”
The room falls silent and tension simmers in the air.
“Shit, I’m sorry Malishka, I didn’t mean it,” Atlas says from my other side.
“Come on, Sweetheart, open those gorgeous green eyes. I want to see you.”
I take several deep breaths and push all my energy into opening my eyes.
They strain and flutter as I finally start to blink heavily.
I open and close them for a minute, but everything is blurry.
I keep blinking until things finally start to come into focus.
The first thing I’m able to see clearly is Max’s smiling face looking down at me.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he says with a huge smile. He looks exhausted and his hair’s a mess. Usually it’s in his signature bun on the top of his head, but it hangs limply around his face right now, like he couldn’t be bothered to style it.