Chapter 12
TWELVE
“When is she going to wake up?” someone asks.
Their voice sounds so muffled as I continue to lie still. What happened to me?
“She should wake up at any moment,” the other person replies.
Who are they? Why do their voices sound so familiar?
“Yamal, you said that three hours ago,” the first person says.
Daddy.
Yamal.
Why are they acting like I’ve been out for several hours?
“I thought, since she had gained weight, that she would be okay with a normal dosage, but I think maybe she is not. She should wake up at any moment, really,” Yamal replies.
“I was in such a rush to get the sedative that I didn’t think twice about whether her body could handle the same dosage as the other girls, but I will remember for next time. ”
“Let’s hope there isn’t another incident like this.” Daddy sighs. “I really didn’t want to have to do this to her. I broke my promise.”
“You didn’t, though,” Yamal gently says.
Daddy broke his promise? How?
“You said you wouldn’t let it happen unless it was an emergency. With how she was acting, it was an emergency. She could have hurt herself if we had let it continue. She will understand that when you talk to her about it,” Yamal explains.
I moan as Daddy grabs my hand. He’s so warm compared to my cold self.
“Why is she so cold again?” Daddy asks.
“The medicine could have shut down her body a little more since it was a higher dosage. Just have her close to you to help warm her up. She will be back to normal before you know it,” Yamal replies.
Silence fills the room, but Daddy keeps hold of my hand.
“Are you going to hold her?” Yamal asks.
“Not yet. I want to be able to talk to her first. I don’t want her to panic if she remembers,” Daddy says.
“She will understand eventually.”
I crack my left eye open and look at Daddy. He is staring at our connected hands, his thumb rubbing across the back of my hand.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he whispers. “I just need you to wake up so we can talk.”
My finger twitches, and his head snaps up to mine. Before I can close my left eye, we make eye contact.
“Little pet,” he gently says. “You’re awake. It was an emergency, and we had to give you the injection.”
My eyes go wide as I stare at him. I yank my hand out of his. Right. He gave me a shot. A shot to knock me out.
“No,” I whisper, looking at him in horror.
He told me that he wasn’t going to make me have a needle. How could he do something like that?
“Leah,” he gently says.
“You gave me a shot.” I gag at the mention of it.
“It was because you were panicking. I was worried that you were going to hurt yourself. I didn’t mean to do it.
I just didn’t want you to hurt yourself.
You need to understand that,” Daddy says.
“I didn’t want to ever have to give you a shot, but the medicine as a suppository or a liquid wouldn’t have worked as fast. We really didn’t want to give it to you. ”
I shake my head and curl up into a ball. How could he do something like that to me when he knows how much I’m afraid of needles? How could he be so careless?
“Leah, your Daddy is right. I was here both times. He said back then that he would only give you an injection in case of an emergency. Earlier today, it was an emergency. We didn’t want you to hurt yourself, and you would have if you kept it up.
So we had to take the chance and give it to you,” Yamal explains.
“Don’t be mad at him. I was the one who suggested the injection, not your Daddy.
He didn’t want to when we were on the phone with each other.
He wanted to give you the pill, but I told him that if you were panicking too much, it wouldn’t be safe to give it to you.
That you could hurt yourself even more.”
I place my hands over my ears to block out their conversation. I don’t want to hear their excuses about what they thought was right. They know how terrified I am of needles, yet they still gave me a shot.
“We’ll leave you alone for a little bit,” Yamal says, his voice sounding so distant.
“We’ll just be in the other room. Lie here and get some rest. Don’t try to do anything since the medicine is still in your system. I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Daddy gently says.
Tears run down my face and onto the bed as Daddy and Yamal leave the room. How am I ever going to trust them again? How could they have done something like this to me? Do they not know that they just broke the trust between us? There are consequences to that.
I grab the blanket on the bed and place it over my naked body, curling up in it to keep myself warm. Now I need to leave no matter what. I need to get out of here and away from Daddy and Yamal.
But how?
How am I going to get away from them when they are in the next room? They’re between me and the door. I still have the medicine in my body, and I know I won’t be crawling fast enough to get away from them. There is no other way out of the apartment.
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?” I hear Daddy ask.
“She will, she just needs some time to process the events of today. But don’t stop caring for her.
Show her that you really do care about her.
That you would do anything to keep her safe.
She will come around eventually,” Yamal explains.
“It’s going to be rough in the beginning, but it’s going to work out.
Don’t give up on her. Show her that you are willing to fight for her. ”
I scoff and bury my face into the blanket, taking a deep breath as I inhale Daddy’s scent. He wants to fight for me, but he gave me a shot. I don’t call that fighting for me or for what’s best for me. I call that doing something he wants, so he doesn’t have to deal with me.
I take another deep breath of his scent, and my body relaxes. Why does his scent make me react so much? Why am I always so calm around him?
I pull the blanket away from my face. There is no time for me to think about him. I need to focus on how to get away. I need a game plan to trick them into getting me out of the apartment so I can get onto a ship and get back to the space station.
I need to warn everyone there not to go to Venkoria. That they should stay at the space station and live happily there for the rest of their lives, even if the space station was slowly dying. Everything would be so much easier if I had just stayed.
But Daddy and Yamal’s words fill my head. Their worries about me not eating and slowly losing weight. I hadn’t even realized that I was underweight on the space station. If I had stayed there for the rest of my life, would I have died young?
No time to think about that.
But I can’t help but think about it. If I go back to the space station, am I going to end up like how I was before?
“I just want her to be happy and healthy, but I keep making mistakes,” Daddy says to Yamal. “I don’t know how to get her on my side and want to be with me at all times. I just don’t understand.”
“Everyone goes through this when they get their girl. Don’t think too hard about it.
Everything will work out if you continue to fight for her and show her that you are meant to be together.
I promise you. You need to not give up on her,” Yamal replies.
“Be there for her, even if she doesn’t want you around.
Show her you care about her and that you want to be with her.
Show her what her life will be like if she stays with her. Show her who you are.”
Tears pool in my eyes as Yamal speaks. Will Daddy actually do it, or will he just pretend in front of the doctor?
But Daddy has never been that way. He has always taken care of me and made sure that I have everything I need. So why am I doubting him now?
Because he had Yamal stick me with a needle. He told me he would never allow me to get a shot again, yet here I am.
He didn’t want to, my subconscious tells me. He just wanted to make sure you were okay and that you didn’t harm yourself.
I close my eyes tightly as more tears form. I need to stop thinking about him. I need to keep my mind off him and stay mad so that when the opportunity comes for me to leave, I won’t have second thoughts.
But I’m already having second thoughts.
I grip onto the blanket and cover my face, trying to muffle the cries.
“Shit,” Daddy mutters, his voice sounding so far away right now.
I just want him to come here and tell me that everything is going to be okay and hold me against him. I just want him to comfort me.
I just want him.
I bite into the fabric and shake my head. No, I can’t think about that. I need to stop remembering how much Daddy has done for me and push it all to the back of my brain. Because if I go back to the space station, he won’t be there with me, so I need to relearn how to take care of myself.
But I’ve had a taste of being his, and I will know what I am missing out on.
“She’s going through a lot right now. I know you want to go in there and comfort her, but give her some space,” Yamal says. “You don’t want to push her further away.”
“I don’t like her crying. I want to go in there and hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay. I want to make her happy and help her stop crying,” Daddy tells Yamal.
Even more tears run down my face as I listen to his words. Why is he saying sweet things about me?
“Let her cool off a little and then try to talk to her. If you need anything else, call me,” Yamal states. “I’m going to go check on some of the other girls now.”
Silence fills the apartment as I take a deep breath in. Did Daddy leave with Yamal? I only heard one set of footsteps after Yamal said he was going.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Daddy whispers so quietly that I can barely hear him. “I’m going to give you some time to be by yourself and comprehend everything. I’ll be back later to talk to you.”
But I don’t know if I want time anymore.