9. Maricela
The day passes with uncertainty as to what will come next. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me.
Especially his.
The young, unruly man who would grab me by the hand and force me to talk to him while forcing everything out of me by sheer determination is no longer here. This man is more relaxed. More focused. Just more. I feel him next to me. He doesn’t leave us, even for a moment, which remarkably keeps Connie calm. It’s strange how she looks at me but asks him all the questions. She loves him.
It hits me hard, this understanding that she’ll be fine even if I go back to my life of blood and justice for no one. Because no one cares, not really. People are selfish, and on some level, they have to be.
“Miss Fernandez?”
I look up to see the nurse who explained the stages of children’s development to me earlier in the day. She speaks in a gentle voice, the same voice everyone else has been using with me since I got here except him.
“You’re doing a great job with the kids, but you need to rest and eat something.”
“Do you think the kids are sleeping too much? Especially Connie? Is it okay that she’s been sleeping for so many hours? She’s not a baby anymore. She’s four and a half.”
“Miss Fernandez, everyone deals with trauma differently. She’ll need psychological treatment, and the doctor will speak to you about that. When the children are released to you and your partner, Mr. Killian, you’ll get the guidance you need. But right now, you need to eat something and rest.”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll take care of it. Do you have any rooms available for parents?” he asks in a commanding voice.
A voice I hate. Liar. The same voice that taunts me in my head plays the word on a loop.
“Yes, of course. The hospital provides rooms for parents who stay the night with their children. I can direct you to one. The rooms are typically reserved for emergencies, but we have a room for both of you if you’d like.” The nurse sounds nice and sincere.
“We’re aren’t—”
“Thanks. I’ll make sure she rests,” he says, interrupting me again.
“I do not—”
“Start walking, Maricela,” he orders. “You don’t want to see me angry.”
I don’t dare look at him. It hurts too much to look at his handsome face. It reminds me of the young woman I was, full of hopes, aspirations, and dreams. The woman who moves her legs now is breathing and functioning, but any semblance of a life was taken from her.
“This is the room,” the nurse says, opening a door at the end of the hallway. “We have comfortable double beds in each room. We can also provide you with food from the hospital cafeteria downstairs.”
The room looks remarkably like a basic hotel room. It has a bed that could fit two people easily and a nightstand. A television hangs above the bed, and there’s a door on the other end that I assume leads to a bathroom.
“What are you in the mood for?” he asks me in a clipped tone. I just shrug. “Food, Maricela. What do you want to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He huffs out a breath and turns to the nurse.
“Get two plates of light food. Some soup and any white fish if you have it. We haven’t eaten all day, and I don’t want her to fall ill.”
“Certainly, Mr. Fierro.”
The woman almost bows before leaving me surrounded by his presence. I want to be with the kids. Before I muster the courage to face him and tell him off, he turns back to me.
“You need to take a shower.” I know he’s right.
I put on the shirt and pants Raven gave me without looking at them, and I didn’t even shower before leaving Ukraine.
Despite my stay in places where I didn’t always have the opportunity to maintain cleanliness and hygiene, I feel as dirty as ever, but still, I don’t move.
“If you don’t get in the fucking shower, Maricela...” I don’t say anything. “Little Ghost, start moving.”
I open the inner door that I see does indeed lead to a bathroom with a shower, just because I know that I won’t be able to cope with his hands on me in any capacity.
The shower in this hospital differs from the one in the patient’s rooms. It looks clean to the point of being shiny. Towels and robes are hung on a rack for use, and disposable soaps are also placed in a designated holder.
I shed my clothes, turn the water on the highest setting, and let the water burn the day away with my skin. Hot water became a privilege in the last four years of my life. I let it burn me from the outside, hoping it will burn my insides as well. It never does. What happened to me can’t be taken away by any method I’ve tried.
“You’ll never forget what I did to you. You are as good as dead, slut.”
“Little Girl, come out. You need to eat, Maricela.” I have no idea how much time has passed when the door opens wide and steam rolls out. I don’t hide my body, and I don’t yell at him for bothering me. I refuse to remember the first time I saw him naked and wet in my bathroom, as if he owned the place, as if he owned me.
“You’ll burn your skin. What the hell are you doing?”
He turns the water off and, taking me by the shoulders, he turns me to face him. I don’t know what he sees in my face, but it can’t be good because what he says next seals my life forever.
“Do you want to be in the children’s lives? Answer me!”
“That’s all I want,” I confess my weaknesses to him like I used to do back then.
“Then, from today forward, you’re under my fucking control. You and the children are moving into my penthouse, and you will do everything, and I mean it when I say every fucking thing I say. Don’t try me, Little Ghost, or you’ll never see these children again. I promise you that.”
“You haven’t changed,” I say to myself, or at least I think I do, but my eyes are closing of their own accord, and a moment later, I swear I hear him calling my name.