Chapter 2 - The Runaway
The rain lashed against my face as I stared at Arthur. He took a slow, deliberate step toward me, his heavy boots splashing in the muddy puddles. He thought I was just a weak, broken woman who had just given birth. He thought I would break.
He had no idea who he was dealing with.
"If you touch her, Arthur, I will paint this alley with your blood," I growled, my voice dropping to a predatory, feral register that actually made the grown man hesitate for a fraction of a second.
I didn't wait for him to recover. I grabbed a heavy, rusted metal rod that was propped against the medical waste container and swung it with every ounce of strength left in my battered body. The rod caught him squarely across the side of his knee. A sickening crack echoed through the alley, and Arthur let out a guttural roar of pain, collapsing onto the wet asphalt.
I didn't look back. Clutching Clara fiercely against my chest, I sprinted out of the alleyway and toward the main street. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I needed a car. I needed to get away from the Vance family tentacles, which reached deep into every corner of this city.
Suddenly, a battered silver sedan screeched to a halt right at the curb in front of me. The passenger door flew open.
"Get in! Eleanor, get in now!" a voice shouted.
It was Quincy. The seven-year-old was sitting in the passenger seat, but behind the wheel was Maya, my estranged younger sister whom I hadn't spoken to in three years—not since Thomas had forced me to cut ties with my family, claiming they were "opportunists."
"Maya?!" I gasped, throwing myself into the back seat and slamming the door behind me just as Arthur dragged himself to the edge of the alley, pointing a finger at our license plate.
Maya slammed her foot on the gas, the tires spinning wildly on the wet asphalt before catching traction. We launched into the midnight traffic, leaving the hospital and the Vance nightmare behind in a cloud of exhaust and freezing rain.
"Quincy called my burner phone from the lobby," Maya said, her eyes wide with terror as she checked her rearview mirror. "He said they were going to kill the baby, Eleanor. What the hell is going on? Thomas told everyone you had a stillbirth!"
"They tried to murder her, Maya," I whispered, my hands trembling as I wrapped my dry hospital gown around Clara, trying to use my own body heat to warm her freezing skin. She let out a louder, stronger cry now, her tiny fists pressing against my breast. "Beatrice and Thomas... they planned this. They wanted her gone."
From the front seat, Quincy turned around. His face was pale, his eyes far too old for a seven-year-old boy. "It's because of the other one, Eleanor," he said quietly.
May you like
I froze, looking at my stepson through the shadows of the moving car. "What do you mean, Quincy? What other one?"
"Before you married Dad... there was another lady. Mommy Sarah," Quincy whispered, his voice cracking. "They told me she went to sleep and never woke up because she was sick. But I remember. I remember the blue blanket. They did the same thing to my little brother."
