Damien sat in his chair at the side of Roxy’s bed, watching the TV. Roxy was reading the book that Ross had given her for her birthday. Once again, her friends had left once visiting hours ended with a promise that they’d be back the next day. She seemed to be in high-enough spirits, considering everything. He supposed she was just grateful to be out, and he couldn’t blame her. He still didn’t know much about what happened or why, but every little passing comment he heard about her experience depressed him more, and he was surprised at how relatively ‘okay’ she seemed to be. He knew it couldn’t last. That comment she made while they were talking about her birthday, that she’d received two slices of toast as a present and seemed happy about it, almost broke his heart, as did her silence right afterwards as she clearly relived something traumatic. How little were they feeding her that two slices of toast was an improvement?
He shook his head and tried to refocus on TV. He supposed he should just be grateful for how well she was doing. He knew it would only be a matter of time before the novelty of freedom wore off and everything that happened to her finally set in. He wasn’t really sure how he was going to handle it when that inevitably happened. It wasn’t like he could just google ‘how to help daughter who was tortured for a week and a half’ and expect a good answer. All he could do was prepare himself and do his best, just like he always did. He would make sure his daughter was happy before anything else.
Roxy started shifting around slightly, grunting under her breath. He could see her face scrunching up out of the corner of his eye.
“Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?” he asked, turning to her.
She shook her head. “No thanks. I’m just a little sore. It’s nothing new.”
Damien frowned. “Are you sure? We can ask a nurse to increase your painkillers if it’s bothering you.”
“No, I don’t want to become dependent on them. I’m fine, it’s just my back. It usually goes away after a little while.” She shifted uncomfortably again. “I’m pretty sure it’s just because I’m lying on it.”
Damien remembered what the doctor told him about her back, that it seemed like she had been whipped. His heart clenched in his chest. He certainly wasn’t an expert, but he wouldn’t be surprised if there was some deeper muscle damage there that Roxy wasn’t aware of. “You’re not going to get addicted from a week long hospital stay, I wouldn’t think. The nurses wouldn’t give you more than you need, anyway, and you probably need it more than you think. The doctor told me about your back injuries. I don’t think you should ignore it if they’re bothering you.”
She finally tore her eyes away from her book and met his gaze, examining him for a few seconds before sighing and looking down. “You’re probably right. It…” She took a deep breath. “It was really bad. I… It happened on the first day, and… it never really stopped hurting, if I’m being honest. I just had to learn to deal with it.”
He took her hand, trying to stifle his emotions for her sake. “Oh, Roxy… I’m so sorry.”
She blinked, seeming to come back to herself. She sniffed and wiped her eye. “I-it’s fine. Well, it’s not,” she admitted, her voice shaking slightly. “But… what’s done is done. What else can I do?”
He stroked her hand and smiled comfortingly. “Well, it’ll heal, but there’s no reason you have to be in pain while it does. Let’s get the nurse, okay?”
She nodded, smiling weakly at him. “Thanks, dad. I love you.”
He ruffled her hair gently as he got up. “I love you too, ပွင့်ချပ်.”
He called the nurse and got them to increase her morphine. Damien had to stifle his chuckle at the way her whole body immediately deflated like a balloon the second it was turned up. She let out a satisfied sigh as he sat back down.
“Thank you, si-” Roxy suddenly cut herself off, her uncovered eye shooting wide open.
Damien raised an eyebrow. “What was that?” he asked, not sure if he heard her correctly.
She blinked for a second and shook her head. “N-nothing. I-it was nothing.”
He frowned as a slight worry churned in his gut, but he decided not to push it, instead focusing back in on the TV. Roxy went back to reading and for a while they sat together in silence. After a while, though, he got bored of The Simpsons and decided to ask a question that had been on his mind ever since Roxy had first picked up her book.
“Is it difficult to read with just one eye? Doesn’t it get tiring?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I’m used to it. The only thing I had to do besides sleeping in my cell was reading this bible they gave me. There wasn’t any light aside from what came through the cracks in the doorframe, so this is actually an improvement. Not to mention, this is much more entertaining.”
Damien frowned in confusion. “A bible? What, like a christian one?”
Roxy hesitated. “Eeh, mostly. There were a few revisions to suit their narrative, though.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Mostly just a few odd passages that I’m pretty sure aren’t actually in the bible. Preaching about how certain minority groups are evil and whatnot. I’m not really sure what they were hoping to achieve with it, but it gave me something to do other than sit there and think about how much pain I was in or how hungry I was, so I didn’t complain.”
He didn’t really know how to respond to such a casual admittance of her suffering, so he just reached over and gently squeezed her shoulder. He was still hesitant about what questions he should ask. He desperately wanted to know more about what happened, and why she was even kidnapped in the first place, but he didn’t want to push too hard and potentially set off a bad memory or something, ruining her decent mood. It would only last for so long, and he wanted to savour it.
Roxy let out a big yawn, putting down her book and checking the time on her phone. “Ugh, it’s only 8:30! Why am I so tired? I’ve already spent most of the day asleep.”
“Your body needs to rest so it can heal. Would you like me to turn off the TV so you can sleep?” Damien asked.
She shook her head. “No. I wanna stay awake until mom gets here, at least. I wanna… I wanna see her. She’s still coming, right?”
Damien nodded. “Yeah, she said she was on her way a few minutes ago. I can wake you up when she gets here if you want.”
Roxy yawned again. “Nah, it’s fine. I can stay awake.” She focused back on her book.
A few minutes later, she was asleep, gently snoring away with her book on her chest. Damien smiled fondly at her, taking her book and marking her page before leaving it on the side table. As strong as she was, no one could hope to fight sleep in her state.
His phone started ringing. He fished it out of his pocket and was surprised to see his sister’s name on the screen. It had been a long time since they’d last spoken; probably over a year. It wasn’t because of any sort of falling out, Damien had just grown apart from his family since moving away from Seattle. They still loved each other all the same. He could take a pretty good guess what she was calling about.
He answered the call and held the phone up to his ear. “Hey, Maiah. It’s good to hear from you. How’ve you been?”
“Hi, Damien. I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to call. I was going to, after I heard about what happened, but between work and everything it just kept slipping away from me. I just saw that they found her and it reminded me. How is she? How are you?”
Damien sighed. “She’s… God, Maiah, I can’t even start. This past week and a half have been awful. Probably the worst days of my life. I… I was so scared I was never going to see her again. A-and now she’s back, all of a sudden, all scared and hurt a-and… I just don’t know what to do to help her, you know?”
There was a low hum through the phone. “I can’t say I know how you feel, but I do understand. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like. If it had been one of my kids…” She was silent for a moment. “Eddie showed me this post she made on Instagram today. She was smiling, but… What happened to her, Damien? She looked like a damn mummy with all those bandages.”
“She… She was… hurt, quite a lot. I don’t know why. I don’t want to ask her and potentially scare her, you know? There was never any ransom, never any demands. They sent pictures of her being hurt to her girlfriend, for some reason. People thought it was a hate crime because of that, but… that just doesn’t add up for me.”
Maiah sighed. “Jesus… I’m so sorry, Damien. Is she there? Can I talk to her?”
“She’s here, but she’s sleeping right now. Two surgeries in two days and too many other injuries to count, it’s not surprising. She’s staying strong, though. She’s a lot tougher than me, that’s for sure.” Damien sighed. “Does… Does mom know?”
“You know she doesn’t watch the news. I haven’t told her yet. Should I?”
“No, I’ll do it. It’s been too long since I’ve talked to her, anyway.”
“Yeah, we miss you guys. Honestly, we were planning on coming down there to surprise you for Roxy’s birthday, but then everything happened…”
Damien chuckled sadly. “Even if it hadn’t, you would’ve been disappointed. She was planning on going camping with her friends, so you still would have missed her.”
“Ah, that’s a shame.” Maiah was silent for a few moments. “So, girlfriend, huh? I’m assuming that’s the blondie in the picture? She’s kissing Roxy on the cheek.”
“Well, I haven’t seen the picture, but that sounds like her girlfriend, yeah. Her name’s Sam. She’s a good kid. A little odd, maybe, but I can’t think of anyone better suited for my daughter. They got attacked a few months ago by some guy on a drug trip, and Sam put herself in the hospital trying to protect Roxy. They’ve only been going out for a few months, but… Their devotion to each other is incredible. Makes me a little jealous, if I’m being honest.” He chuckled.
“That’s really sweet.” He could hear Maiah’s smile through her voice. “When did she come out?”
He chuckled as he recalled the memory. “Well, I wouldn’t say she ‘came out’ so much as ‘got caught.’ It was a few months ago. She introduced Sam to me as her friend and they went up to her room. A few hours later, Martha goes up there for something and I hear some muffled yelling. Next thing I know, she’s dragging Roxy down the stairs, completely up in a tizzy and sharing some details that I definitely didn’t need to hear. Poor Roxy was so red I thought she was about to catch fire. I’m pretty sure Sam jumped out the window or something, because she never came downstairs but I do remember hearing something fall outside.”
Maiah laughed. “Ah, that’s great. So, I take it Moody Martha didn’t approve, then?”
“Watch it. That’s still my wife, you know,” he chided, though there wasn’t any real fire to it. He knew she had a point. “But no, she didn’t. Eventually, she learned to live with it, though. Still, she can’t help but make a comment about it every now and then.” He sighed. “Given how her parents were, I suppose I should be grateful for this much.”
“Oh yeah, I don’t miss them. The good ol’ ‘my daughter is too good to be dating this poor Asian immigrant,’ schtick. Do you think she’ll come around?”
“I hope so. She’s just hung up on having grandkids. Hopefully she’ll realise soon that that’s still possible between two girls, should they even want that. She did… she did say something pretty awful the other day, though. That she didn’t want Roxy to be seen with Sam because it could ‘hurt her real-estate brand,’ as though her clients even know who her daughter is. Roxy practically disowned her on the spot, and honestly, I don’t blame her. She’s always been so focused on her work that she barely has any time for us. It… it sounds bad, but I was really hoping that this whole mess would help put things into perspective for her, but she just buried herself in work even harder. Roxy was really sad when she first woke up this morning and realised that she wasn’t there. I’m… I’m starting to question things, if I’m being honest.”
“Yeah, I get you. Look, whatever happens, we all have your back, okay? I’ll always look out for my little brother. I gotta go now, but we’ll talk again soon. Say hi to Roxy for me as well.”
“Sure. Talk soon.”
He ended the call and slipped his phone back into his pocket, thinking about what he just admitted to. He knew that Martha had always been more focused on her work than anything else but, despite what he’d just said to his sister, this situation had really put things into perspective for him, as well. If she wasn’t willing to take even one day off when her only child was in hospital, recovering from an incredibly traumatic experience, then where was the line? What if it was him, instead? It wasn’t like they were destitute and needed the money. They were pretty well off, and they had quite the nest egg set aside specifically for emergencies like this. Roxy’s hospital bills certainly weren’t going to be cheap, but they had good insurance that would take care of most of the cost. There was no reason that she still had to be working. And yet, where was she? Not here, that was for sure. Sure, she was coming, and on its own her absence could be excusable, but this was just the latest in a long line of red flags that Damien had been ignoring up until now for the sake of his marriage. He couldn’t even remember the last time they’d been intimate together, and it certainly wasn’t from lack of opportunity, given how often Roxy spent the night at Sam’s. He’d been questioning whether she had any love for her daughter, but was there even any there for him? He was beginning to have his doubts.
He sighed to himself. What could he even do? Roxy needed her parents, now more than ever. Now was the worst possible time to be considering splitting up. He might not have known how much love he had left for Martha, but Roxy was his pride and joy, the greatest thing he’d ever done with his life. He loved her more than life itself, and if he needed to stick it out for a few more months with Martha to ensure she had the support she needed, then he would.
It was a few more minutes before she arrived. She came in and set her bag down on the table, kissing him on the cheek. “Hi, Damien. How is she?”
He took a breath and buried his emotions, covering them with his genuine concern for his daughter. “She’s… she’s doing surprisingly well, all things considered. There were a few moments where she seemed to shut down a little, but only when something reminded her of what happened. She woke up this morning. She… she missed you. She wanted to stay awake until you got here, but she fell asleep. I said I would wake her up once you arrived, but… Part of me wants to let her rest. She needs it.”
Martha pouted. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. You know how work is.”
“Save the apology for her, not me,” he responded, a little harsher than he intended.
She sighed and took a seat next to him. “You know that I’m doing my best, right? I would like to spend more time here, but we need an income while you’re not working, and my reputation is important if we want that. Real-estate is a competitive market.”
Damien grunted, not wanting to argue despite how many colourfully-worded responses popped up in his head. “I guess. By the way, I just thought I should let you know that you should avoid calling her ‘Roxanne’ from now on. It’s a… I think it triggers some bad memories for her. Something about her kidnappers always using it to refer to her. Just use Roxy instead, please.”
Martha hesitantly nodded. “I can… I can do that.” He wasn’t entirely convinced.
Damien still wanted to let Roxy sleep for a few more minutes, so they just talked about other stuff for a while. Martha went on about her day while Damien mostly just listened. Martha had been midway through a sentence when Roxy suddenly woke up with a strangled gasp, cutting her off. She frantically looked around the room while her heart monitor went crazy, eventually locking eyes with Damien. Her face crumpled and she burst out sobbing. He didn’t hesitate, shooting up and pulling her into a hug.
“Shh, shhh, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re fine,” he whispered soothingly. It sounded like she tried to respond, but the only thing that came out was a garbled sob as she frantically scrabbled at the back of his shirt. He could see Martha out of the corner of his eye, standing off to the side and looking unsure. Eventually, she pulled back, looking up at him with a teary expression. He wiped off her cheek with a thumb. “Bad dream?”
Roxy nodded. “I-I-I… I f-forgot that I was out. H-he… he was h-hurting me again.”
“Well, he can’t hurt you now, okay? You’re completely safe.”
Roxy took a few deep breaths and swallowed. “Y-yeah… I… I’m safe,” she reiterated.
“Roxa-” Martha cut herself off, clearly remembering what he said earlier. “Roxy?”
Roxy turned and her eye widened. “Mom… you’re here.”
“Of course.” She took a hesitant step closer. “Are you… are you alright?”
“Um,” Roxy faltered. She was still clinging to Damien like her life depended on it. “I… I-I’m doing my best.”
Martha nodded awkwardly. “That’s good. Is there… anything I can do for you? Anything you need?”
“I-I’m not sure. I… Some clothes from home would be nice, i-if you could get those, p-please. This gown is… a little drafty.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
Roxy was silent for a moment as she settled back onto the bed. She rubbed her wrists nervously, a new habit of hers he’d noticed at multiple points throughout the day, usually when something made her uncomfortable or anxious. “I, um… I missed you this morning.”
Damien noticed Martha’s eye twitch. “I’m sorry, I should’ve been there. You know how work can be, though. I just have so many appointments lined up, not to mention all of the paperwork.”
Roxy frowned. “Sure. So you… won’t be spending much time here?”
“Oh, Roxy, don’t misunderstand. I just want to make sure that everything is as comfortable as possible for you once you come home. I… I know you won’t be able to walk or stand for a while, so I’ve started looking into some mobility aids that we can install in the house. Bars in the bathroom, a chairlift on the stairs, that sort of thing. I know it’s not forever, but I figured it’s better to have this stuff and not need it than to need it and not have it. I… I know I’m not the best at showing it all the time, but I do care about you, Roxy. And… I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I don’t. I’m just… not as good at that emotional stuff as your father is.”
Roxy smiled weakly, a few tears at the edge of her visible eye. “I appreciate that, mom. I… I really do. Thank you.”
They spoke for a little longer before Martha left to go do some of her aforementioned paperwork. Damien felt a little guilty for his earlier thoughts. He had been a little harsh on her. People were all built differently, and they all processed things in different ways. He’d failed to consider that. There were certainly other issues that needed to be addressed, but he could at least admit his fault in that department.
“Your auntie Maiah called while you were asleep. She says hi. She hopes you’re well,” Damien mentioned in a moment of silence.
“Auntie Maiah? Wow, I haven’t seen her since I was fourteen,” Roxy replied.
“Yeah, she wanted to come over for your birthday, but…”
“Yeah…” Roxy muttered.
There was a light knock on the door. Damien noticed Roxy flinch at the sudden noise and silently took her hand. “Come in.”
The door opened and Pedro walked in, taking off his coat and hanging it over his arm. “Hey. Sorry to drop in so late. I couldn’t find any spare time until now.” He turned to Roxy and a warm smile overtook his face. He stepped up to the bed and pulled her into an embrace, one that she seemed to sink into. “Hey, kid. You doing alright?”
“About as well as can be expected, I think,” she muttered as he pulled back, though still leaving a gentle hand on her shoulder. It was the same easy familiarity Damien had noticed between Pedro, Leif, and Sam yesterday. He trusted Pedro, but it still made him uneasy. What were they hiding from him?
Pedro ruffled her hair before sitting down on a chair opposite the bed to Damien. “I wish I could say this is just a social call, but I’m afraid that’s not the case. Now that you’re awake and lucid, we need to take your statement about what happened. I would’ve waited until tomorrow, at a more reasonable time, but my boss was insistent, and I didn’t want to leave it up to anyone else. I’m sorry.”
Roxy looked down at her hands, fidgeting with her fingers. “I have to… tell you about everything? D-do you mean everything?”
Pedro shook his head. “I don’t need you to go into extreme details. This is just so we can get a good timeline of events and make sure that the responsibility is fairly distributed based on who… contributed the most to the crime. We know that Harrison was the brains behind it, but beyond that, not much else.”
“Can’t… can’t you just make something up? I-I mean, the evidence is literally all over me. Does it really matter about the small details?”
Pedro sighed. “I understand that you don’t want to talk about it. I can’t… I can’t even begin to know how hard it must’ve been to go through it once, let alone relive it again. But, these details are important. If we just make something up, Harrison will be able to refute it in court. Once again, I’m not asking for everything. I just need a general play-by-play of what happened and when. Just like Shepperton, remember?”
Something in Roxy’s expression changed then. She slowly nodded. “R-right. Well, i-if we’re talking about Harrison, I… I only ever saw him twice. I tried to escape on the first day, but… but I didn’t make it far. He came to my cell and…” she held up her left hand. “He took my finger. Threatened to take other stuff if I t-tried to get out again. The second time was a few days in… I… I was tied to a t-table, a-and… H-he was there, a-along with Emmerich, and another m-man… with a c-c-camera. He watched as… as I was…”
Pedro held out a hand and stopped her, noticing the steady increase of her heart rate. “It’s okay, Roxy. I can fill it in from there.”
Roxy swallowed thickly and nodded. “O-okay… Um, a-about Emmerich…”
“I already know what happened there. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. If anyone had it coming, it was him.”
Roxy took a breath and nodded again, rubbing her wrists.
Pedro continued. “I already spoke to your doctor about your injuries. Just so I can get a better picture of this, everything apart from your finger was Emmerich, right?”
“M-my finger and my leg, yeah.”
“Do you think you could tell me what an average day was like? I know this isn’t directly about Harrison, but due to his role in planning it all, getting the details about this will mean a harsher punishment for him.”
Roxy froze. “P… P-punishment?”
“Yeah,” Pedro nodded. “Even if he wasn’t directly involved, he can still be held accountable-”
“No, no no no, I-I… I don’t-” Roxy started hyperventilating. “I-I’m s-s-sorry, I… I didn’t mean to…”
Pedro frowned. Damien stood up and took a step closer, concern churning in his gut. “It’s okay, Roxy. Didn’t mean to what?”
Her whole body was completely tense, frozen in a slight hunched over position, shaking like a leaf. Her eye was glassy and unseeing. She suddenly squeezed it shut, covering her head with her arms as if hiding from a strike. “P-please don’t! I-I’ll be good! I’ll be good!”
His heart leapt into his throat as Damien realised what was happening. She was having a flashback. She didn’t know where she was. “Roxy, hey, you’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you here.”
Roxy let out a long, drawn out whine as she started rocking back and forth. “I’m… I’m… I-I’m… N-no… I’m s-sorry… Please d-don’t…”
Damien made the choice to reach out and touch her, knowing it had a fifty-fifty chance of bringing her back or making it worse. He gently touched the top of her head, stroking through her hair. He wanted to do something that wouldn’t remind her of wherever she was in her head, but it was a gamble, as he didn’t actually know how she was treated there. She flinched, but then slowly leaned into it, her breathing evening out and her whines quieting.
“There you go. It’s okay, Roxy. You’re safe. You’re safe.” He repeated it like a mantra, pulling her against his chest again. Pedro was sitting there with a stricken, guilty look on his face. There were tears in his eyes.
“Is… I-is he gone?” Roxy asked, so quietly he barely heard.
“Is who gone, sweetie?”
“E-Emmerich. I… I heard him.”
Damien swallowed and shared a worried glance with Pedro. “It’s okay, he’s not here.”
She was silent for a long moment. “...oh. Th-that… that wasn’t real, was it?”
Damien leaned down and kissed the top of her head before sitting back down in his chair. “...no, it wasn’t.”
He heard Roxy curse under her breath, hiding her face with her hands. “I’m losing my mind.”
“Roxy, you’ve been through something incredibly traumatic. Flashbacks are to be expected. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you,” Pedro said.
Roxy swore again and ran her hands through her hair, trying to compose herself. It held for about a second before her face crumpled and she slammed her hands down against the bed with a yell. “Fucking asshole. Even after he’s dead he won’t leave me alone.”
“It’ll be hard for a little bit, but you’ll get through it, okay? I know you, Roxy. I know how strong you are.”
“You don’t know what it was like, Pedro,” she whispered. “I… Nothing I ever did was good enough. He was always finding more excuses t-to…” She sucked in a breath. “Every day it was something new. Some new t-torture that he’d come up with, to ruin my body even more. I was w-waterboarded, electrocuted, cut, burned, beaten. It just never stopped. A-and the way he’d look at me. Fuck… The only reason I was able to cross that line and get myself out i-is because… because he said he wanted to keep me to himself. I… I was too scared to even attempt it before that. I was too s-s-scared of being hurt again. B-but I knew if I let it go how he wanted, that even i-if I got out after that… there would be no going back. So I did it, but…” She looked up at him, her expression grim. “There’s no going back anyway, is there? I’m… I’m never going to be the same. He’s always going to be there, in the back of my mind, telling me I’m not good enough. My body is still going to be covered in scars. I’m never going to be able to see properly out of my left eye again. It’s never going to go away completely, no matter how much I get better. Since the first day, when his whip first tore across my back, it was already too late.”
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The room was silent, save for the beeping of her heart monitor. What could anyone even say to that? To such an admission of pain and hopelessness?
“You’re right,” Pedro said. “I don’t know what it was like. I’ll never know. I’ll never be able to completely understand what you went through, even if I can try to empathise with you. But… I do know what it’s like to go through something that it feels like you’ll never come back from.” He looked at her with a hard expression. “I’ve never told anyone this, but… fourteen years ago, my fiancée… She was murdered, right in front of me. I was hospitalised by our attackers, and didn't get out until after the funeral. I… I never got to say goodbye to her, and… I’ll admit, it broke me. For the longest time, I felt like I’d died with her. I lost all of my friends, fell out with my family, and I knew… I knew that my life would never be the same. That I would never be happy again. But… I was wrong. I managed to find peace in my work, and while things weren’t perfect, I was satisfied. And… and then I met you guys. And all of a sudden, I had a reason again. A reason to keep going, to wake up every day. I reconnected with Carol, got to finally meet the daughter of my highschool sweetheart. I made friends with Clarissa. I got to watch as you got stronger through your training, and listen to all of Leif’s stupid little stories on our breaks.” He smiled to himself. “I met Valerie.” He shook his head. “I’m getting off-topic. What I’m trying to say is, no matter how hard things seem right now, no matter how insurmountable your trauma seems, you’ll find a way through it. You’ll find a way to be alive again, to be happy again. You have so, so many people who love you, Roxy, who want to support you. We’re all here for you, kid. You’re not alone.”
Damien was utterly floored. The care that Pedro had for his daughter, the depth of their relationship, it was… so much more than he ever could have imagined. It went beyond just friendship. How could they have cultivated such a close-knit and caring relationship without him ever hearing about it?
Roxy sniffled and wiped her eye. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
Pedro got up and hugged her. “You don’t have to say anything. Just think about what I said, okay?”
Roxy nodded resolutely. “Okay.”
“I have to go now, but I’ll be back soon. I’m not sure exactly when, because I have a ton of paperwork to get through, but I’ll definitely visit you again before you’re discharged.” Pedro smiled at her warmly. He ruffled her hair one more time before getting up and making his way out the door.
Damien stared after him, still too shocked and confused to really move. What was his relationship with his daughter? The more he learned, the more he interacted with Roxy and her friends, the more he suspected that there was something going on that he wasn’t aware of. Pedro mentioned watching Roxy train. Was he talking about her MMA? That did seem like a reasonable explanation, but Damien wasn’t sure. Sure, it would explain how he knew Leif as well, and he did mention being friends with Clarissa, but if that was the case, why didn’t he say that in the first place? He said he knew Roxy through Sam’s family, not through her MMA. Was this ‘training’ something else then?
“Dad? Are you okay?”
Damien realised that he was still frozen. He shook himself out of his stupor and turned to his daughter. Whatever was going on, she came first. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, I just… What about you? That was…” He paused, remembering everything she’d said. It was just too cruel, what that man had done to her. It was almost frustrating that he was already dead, that Damien would never get to see the face of the man who had terrorised his daughter. He had never been a violent man, but if there was ever a reason for that to change, this was it. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, but… what Pedro said was true. You’ll get through this. We’ll get through this.” He took her hand. “Together.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Today has just… been really hard. Better than the last week and a half, but… Still. It’s just difficult, trying to be happy, when everything is still just lingering at the back of my mind. A-and that… that… flashback or whatever it was… I… I really thought… I thought I was back there. It was terrifying. A-and I’m going to have more of those? H-how am I meant to deal with that?”
Damien sat up next to her on the bed and pulled her close. “We’ll figure it out, okay? Like Pedro said, it’ll get easier. I’ll talk to the doctors about it, too. See about getting you a good therapist. Whatever it is, whatever you need, I’m here, okay? I’m with you.”
She nodded and snuggled in closer to his side. “Thanks, dad.”
He kissed her on the head. “No problem, ပွင့်ချပ်.”
—
A few days passed, and Roxy struggled her way through them. Her mom delivered on her promise the next morning, delivering some clothes for her to wear. The difference it had made towards her mood had been incredible. It was small, but it distanced her a little from what happened, made her feel more like a person and less like a patient. More like herself again.
She was able to move around more, as well. She couldn’t move her right leg on her own, but so long as she was careful about it, she could manually manipulate it without much trouble. After a few days she was even able to get out of bed and into her wheelchair on her own, which was a huge leap for her independence. She was sick of having to ask for help to go to the bathroom, not to mention how humiliating it was. Still better than pissing in a bucket right next to where she slept, though. Regardless, it was nice being able to leave her room, even if it was just to go to the hospital cafeteria to grab a shitty coffee and some food. She still needed someone to supervise her, but that didn’t really bother her.
Her bandages were changed once a day, and every day more and more of them were removed for good. The visual progress was rewarding, but seeing her half-healed scars was always painful. It was unavoidable, though, so she made a point of trying to get used to them. They were a part of her now, as much as she hated it. The nurses would wipe her down when they changed the bandages and, though it was still humiliating and not nearly as good as an actual shower, it helped to make her feel a little more human. Eventually, she even got to have her hair properly washed. It was so matted and full of knots that it took half an hour just to brush through them all, but the experience was worth it. It was another step towards normalcy, and it was nice to not smell blood every time she turned her head.
Things were far from perfect, of course. She was still flinching like an abused shelter dog at every little unexpected noise or sudden movement, and her nightmares were frequent and brutal. She’d suffered a few more flashbacks, as well. It was like he was still there. Sometimes she even saw him out of the corner of her eye, standing in the shadows of her room and taunting her, insulting her. It felt like she would never be free of him. One time, her flashback had been so vivid, so real, that she completely lost herself for a few minutes. The nurses had to sedate her so that she didn’t hurt herself with how hard she was thrashing about. Apparently, she ended up biting one so hard that he needed stitches. She thought he was Emmerich. The guilt that wracked her over that was strong.
It meant that she still had to be hooked up to the heart monitor, despite not being in any physical danger anymore. The nurses wanted to be able to see if she was having an ‘episode,’ as her doctor had been calling them. He said that, while it was still too early to properly diagnose, it was extremely likely that she had PTSD. She didn’t really know how to react to that news.
There was also something strange going on with her. She hadn’t told anyone about it yet, but she’d been experiencing itchiness in her gums and the beds of her nails late at night. On the night of the full moon, she startled herself awake, her senses heightened in the same way they’d been on the night of the ritual, after Sam marked her. She checked on her phone and, sure enough, her eyes were glowing amber. The next day, during her bandage changing, the nurses had commented that her wounds were healing faster than they expected. She didn’t know what it meant, but it scared her. She was a human. Just a human. Not a werewolf. She had no fangs, no claws, no fur beyond her natural body hair. So what if she had the sudden urge to gnaw on the backs of the wooden forks that came with her food? It was satisfying for her teeth, and it didn’t mean anything else.
It was like Pedro said, though. She wasn’t alone. Her dad never once left her side, and her mom visited briefly at least once a day. Sam was always there during visiting hours, as was Leif. Ross came around every now and then, even with Lukas sometimes. There was a day when a group of people from her school came to visit, to see how she was doing. She knew all of them, but wasn’t really friends with any of them. It was still a nice gesture, though, and they smartly didn’t ask any questions about what happened to her, despite the curiosity she could see burning behind their eyes. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to befriend some of them once senior year started up.
“What’s wrong? Are you not hungry?”
Sam’s voice pulled Roxy out of her trance. She’d been staring at her untouched lunch for upwards of five minutes. In truth, she was starving, but she just couldn’t bring herself to start eating. It had been a bad day for her. She’d woken up screaming in the middle of the night again, and the fear that her nightmare instilled in her hadn’t yet left.
She turned to Sam, nervously scratching around the scars on her face. They got itchy a lot. “N-no, I am. I guess I just… spaced out,” she replied. Her voice was still quite rough and gravelly, often breaking when she spoke too loud. Sometimes she wondered if it would ever return to normal, or if she’d ruined it too much. Sam said she thought it was cute, but that wasn’t saying much. She thought that everything about Roxy was cute. Leif, on the other hand, said that she sounded like a prepubescent batman, which was as funny as it was mildly insulting. Leif was nothing if not honest with her. She was currently sitting in the corner, reading the book that Roxy had already finished, while her dad napped in his chair, no doubt exhausted from her constant night terrors and his less-than-comfortable sleeping spot. Just another thing for her to feel guilty about.
She turned back to the tray of food in front of her and picked up her fork, but she still couldn’t bring herself to start. She knew exactly what it was. No one had told her that she was allowed to eat yet. Despite the fact that she knew she was safe and she knew her food wouldn’t be taken away if she started without permission, the fear still paralysed her, amplified by the nightmare that was still fresh in her mind. She felt Sam’s concern before she heard it.
“There’s clearly something bothering you. What can I do to help?” she asked.
Roxy hesitated. She didn’t want Sam to know about her hangup. It was humiliating, and just another thing to remind her that she was well and truly broken. She’d gotten herself to eat just fine up until now, even if there were still a few moments where she hesitated about not having permission. It was just because of her nightmare. She forced herself to stab her fork into a piece of chicken and brought it up to her mouth, but still faltered at the last hurdle. She let it drop back to the plate with a sigh, accepting her fate. What a humiliating thing to have to ask for.
“Could you… tell me that it’s alright, please?”
Sam tilted her head. “That what’s alright?”
Roxy lowered her voice so that only Sam would hear. “F-for… for me to eat. I-I just… have a bit of a mental block at the moment.” She could feel her ears burning up at the admission.
Sam smiled at her softly and gently touched her arm, not a single iota of judgement on her face. “Of course it’s okay, hun. Was that… something that he made you ask for?” She could feel Sam’s anger swimming through her, though her expression didn’t shift.
Roxy shook her head. “No, but I wasn’t allowed to eat until he said so. Otherwise, it would get taken away. I only got fed once a day, s-so I made sure to be careful with it. Sometimes he’d make me sit there for ages, just staring at the food that I wasn’t allowed to have yet. I… I know it won’t get taken away now, it’s just… I had a bad nightmare last night and… it’s still stuck in my head.”
Sam growled lowly. “I swear, if he was still alive…”
Roxy smiled tiredly. “I know, I know. Just be grateful he isn’t.” She leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Big, strong puppy-dog.”
Sam snorted and gently pushed her away, failing to hide the pink on her cheeks. Satisfied, Roxy returned to her bland, mushy hospital food. This time, she was able to get the chicken all the way into her mouth without any issue. She really hoped that block wasn’t going to continue to be a problem.
The rest of her meal went down easy enough. While the food certainly wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination, it was at least a little more varied than a single bowl of scrambled eggs a day. She still hadn’t really regained any of her weight yet, but that didn’t surprise her much. While she was getting three meals a day plus snacks, her body was using most of that energy to heal.
Eventually, just like he promised, Pedro showed up, though with Valerie in tow, much to Roxy’s surprise. She hadn’t realised that she was still in town. She brought a bouquet of flowers, which was such a nice gesture that Roxy started tearing up, though she refused to admit it. They all chatted for a while about little things. Roxy teased Pedro about Valerie, to which he responded by pulling the woman into a kiss. She was happy for them, even as they explained that it would only really last until Valerie returned to France, which would be soon, apparently. Still, it was nice. She knew that Pedro needed a win like this, especially after what he’d told her a few days ago.
“Here, I got you this,” Pedro said at one point, pulling something out of his pocket. “I’m not sure if you even want it, but we didn’t really need it as evidence, so I thought I’d give you the choice. Think of it as a symbol of survival.”
He threw the baggie he was holding to Roxy. She tried to catch it out of the air, but her lack of depth perception made that difficult, and it ended up landing in her lap. She picked it up and inspected it. Inside the bag was what seemed to be a deformed bullet.
“Is this… Is this the one from my leg?” she asked.
Pedro nodded. “Yep. We took it from the hospital after your surgery as evidence, though it turns out we don’t really need it, since the guy that fired it isn’t… being charged, anyway..”
Roxy considered the gift. It was a reminder of what happened, but it was also a reminder that she survived it. The bullet didn’t kill her. It… actually made her kind of proud, weirdly enough. She hoped that she would be able to see her scars like that someday, too. “Huh, thanks. It could make for a cool necklace.”
Pedro grinned. “My thoughts exactly.”
Roxy gave the bullet to Sam so that she could keep it safe until she got home, and they continued talking for a while. Things mostly stayed on lighter topics, but Roxy got the sense that Pedro was just building himself up to something. It made her a little nervous. What could he be worried about telling her?
“Is he asleep?” Pedro finally asked during a lull in the conversation, gesturing at Roxy’s dad.
She looked at him. It didn’t seem like he’d moved an inch from when he first passed out, so she could only assume. “Yeah, I think so. Why?”
“Right. Okay.” Pedro sighed and rubbed his face. “I really hate to ask this of you, Roxy, especially after what happened the other night, but the Council has been on my ass about it ever since you got out and I can’t put it off any longer.”
Roxy grit her teeth and prepared herself. “What is it?”
He looked up at her, earnest apology in his eyes. “They want to know if you… figured anything out while you were captive. Anything about this big ‘plan’ that the hunters seem to have. We’re running on simple guesswork at the moment.”
Roxy frowned. That wasn’t too bad. “Uhh, let me think,” she muttered. It was hard to recall much, as most of her days spent in the outpost generally blurred together into a hazy mix of concrete cells and bright corridors, but she knew that there had to be something. Emmerich gloated too much for her not to have heard something useful. Eventually, something clicked, something that she remembered specifically making a note of for Pedro. “Oh yeah! You were right about the luring thing. That was definitely why they took me in the first place. They specifically mentioned that I was bait for Sam. Also, remember what happened to Blaine? Well, I figured out that it was definitely the hunters that did it. They used a drug for it. I… I don’t think I remember what it was called, but there’s most likely an antidote for it. Either that, or the drug wears off after a while.”
Something flickered in Pedro’s face. “That… that’s definitely good news, but… How did you figure that out?”
Roxy winced. “Emmerich… He wanted to know what would happen if he used the drug on a human who had close contact with werewolves, so… He injected me with it. I’m not sure what he found out, though. Everything after that moment is a complete haze. When… When I woke up the next morning, there was blood all over my face and hands. I have no idea where it came from, though. I could barely move, and this part of my hair had turned white.” She flicked the aforementioned part of her fringe with a finger. “Given that I can still form rational thoughts, I think it’s safe to assume that there’s an antidote.”
She could feel Sam’s anger burning through her at the admission. “He… he experimented on you?” she muttered.
“Just that once, but… y-yeah.”
Pedro swore under his breath, and then swore some more, in both English and Spanish. He took a breath, calmed himself down, and looked back up at her. “Thank you for telling me. Was there anything else?”
Roxy thought for a little while. She was about to say no, but something stopped her. It was a tiny little memory, sitting at the back of her mind since the first day of her torture. It took a bit, but she finally brought it back to the forefront. Her heart monitor sped up. “Oh.”
Pedro frowned. “What is it?”
Roxy bit her lip to ground herself. “Emmerich, he said… The thing they want Sam for, it… If they succeed, it’ll mean the death of every werewolf on the planet.”
The room was completely silent aside from the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor. Roxy noticed Leif’s frown. “Wait, why is everyone surprised? Isn’t that what they’ve always been trying to do?”
“Yes, but…” Pedro faltered, the news weighing heavily on his shoulders. “This plan, they… They gambled everything on it. Roxy’s kidnapping went viral, and now that she’s out people are demanding answers. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news, but every station in the country has already reported that it was a dangerous cult that kidnapped her. It’s only a matter of time until people look deeper and figure out that the Dewsbury outpost was only a tiny part of that ‘cult,’ not the main base. They gambled their most valuable resource on this plan; their secrecy. To gamble that much on it can only mean that whatever they’re planning is guaranteed to work.”
Roxy was a little taken aback. She hadn’t realised that her kidnapping had gotten that much coverage. Sure, she expected that the whole town would know about it, maybe even the whole state, but the whole country? That was hard to imagine. Did that make her a celebrity? Would there be true-crime documentaries made about her? She hoped not.
Pedro ran his hands through his hair and groaned. “If only I could figure out what this damn plan even is! It’s been driving me crazy, I feel like I’m just barely missing the last piece of the puzzle.”
“Why don’t we go over everything we know and brainstorm together?” Sam asked.
Pedro considered. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. What do we know?”
“Well, they definitely need me for whatever it is, probably because I’m the only direwolf left,” Sam began.
“They probably wanna use that drug on you, too,” Roxy added. Sam shuddered at the thought.
“So, Sam plus the drug somehow equals werewolf extinction? It feels like something’s missing there. Doesn’t the drug just make you way stronger?” Leif asked.
“Keep in mind it also seems like it reduces cognisance, if we compare Blaine’s aggression and Roxy’s inability to remember anything. I was originally thinking that they wanted to use it on her and then release her to the streets like they did with Blaine, but, as you said, I’m not sure how that ends in the death of every werewolf,” Pedro commented. “I heard a few reports that the plan is meant to go off on something the hunters have been calling the ‘night of the Bloodmoon,’ but that could mean a lot of things.”
Everyone was silent for a moment as they all tried to piece things together. It was like Pedro said, it felt like there was just a single piece missing. If only there was some sort of-
“Oh oh oh!” Valerie suddenly exclaimed, before pausing and going pale. “Oh.”
“What is it?” Pedro asked. “Did you figure something out?”
“The… th-the eclipse ritual. They’re… they’re going to use the eclipse ritual…”
Pedro frowned. “Wait, what? How? How would they even know about it?”
“I don’t know! But, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Bloodmoon? That could easily refer to an eclipse. With a direwolf, the eclipse ritual would briefly connect every single werewolf in the world. If… If they used the drug on Sam then, it would affect every single werewolf alive. A-and, not just the full werewolves, either. P-people like me, humans with werewolf heritage, it’ll get us too. Millions of individuals across the planet would be turned into brainless monsters, all in the same instant.”
“But still, while that would be horrible, it doesn’t explain how that ends in werewolf extinction,” Roxy said.
“It’s simple,” Pedro replied, voice flat and empty. “If millions of violent monsters start rampaging across the globe, what do you think will happen?” He looked at everyone, his expression grim. “We would be hunted down and killed with ruthless efficiency. There would be no need for secrecy, the army would march through the streets, gunning down every werewolf they saw. Even if a couple of us get the cure, there would be no hope of getting it to the entire population. At most, a tiny handful of us would survive, and that’s only if we actually get our hands on this antidote. That’s how it ends in extinction.”
“But… b-but we don’t have to worry about that, right? Not so long as they don’t get Sam,” Leif said, her voice shaking slightly.
Pedro nodded. “Correct. With the Dewsbury outpost destroyed, their hold on this town will be pretty weak. We should be safe, at least for a while. But… but we need to take some precautions. I’ll get in touch with the Council, share what we’ve learned.”
“I need to look through the records some more. I want to see if there’s anything more to learn about the eclipse ritual,” Valerie said.
“Eclipse what? What are we talking about?”
Everybody froze and turned to Damien. He was rubbing his eyes and looking around at everyone, a confused expression on his face. No one spoke up. “What?”
“Dad… what did you hear?” Roxy asked carefully.
He frowned. “Uh, nothing? Something about an eclipse?” He looked around again, locking onto Valerie. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Oh!” She got up from her seat and went to shake his hand. “I’m Valerie Dubois. I’m a…” Her eyes flicked around nervously. “A friend of Pedro’s. I came to see how Roxy was doing.”
“Your accent, is that French?”
Valerie nodded. “I came here on business a few weeks ago. I’ve been staying with Pedro.”
Damien looked back and forth between Roxy and Valerie. A bad feeling formed in her gut. “How do you two… know each other?”
“Pedro, uh… introduced us all a while ago,” Sam said nervously.
Damien frowned and was silent for a worrying amount of time. “Pedro, you… Could I talk to you outside for a minute?” he finally asked.
Everyone shared a cautious look. Roxy’s heart monitor sped up a little. She should’ve known her dad would pick up on things. He’d been around her and her friends practically 24/7, and he certainly wasn’t stupid. If he had been paying any attention at all, he would have realised they were hiding something. He still hadn’t even asked why she’d been taken yet, despite how much time she’d spent trying to think of a reasonable answer that didn’t involve werewolves. It wouldn’t be terrible for him to know, honestly. It might actually be nice, being able to confide in him about everything. It just seemed like the type of thing that she should keep from her parents.
Pedro made eye contact with her and she felt his question. He wanted to know if it was okay to share everything with him. She didn’t really know. She trusted her dad just as much as anyone else in her pack, but would he even believe Pedro if he tried to explain it? He was equally as likely to think Pedro was crazy and filling Roxy’s mind with nonsense or something. That would only end badly. If they were telling him, they needed solid proof, and the hospital wasn’t the place for that.
Silently, she communicated that back to him. Pedro agreed. He said he had a plan and would work it out, but past that she had no idea what was about to happen. Pedro finally turned back to Damien.
“Alright, sure.”
—
Pedro followed Damien out the door and into the hallway. They continued on until they found a good place to talk, settling on a quiet corner that didn’t seem to be getting much traffic. Damien turned to him, a distrusting look in his eyes.
“Alright, Pedro, I need you to be honest with me. What is your relationship with my daughter? Why are you so familiar with her and her friends?”
Pedro squared his shoulders and looked the man in the eye. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Damien. I want to tell you everything, but here and now isn’t the place nor the time. Look, I-”
Damien shook his head. “I don’t accept that. You’re all hiding something. You know why Roxy was kidnapped, don’t you? You know a lot more than you’ve been letting on, that’s for sure.”
Pedro sighed. “I do know, and I do think you deserve to know, too. Roxy thinks you deserve to know. It’s just… dangerous to talk about in public like this. Your daughter is the target of some very dangerous and powerful people, as are Sam and Leif. I’ve been looking out for them. That’s all I can say right now.”
“Well, obviously she’s the target of dangerous people! She was kidnapped and fucking tortured, for Christ's sake! I just want to know why. Why her and her friends? What did they do?” The desperation in his voice was palpable and something twinged deep down in Pedro’s heart.
“Look, Sam and I have been planning a little brunch cookout sort of thing as a surprise for when Roxy gets discharged from hospital. Sam was meant to ask you about it, but, if you agree, we’ll be able to talk freely then, okay? I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
Damien frowned. “A… a brunch? What, at my house?”
Pedro nodded. “Ideally. We wanted for her to be able to wake up to it. It would be a little harder to keep a secret if it was at someone else’s house.” A slight unconscious smile caught his lips at the thought of being able to cheer her up.
“You… you really do care about her, don’t you?” Damien asked, his defensive posture dropping into something more open.
“You heard my little speech the other night. If it wasn’t for Roxy, I would still be stuck in the same place I’ve spent the last 14 years festering in. It was ultimately because of her that I was able to actually start living again. I would do anything to repay the favour.”
Damien’s gaze softened. “Yeah…” he muttered. “Yeah, okay. I’ll let you know when she’s getting discharged. We can do the brunch the next morning.”
Pedro smiled. “Thank you, Damien. It means a lot to me.”
“Just… one more thing. This… this stuff you’re all involved in, it… it isn’t going to put Roxy in any more danger, is it?”
Pedro hesitated. “It’s… Ideally, no, it won’t. All any of us want is just to live in peace. It’s the people who kidnapped her that are the danger. They seek us out. They killed my fiancée. They killed Sam’s parents. Now that Roxy and Leif are involved, too, there isn’t really a way out. All I can do is protect them as best as I can. And… And I’m sorry that I failed to do that. The only bright side is that, now that their outpost is destroyed, their hold on Dewsbury has significantly weakened, so it should be a while before they strike back.”
“Th-that’s… I… I have so many questions,” Damien muttered, his eyes wide. “Are you saying that the place you guys raided wasn’t their only base?”
“Like I said, I’ll answer all of your questions when we have a little more privacy, okay? We all will. You just have to wait.”
Damien took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Okay. I… I can do that.”
Pedro smiled and placed a hand on Damien’s shoulder. “Good man.”
—
Roxy awoke to an enticing scent. She cracked open her good eye, waking up to her own ceiling for the first time in over half a month. She’d finally been released from the hospital and got home last night, flopping straight into bed and going to sleep the second she figured out how to work the chairlift on the stairs. Being able to sink into her own pillow again, bundled up in her own blankets, was quite literally better than sex. Sam was certainly… talented, but nothing could compete with her own bed after so long away.
Almost all of her bandages had been removed, barring her surgery wound and a few of the deepest cuts on her back, not to mention her eyepatch. The horizontal cut across her cheek and nose was actually pretty thin, and while it was currently an angry shade of pink, it seemed like it might heal pretty well. The vertical cut that crossed her eye, on the other hand, had not healed nearly as cleanly. It was thicker and deeper, and the edges were rough and bumpy. It would’ve looked cool on some sort of fantasy hero, but on her it just looked out of place. She’d been trying not to think of them as ugly, but it wasn’t always easy, even with Sam’s constant assurances. The white in her hair took a little getting used to, but honestly, it was definitely the best takeaway from all of the horrible shit of the past month. It actually looked pretty good if she styled it right. It brought attention away from the rest of her scarred face, at least. She hadn’t tried to check her back yet, and honestly, she was terrified of what she might find.
Another waft of something delicious dragged her out of her thoughts. She could hear voices from downstairs. Sam’s bouncing laughter echoed up the stairs and straight into her brain, filling her body with fuzziness. She thought she could also hear Pedro’s low drawl, as well. What were they all doing there?
She picked herself up and dragged herself into her wheelchair. She would be stuck with it for the next few weeks, at least until she had regained enough strength to graduate to crutches. It was a little frustrating. As much fun as it could be to wheel herself around, she very much missed standing up. She wheeled over to the mirror and made sure that she was at least slightly presentable. Her tank-top and sleep shorts combo was certainly more revealing than she would have liked, especially with how they displayed the scars littered across her arms and legs, but she couldn’t really be bothered to try and get herself changed. It would only be her family and her pack downstairs at most, anyway. They had all seen her in much worse condition already.
Roxy wheeled herself out of her room and down the hall towards the stairs. The enticing smell of bacon and eggs was starting to make her mouth water. Reaching the landing and looking down into the kitchen, she saw plates upon plates of breakfast food spread across the dining table. Pedro, Sam, Leif, and her dad were all there, helping out and chatting amicably. She must have made a noise, because Sam suddenly turned to her, a bright smile on her face. “Roxy!”
The blonde bounded up the stairs before Roxy could even formulate a response, picking her up - wheelchair and all - and carrying her down to the kitchen. The ride was bumpy and while Roxy had absolute faith in Sam’s strength, she still held on to the armrests of her chair for dear life. Sam set her down in front of the table of food and ran around into her field of vision. “Surprise!”
Roxy took in everything in front of her. There was bacon, toast, waffles, pancakes, sausages, and eggs cooked in every different way imaginable.“Is… is this all for me?” she asked, well and truly shocked.
“Well, the food is for all of us, but… yeah. We wanted to do something nice for you,” Pedro answered with a warm smile on his face.
Roxy began tearing up. “You guys… This is… This is so much!”
“Nonsense,” her dad said. “Now, what do you want? You can have as much as you like.” He picked up a plate for her.
Roxy knew exactly what she wanted. It was the first thing that had popped into her mind, the second she caught a whiff of what was cooking, and pretty much her go-to whenever they had bacon and eggs for breakfast. “A bacon and egg toast sandwich with hot sauce, please and thank you.” She smirked at her dad.
He laughed. “Should have known.”
Everyone piled up their plates with food and dug in. Biting into her sandwich, Roxy almost burst into tears. She’d had dozens, if not hundreds of them over the years, but this one was probably the best thing she’d ever tasted, its deliciousness amplified by how long it had been since she last had a meal with any flavour. Or spice, for that matter. It was then that it really set in. Everything was really over. She was finally home.
She turned to Sam, watching lovingly as her girlfriend made an absolute mess of herself while eating. Sam must have realised she was being observed, because she suddenly paused and glanced at Roxy with a smirk, before leaning in for a quick peck on the lips. She continued smiling for a few seconds after pulling back, but then her face began to turn red and she jumped up from her seat.
“Oh my god your lips are spicy! Why are you so spicy?!”
Everyone laughed as Sam ran to the fridge and grabbed a carton of milk, not even bothering to pour it into a glass before frantically downing the whole thing. Once she was done, she turned to Damien with an apologetic look. “I’ll, uh… I’ll buy you some more milk.”
Pedro sighed amusedly, shaking his head. “Never change, kid.”