Chapter 5: No where to go

Aurora's POV

My knees gave out, and I fell hard against the floor, gasping for air as my body heaved.

I held my hands over my mouth, fighting the terrible sickness coming up my throat. My forehead touched the cold wooden floor, and my whole body shook.

When the sickness finally passed, I sat up against the bed and wiped cold sweat from my face.

“It's just stress,” I whispered to the empty room.

I had barely eaten anything in days. I had spent three weeks locked in this room with no sleep and a broken heart. My body was simply breaking down under the pain.

I forced myself onto my feet and walked into the bathroom. I washed my face with cold water and looked in the mirror.

My face looked thin. Dark circles sat under my eyes. I pressed my hand against my stomach, but the strange flutter was gone.

I told myself to stop thinking about it. I had less than one day to pack my things and leave my father's house.

I spent the rest of the night packing.

My clothes went into two worn bags. Then I carefully packed my research notebooks and textbooks. Sophie had canceled my fellowship and taken away my lab placement, but she could not reach into my head and steal what I had learned. Those books were the only future I had left.

By morning, I had two old bags and one box of books sitting near the door.

At six in the morning, I carried everything downstairs by myself.

Nobody came to say goodbye.

Not my mother, who had looked away every time I cried. Not my father, who had replaced me without a second thought. Not even the maids who had watched me grow up from a little girl.

I stood in the cold foyer, took one last look at the marble stairs, and walked out the heavy front doors.

The door clicked shut behind me, locking with a final, heavy sound.

For the first time in my life, I had nowhere to go.

My real parents had died years ago in poverty before I ever got the chance to find them or learn their names. The Brooks family had thrown me out like yesterday's trash. I was completely alone in the world.

I carried my bags to the bus stop and spent the entire morning searching through rental listings on my phone with freezing fingers. Everything close to the city center was far too expensive. By late afternoon, after walking for hours, I found a tiny studio apartment on the rough edge of town.

The building was old, cracked, and gray. The staircase smelled like wet paint and dust, and the room was very small. It had only a narrow single bed, a tiny table, and a small metal sink in the corner.

When the landlord handed me the brass key, my fingers gripped it tightly.

It was cold and bare, but nobody could lock this door from the outside.

Over the next two weeks, real life hit me hard.

I looked for work in every laboratory and medical office in the city. But without my fellowship certificate or a formal recommendation, nobody wanted to hire an unfinished student for real lab research.

To survive, I took cleaning shifts at a cheap diner down the street, scrubbing tables and washing greasy dishes just to earn enough cash for milk, bread, and eggs.

My little savings were disappearing fast, and rent day was getting closer every day.

To make matters worse, the morning sickness never stopped.

It became more violent as the days went by.

The smell of cooking oil at the diner made my stomach twist into knots. The smell of morning coffee made me run to the back alley to vomit. I was dizzy by noon and exhausted before the sun even set.

One evening, after throwing up in the small apartment sink until my ribs throbbed with pain, I sank down onto the cold floor with my heart pounding against my ears.

I pulled out my phone and started counting the days.

Three weeks locked in my room at my father's house. Two weeks living in this tiny studio apartment.

Five whole weeks since the reckless night in the black forest.

My period was over two weeks late.

Cold fear washed over me like a bucket of ice water.

“No,” I whispered, staring down at my shaking hands. “No, please.”

I grabbed my coat, pulled the hood over my head, and hurried down the street to the nearest pharmacy. I bought a home pregnancy test, keeping my head down so the cashier could not see my face or my red eyes.

Back in my tiny bathroom, my fingers shook so hard that I could barely open the plastic wrapper.

I followed the instructions on the paper, set the white stick flat on the sink counter, and walked out into the bedroom.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, clutching my knees to my chest, and stared at the clock on my phone for five painful minutes.

When the timer went off, I could barely breathe.

I forced myself back into the bathroom.

My heart was hammering against my throat as I looked down at the counter.

Two dark red lines.

Bold and clear.

Positive.

My knees gave out beneath me, and I sank straight onto the bathroom floor.

I was pregnant.

A real baby was growing inside of me.

The image of the wounded stranger came rushing back into my mind. His broad shoulders, his heavy breathing, his dark golden eyes, and the burning heat of his skin against the freezing earth.

I did not know his name. I did not know where he came from. I had spent only one reckless night with him in the woods, and now his child was inside my body.

With trembling fingers, I placed my flat hand gently over my lower stomach.

Then my fingers froze.

Beneath my palm, something stirred.

It was not a soft, normal flutter. It was way too early for any human baby to move. A woman at five weeks was only supposed to carry a tiny cluster of cells.