Chapter 0006

•NYMERIA•

The house was quiet when I walked in, and quiet, where Millie was concerned, was either a very good sign or the kind of silence that followed a disaster I would be cleaning up for the rest of the evening.

Rosa appeared from the kitchen before I could work myself into either assumption.

"She has been perfect," she informed me, smiling. "She and I spent the rest of the afternoon baking and coloring. She's an angel."

"We wouldn't be here if she were an angel," I muttered jokingly, but I noticed Rosa's face stiffening before she answered.

"She ate all her lunch, took her nap without argument, and has been in the living room for the past hour." Rosa lowered her voice. "Drawing."

"Oh," I scoffed, surprised. "Thank you, Rosa."

She nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen. I walked toward the living room doorway, leaned against the frame, and smiled.

Millie was cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the rug, surrounded by scattered crayons on the floor and the coffee table.

Her tongue was pressed to the corner of her mouth, and she was bent over a large sheet of paper. She did look like the most perfect and angelic child.

I watched her for a moment and said nothing. I admired the side of her that I never got to see during the four years of her life.

She looked up before I had a chance to take a video and take evidence that she wasn't as bad as she made herself to be.

"Mama."

"Hey, baby." I leaned toward her and lowered myself onto the rug beside her. "What are you drawing?"

She lifted the paper with both hands and held it out toward me. I took it and wasn't sure what exactly I was looking at.

Rosa probably told her she was good at drawing, and she decided she would draw anything that came to her little imaginative mind.

I looked at it for a moment and realized there were two older figures and one little figure at the bottom of the page.

"Who is this?" I asked, keeping my voice gentle. I pointed to the smaller figure first. "Is this you?"

"Yes." She pointed to herself with one crayon-stained finger.

"And this one?" I pointed to the taller figure.

"That's my daddy," she replied. "He's going to come and take us away from this place."

My mouth fell open and I wondered why I had to deal with this now. I had raised her so well by myself and ensured she never lacked anything or saw a need for her father.

I placed the drawing down on the counter and looked at her. "Millie—"

"Rosa said some children have daddies who pick them up from school," she continued. "And their daddies have big houses and dogs and the daddies carry them on their shoulders. So, why don't I have my own daddy?"

I sighed, regretting thinking that there could ever be a day when Millie never stressed me the fuck out. Her daddy was a punk.

"Come here." I reached for her and pulled her into my lap, tucking her against my chest. She didn't pull away, which was a good thing.

"Listen to me," I murmured, my chin resting on top of her head. "You and I, we are starting over. Right here. We are going to have our own house and it is going to be good, I promise you that. We don't need anyone to take us anywhere, because we are already somewhere."

Millie was quiet for a few seconds, and I thought she understood.

Then she pushed back from my chest and looked up at me with her eyes gone glassy and her bottom lip doing the thing it did before everything escalated past the point of reason.

"I want to go to my daddy's house."

"Millie, you don't have a daddy. We talked about this, didn't we? I am more than a mother to you. Isn't that enough? Aren't you Mommy's girl anymore?"

"I want to go to his house!" She snapped and her hands balled into fists against my arms. "I want my daddy! I want to go there right now!"

"Millie, sweetheart—"

"NOW, MAMA!"

Rosa appeared in the doorway, and she leaned over without being asked, scooping Millie up from my lap.

Millie screamed, her small body rigid with the conviction of her outrage, her voice carrying as Rosa carried her steadily out of the room and up the stairs.

I stayed on the rug.

I picked up the drawing from where it had slipped to the floor beside me and looked at the tall blue figure with its broad shoulders.

I sighed before I placed it face down on the coffee table.

I was still sitting there when my phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the screen.

Jade.

I answered it.

"Finally," she murmured. "I've been standing outside your door for ten minutes. Did you move? Because you absolutely didn't tell me you were moving."

"I'm not in Drakenfall," I answered. "I'm in Hollowshade."

"Hollowshade? Since when?" She gasped.

"Since a few days ago." I pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose. "Christopher's wedding. I told you about it."

"Yes, you told me about the wedding, but you didn't tell me you were staying."

"I took a job with his team. Just for a month."

Upstairs, Millie's voice was still audible, muffled now but no less certain in its demands, rising and falling through the ceiling above me.

"Is that Millie I can hear?"

"It is."

"What happened?"

"She wants her father." I rolled my eyes. "Ugh, she thinks I can just call the guy and Uber him back from the milk shop."

"Oh, Nym. I am sorry."

Jade didn't know about Millie's father. The only person who knew was Sloane.

"I'm fine," I answered. "I'll call you tomorrow when I can talk properly."

"Of course," she replied. "We will talk tomorrow."

I hung up the call, closed my eyes, and wished to disappear for a day. I wanted to be away from the chaos that involved Declan.

I placed my phone on the coffee table beside the face-down drawing and went to the hallway, heading to the kitchen. But someone knocked on the door before I got there.

I groaned before turning around to answer the door.

I twisted the doorknob and was about to tell the person outside the door that Chris was on his honeymoon when my heart stopped beating.

Declan was standing on the front porch.