Babe.

41.

Blanca.

I groaned slowly slipping back into conciousness, I didn't have to open my eyes to feel the bright light glaring back down at me. I reached up to itch my face only to find something plastic covering it. I moved my hand around to get a better feel and find out what it was but came up empty, forcing my eyes open I looked down the bridge of my nose to see one of those oxygen masks strapped onto my face and an IV drip leading into my right arm. What the fuck?

It took me a couple more seconds to realise that I was in a hospital room and a couple more seconds to discover I was covered in soot. I wracked my brain for what had happened only to come up empty. In the seats beside me Benny, Ella and Emmanuel were lying fast asleep, I leaned over to check the clock on my bedside table, it was four in the morning.

I pulled off the oxygen mask placing it down beside me as I flopped back down on my bed, it looked like there was nothing for me to do but go back to sleep. It was only when I woke up the second time that I got some answers, only this time it wasn't my siblings and boyfriend beside me when I woke up, it was my parents and the police.

I frowned sitting up in my bed, "what is the police doing here?"

"They want to ask you some questions about the fire mija," my mother said stroking my hair. 

Well that explained the soot, "there was a fire?" I asked confused, I did not remember being part of any fire. "Where?" 

"At the house," My father continued, "you don't remember?" 

I shook my head, "no, I went home early because I was sick and then I took some cold medecine and went to sleep, I didn't wake up until last night. Is everyone okay?" 

"Everyone's fine don't worry," my mother continued, "but there's something we need to talk to you about." She turned to my father, "can you go get Ella and the boys?"

Oh god, whatever we were about to talk about was not good, we didn't have family discussions unless people died or someone was in the hospital. My siblings walked into the room relieved looks growing on their faces when they saw I was awake, "Jesus BB, we thought you might die." Ella leaning over to give me a hug, "you scared the hell out of me." 

"You scared the hell out of your boyfriend too," Emmanuel said waggling his eyebrows at me as he came to stand on my other side. 

I wasn't really listening to either of them because the police man's badge had caught my attention, he wasn't just any old guy from the local PD not this guy was a US Marshall, and as far as I knew they only did one thing, they protected people who went into witness protection. Anxiety hit me like a truck as soon as the thought fully developed, I got out of my bed ripping the IV out of my arm in my haste to get to my bathroom. I dropped onto my knees in front of the toiled before I started axniety vomiting my guts up. 

My parents watched me horrified looks on their faced, "Blanca are you alright." 

I ingored them moving over to the sink so I could wash my mouth out and the dry it with some toilet paper. Only when I was done did I turn around to face them, "you can't make me go."

They stared back at me blankly. 

"I won't do it," I reiterated breathlessly, "I won't go into witness protection." 

I had just made a life for myself in the Valley everything had just started going well, I was not going to give that up just to change my entire identity and move somewhere else. I had friends and a boyfriend and family here if I went into witness protection then I would lose all of it. On top of that I would lose myself, I was sick of pretending my life was something that it wasn't and in witness protection that was exactly what you did. 

"What?" Emmanuel turned around an outraged look on his face, "you want us to go into witness protection? That's bullshit!" 

My parents sighed, "you don't even know why yet!" 

"The enlighten us," Alfie snapped crossing his arms, "because we'd really like to know what the hell is going on here." 

It turned out the man who'd broken into our house worked for out Uncle, an Uncle I didn't even know we had because our father had told us our whole lives long that he was an only child. The two of them despised each other. Apparently our Uncle was an asshole, he did all kinds of illegal things like selling black market weapons and drugs and thisngs like that. Our father had been given the case against him, how that wasn't a conflict of interest was completely beyond me but that was besides the point because he decided to take it so he could finally bring his brother down. Which was why they'd started threatning him and telling him to back off, according to my parents a lot of things other than the break in had happened that we didn't know about and the last straw was the fire. Now that my parents had realised they were clearly out matched they were going into hiding until my Uncle was finally caught. 

"So you're telling me that if Papa had just put his fucking pride aside and not gone after his brother none of us would be having any issues right now?" Emmanuel asked angrily, when he earned a sharp glare from our parents he scowled "Oh please don't pretend you didn't know the risks going in." 

"Your father was trying to do the right thing and out your Uncle behind bars," my mother reasoned.

"No," I snapped coming to stand beside him, "the right thing would have been to give the case to someone else because it's obviously a conflict of interest and think about the lives of your children."

My father sighed, "I'm sorry you all feel this way but you don't really have a choice, you're coming with us." 

"I don't really have a choice," I corrected bitterly, "they're all eighteen and over they can do whatever the hell they want." 

Pushing past my parents I climbed back into my hospital bed and pulled the blanket back over me. "Blanca what are you doing?" My father asked sighing. 

"Going back to bed, in case you forgot I was almost burnt to a crisp thanks to you." I replied coldy waving the nurse over, "can you tell them to leave please I want some rest." 

They tried to protest but they didn't really have a choice because thankfully here she was still the boss, she shut the door of the room I was in and turned off the lights. I'd managed to buy myself a little time but I didn't know how long that would last, I needed to get out of here and fast.