redemption: harry styles

Chapter Seventy Five

The woman pushed her grey-streaked hair out of her face and shakily rammed the key into the front door's outer lock. She heard shuffling behind her as her daughter struggled with untying her shoes' laces and holding the bag of groceries at the same time.

The door clicked open and as soon as it did, the woman heard a rustling inside. She froze, her blood running cold through her veins, mixing with the drug that she took daily to keep her awake and kept her depression at bay. Yet a slight warmth ran down her fingers, numbing them, and she grabbed the doorway to steady herself as emotion burst in her chest.

Happy tears clouded her sight but worrying thoughts swam in her mind as she thought about the two possibilities that were happening at the moment. And she called out her husband's name.

"Mum, can you hold this for a sec?" her youngster asked, extending the bag of groceries towards her mother.

Her mother, unaware of her daughter's presence at the moment, ignored her. She called out to her spouse once more, her voice steadier, and stern.

Her daughter frowned because her mother wasn't taking the bag off of her, and because she was calling out to somebody who wasn't there. "Dad's not here, is he?" she asked quietly, aware that her mum was being extremely cautious for a reason she was oblivious to.

Her mum frowned.

"Mummy, Dad's still out looking for Nicole," she said soothingly, pressing a small hand against her mother's back. "Doctor said...if this happens I have to tell you to sleep."

"No, hunny," her mum whispered. "I thought I heard something."

Her daughter pouted her lips as she strained her little ears to hear something, but heard nothing.

Her mum sucked in a deep breath of air, then called out to her older daughter. "Nicole?" she said in a sweet voice, a voice one would use to call a scared creature closer. "Sweetie? Is that you?"

"Nikki is gone," her younger daughter said, battling the sadness. She had to be strong for her mother, who was unstable. With her father out of the house, and even at this age, she still had to make sure her mother went to bed every night. Doctor's orders. "You have to sleep. Daddy told me to look after you-"

"Nicole, please come out," the woman whined, dropping her bag of food and stepping inside her home. "I've missed you, we've missed you-"

"I think I left Horsey in the car," the young girl stated uncomfortably and rushed to her family's car. She yanked open the side door and climbed in, the door closing behind her while she searched for her toy My Little Pony horse. When she found him, she clutched him to her chest, preparing to exit the car and hand it over to her mother in attempt to comfort her--as it used to be Nicole's toy until she grew too old for it and she handed it down to her little sister--when she heard footsteps from inside the house but saw no movement from her mother.

Then there was a voice. A musky, low voice, too quiet for the little girl to hear. "She's not home." Then there was a metallic shiver in the air, and a slashing sound as the woman howled in pain. The little girl hurriedly peaked through the car's window and watched her own mother crumple to the floor with red liquid soaking her front, choking on her own blood.

She covered her mouth; her first instinct. "Don't ever make a sound," her father once told her; a simple, useless fact compared to all the other things he taught her on how to survive a break-in, and that was the first thing that came to her mind.

She should have hidden low, masked what she had just witnessed. Stopped looking at her mother laying on the ground, slowly dying. But she didn't want to. She couldn't.