Daddy's Little Princess

Chapter Seven - The World Through New Eyes

This didn't happen. This didn't happen. This has all been a cruel, terrifying nightmare. Things like this did not happen to people like her.

The blinds were closed. Windows and doors locked tightly. Every light in the room on.

She sat in a corner, wearing the same clothes as That Night. Her back stayed against the wall, eyes trained straight ahead, so no one could sneak up on her. She gripped a pistol tightly in her hands. Her only means of defense. Sometimes she would rock back and forth to comfort herself.

Paranoid. Terrified. Alone.

She burned in her own living hell for two days, never moving, never eating, nothing. She watched the clock tick away on the opposite wall, her life draining away by the second. At 11:03am, her cell phone rang beside her. She flinched at the noise and turned her phone off, not looking at the ID. At noon, she heard someone stepping lightly outside in the hall. Her eyes grew wide and her breathing accelerated. He found her. He was coming back to hurt her again. Her heart stopped completely when she heard the jingle of keys on her door. She took the safety lock off the gun and trained it on the door, waiting with tears streaming down her face. She would not suffer again. The door squealed open slowly and she fired.

"ALEX?" Shouted a familiar voice. A handsome man's face appeared in her doorway, sweat beading on his hairline and terror on his face. She had narrowly missed his head. When he found her across the room, he put his hands above his head and walked in cautiously, his face was clouded in confusion.

"Alex, what's wrong? What the hell is going on?" He whispered pleadingly. He was out in the open. If she wanted to kill him, the last beat of his heart was twelve feet away.

He had smooth, mocha skin and dark black hair. His accent struck a memory in her that I couldn't quite find.

"Get away from me" she spoke for the first time in days, pointing the pistol between his eyes. He did the stupidest thing she had ever witnessed; he stepped forward.

"I know you won't hurt me" He told her confidently and strode foreward, hands back by his sides. In a few seconds they could be greedily all over her. She pressed her back against the wall.

"I don't know who you are!" She screamed. "I will blast your brains out if you touch me!" Shock froze him in place.

"Alexandria, it's me." He whispered, stepping back and kneeling on the floor a few yards away. "Fernando" Fernando. It rushed back in a blur. Her escape. Her gratitude. Her betrayal. Her anger.

"Fernando" she mumbled with recognition "I outta put a bullet through your skull right now." His mouth dropped open.

"Why would you ever do that?" He cried incredulously.

"You set me UP!" she screeched, letting all the hurt and sadness lash out at him. "You let me get away so you could rat me out. You gained my trust so you could let me escape and then tip off my father. That way he would love you forever and I would have no means to leave because he would make sure I was always under supervision. You were so selfish." He stared at her for a moment. 

"I didn't tell your father." He held her eyes and spoke evenly. "I wanted you to be free. I would never hurt you like that. I tried to help."

"Well then who did tip him off?" she retorted with snap.

"Well Grace's cover wasn't exactly foolproof."

"Damn." She said. There was nothing else to say. She knew Fernando was right. She knew she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. She knew she had blown things way out of proportion. So she put down the pistol and buried her face under her hair.

"Fernando, I am so sorry" She told him genuinely. She felt a shift in the air that she guessed meant he left. A second later, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" She screamed at the top of her lungs and scrambled away from Fernando.

"Alex, I'm sorry!" He yelled. "What did I do?"

"Don't ever touch me. Ever again. I don't ever want to be touched again. No one will ever touch me." She rambled for a few seconds. He looked searchingly at her, trying to decipher the writing on the walls.

"What happened?" He whispered. She burst into tears.

"Alexandria, Alex! What happened?" He cried earnestly. She could tell by his voice he wanted to wrap her up in a hug and console her. Instead he just sat on the floor and listened to her cry. When her eyes ran dry she looked up at him. He sat in the same position, eyes sad and a single tear streak down his own cheek. Her face was cherry red and splotchy, her honey brown hair was greasy and tangled, and her entire body shook with terror and shame.

"I-I-I" Her words were jumbled and she struggled with what to say. Would he judge me if I told him the truth? Would he make fun of me? Would he think I was some sort of filth, a whore? Could I trust Fernando? She repeated the last question aloud.

"You can always trust me" He replied with such genuine sincerity that she had to tell him. Everything spilled out in a rush. He had a look of horror on his face by the time she finished.

"Alexandria" he whispered "I promise, I vow on my honor, my life and my death, my country and my blood, I will never let any harm come to you ever again. I will protect you always." He tentatively reached his hand for hers, keeping a safe distance. It was up to her whether or not to close that space.

"I will never let that happen again" He swore. She knew he was true.

She hesitantly brought her hand to his, savoring its unique feel. Soft and gentle but strong and steady. So much different from the last pair of hands who had touched her. She knew she was safe with Fernando.

"I am going to sleep now." She told him, rising unsteadily to go to her room. "Will you stay?" He nodded. "Lock the door and just keep me safe, okay?"

"I vow to forever."