Resilience

18| She ran away...Again?

ROBERT KING'S POV

For a split second, the entire room's attention was drawn to Matthew as I shook my head, wondering where I went wrong with this idiot.

Doctor Reme, our family doctor who had been working for us for years and had grown accustomed to these threats looked completely unbothered, as he gave all of us, especially Matthew, a blank look.

Also this old man is my father's best friend, and he knows damn well that none of us would hurt him.

"Now that you oh so graciously gave me the stage to speak, the girl is fine and stable now, however she is still unconscious. Her body had shut down due to being in excruciating pain and couldn't take the stress of it. Her blood levels are dangerously low. As you already know she overdosed on painkillers, but thankfully we emptied her stomach in time. Her body is recovering and she'll be sleeping for a while." Reme, our doctor said as he waited for us to process the information.

"What is it?" I asked impatiently as I could tell he wasn't finished.

"I would like you to bring her to the hospital for a full-body scan. She appears severely malnourished and debilitated. I urgently need to check why she isn't growing at the rate she should, and as Max has informed me, you're already aware that she has been abused, so I'm not going to sugarcoat; it's not good. And while I don't want to add to your stress, the fact that your girl is walking around with a sprained shoulder, severely bruised ribs, blisters from burns on her stomach and whipping marks on her back, baffles me. How the hell did she manage to get away without any of you noticing? The burns on her stomach are infected but thankfully hadn't caused much damage. Also, there's a lot more going on with her that I can't specify until I see the results. So, bring her to the hospital." He sternly said in a doctorly tone, filling me with terror.

Motherfucker said he doesn't want to add to my stress–

Bruised ribs?
Blisters?
burns?
Whipping marks?
Sprained shoulder?

What the fuck happened to my daughter?

"And as for the situation in hand, Ms. Arabella should be awake in a couple of hours. We've dressed her wounds, and her shoulder would be fine, but make sure she doesn't use it much for a few weeks. Allow her to rest as much as possible and do not let her to be stressed in any way. Max will handle the rest. I've also prescribed some medication, which he'll go over with you later. I'm going to leave now. Please contact me if anything goes wrong." With that he left.

We looked at Max and he looked stressed and deep in thought, his eyes were numbly staring into distance.

"What exactly are you thinking?" I asked him, jolting him out of his trance as he furrowed his brows and sighed.

"Her body was in pain, acute physical pain, and I'm surprised how it didn't shut down sooner. She had been taking painkillers for a while, possibly for years, as her blood results confirmed. Her state-e, dad, there isn't a part of her body that isn't covered with scars. Some are recent, and some gashes are old yet still so prominent, like they had been carved by a knife inserted deep into her skin. Her stomach was literally burned, as if some boiling liquid had been poured on it, her back, it-t have fucking words carved on them. She came back from living in hell. " Max's voice quavered and I could see his hands trembling as he spoke.

I felt like a massive punch had landed on my gut, knocking the breath out of me.

What kind of mother would do that to her own child?

How is that even possible?

I was stunned by the revelation, and the fact that my daughter had been subjected to torture was killing me.