Just Two More Broken Souls

Chapter Two

It took two long, tedious, weeks for Lorna to recover enough to be granted a discharge from the hospital. When the day finally came she couldn't be happier. She called her sister and took off with her daughter back to their apartment. The drive only took ten minutes—when they arrived, she quickly assisted her daughter out from the booster seat in the back and the two made their way inside.

That first step inside their home was a long-awaited moment for Lorna. She took a second to shut her eyes and just take it all in. It was a miracle she and her daughter were standing in this place alive. Not many people survived a kidnapping like the pair of them did, she knew. Hell, not many people survived getting shot and stabbed in the chest the way she thankfully had. It was highly evident that luck was on their side.

"Mommy, are ya gonna talk to Nicky?"

Her daughter's surprising question rapidly brought Lorna from her thoughts. She blinked her eyes and looked down the curly-haired girl with a soft chuckle. She lay a hand over head, ruffling the curls. "What makes ya ask that, hon?"

Antonia took her shoes off and followed her mother into the living room, sitting beside her on the sofa. She rested her head on her shoulder and poked a finger on her cheek. "I think she wants you to. She visited us a lot while we were there. Plus, she's real nice and funny," she pointed out with a tiny giggle. A sound that always warmed her mom's heart to hear.

"You're real smart for a little girl, aren't ya?" Lorna smiled, encircling her daughter in her loving arms. Lips pressed a delicate kiss over the flesh of her forehead. "We'll see, Ona. Right now I don't have time—or energy—to be doing anything but looking after you. I'm still in a good amount a pain after that incident. Doctor wants me to just rest for a few weeks."

The little girl nodded with a slight frown. She lifted her head to peer intensely up into her mother's dark orbs. "How did you get hurt, mommy? I didn't—I didn't help you, did I?"

Cupping her hands gently around the small child's face, Lorna stared compassionately down into her eyes. It made the throbbing in her healing wound slightly worsen to hear the pain in her little girl's voice. She pressed a soothing kiss to each of her pale cheeks. "Ya helped me by not getting yourself in the situation I was in, my love. I'm glad it's me who got hurt and not you."

She sighed while placing Antonia's head on her lap. Her hands stroked comfortingly through her long brown curls. Telling her daughter what happened wasn't going to benefit either of them, she thought. A seven-year-old didn't need to know her past, anyway. She forced a smile to her face and responded with, "All that matters now is we're both safe and sound back in our home."

"But what about the man who took us? Where is he mommy?" Ona shakily inquired, her eyes looking frantically up into her mom's. She feared that something like that might happen again and she knew that wasn't an event she wanted to relive.

"Don't ya worry, sweetheart," Lorna soothed, caressing a finger tenderly around the flesh of her forehead. "The police took him away to jail. He'll never be able to hurt either of us again. I promise, baby."

A brisk morning it was the next day when Lorna saw Antonia off to her bus for school. She kept her hands in her coat pocket the whole way back to her apartment after watching to make sure her daughter was out of the cold. Closing the door behind her, she went over to the coffee pot and took out the used filter and replaced it with a new one. Another round of coffee was a must she deemed with a yawn escaping her.

While it percolated, she took the time to do some minor tidying up. It was a task that kept her busy—kept her at ease when her mind seemed to be spinning in a hundred different directions at once. She swept the floor, dusted counter tops, and cleaned the bathrooms all in the span of ten minutes. The ache in her chest reminded her that she needed to stop. It was challenging to keep herself from not doing too much—she liked her home clean.