Page 179 of She will Always be Mine

And my father will pay.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

NYRA

Numbness and suffocation has my eyes blinking open.

My vision is blurry as I gaze at my unfamiliar surroundings. The constant sound of beeping irritates my eardrums while every inch of me feels sluggish and heavy. An invisible weight is drowning me while my mind recognizes the room as a hospital.

Why am I in a hospital?

Soft murmurs disappear as a hushed silence falls upon us. A second later, I hear the scrape of a chair in the corner. Shivering hands push my hair back from my face, followed by my mom’s relieved cry.

“My sweet girl, you’re awake.”

Her voice carries through the fog in my brain as she peers down at me.

“Ma.” My words sound raw and scratchy as I speak. She helps me when I make an attempt to sit up. I try to say to speak again, but it’s like I lost my voice from all the crying and screaming. As if my sensing that my throat is parched, my mom passes me a cup of water. I take a sip from the straw and feel marginally better.

My mind is racing a mile a minute as it tries to make sense of everything. The plastic cup falls from my grip as the memories slam to the forefront.

Video. Uncle’s house. Him chasing me. The stairs. Hands on my skin.

I remember nothing except darkness and blankness afterward.

My chest constrict with sickness and panic when I can’t breathe and I lose focus. I look down, afraid to see my torn clothes, but all I see is a white gown, my left ankle and right wrist in a brace. The awful sound of my bone cracking when I fell echoes in my head.

“Nyra, you’re okay,” my mom says, sensing the fright on my face while tears gather in the corners of her eyes. “It’s all my fault.”

“Did Uncle…” I can’t even finish the thought as I stare up at her.

She cries and hugs me into her arms as she reassures, “No, honey. Riaan saved you, Nyra. He called the police and reached you in time. Thank God!”

I rack my brain for the memory but it’s all fuzzy. How did he even find me? And why isn’t he here?

“Where is he? I want to see him,” I demand.

If he found me, it means he saw his father and I need to know he didn’t go after him. I can’t lose Riaan because of that monster.

My mom’s conflicting eyes meet mine but before she can reply, the door flings opens and Dad enters the room. Upon seeing me awake, his shoulders fall in stark respite as he rushes to my side.

His forehead crinkles with sadness as he gives me a shaky smile before cupping my face reverently. “My God, Nyra! You had us so worried. I would’ve died if something happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

After everything that happened, the last emotion I expected to see was fear and concern in my father’s eyes. I was sure he would turn his back on me and never to talk to me again now that he knows the truth. After all, he learned about our relationship in a shocking way like my mother. Yet the way he found out was so much worse.

My mouth opens and closes but no words come out.

“Say something, sweetie.”

His loving voice only drives the knife deeper into my guilty heart. My parents’ closeness begins to suffocate me and I hate it.

I want to scream at my mom for not warning me about Uncle. I want to blame her for lying to me my entire life. Because of her mistake, I almost paid the price by falling into his clutches.

Although my heart senses that he’s close, the only one I want by my side is nowhere to be seen.

“I need Riaan,” I say, tugging my hand free from Dad’s.

The atmosphere in the room drops to icy degrees and I feel my parents’ expression hardening. Maybe I’m being cruel but I don’t have the strength in me to care.

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