Chapter 5

Valerie's POV

I had been sleeping for an eternity. Or so it seemed.

My consciousness was stuck somewhere between light and darkness. I was floating around in a deep, dark abyss, punctuated only by unrecognizable sounds and flashes of light.

Voices swam in and out of my consciousness, and within those voices, I recognized the voice who had chased the rogue wolves away from me.

My dreams were every bit as riotous as the life I'd left behind. In them I saw Adam in every stage of his life since I'd known him, and the dreams always ended with him sneering and rejecting me.

I knew, even then, that the only way I could escape from those painful dreams was to wake up, but waking up was more difficult than I'd thought.

Then something sparked in my head, kick-starting my consciousness, and I woke up with a gasp.

Tears stabbed at my eyes the moment I opened it, and a sob escaped my lips. The trauma and pain from the past hours— or days, or weeks, I couldn't even tell— poured over me in one overwhelming torrent, and soon I was openly weeping.

My hands reached out to grasp something solid, get some bearing of my surroundings, and warm hands reached out for mine and held on.

"It's alright, you're safe now." A voice murmured. The voice was oddly familiar, and my mind flashed back to the dingy alleyway, the broken glass shard, the baseballs.

The rogue wolf I'd killed.

"I killed someone..." I whimpered, and the warm hands pulled me into an even warmer embrace.

"They were going to kill you first." He murmured.

"You were very brave, Valerie."

Wait.

How did he know my name?

I leaned away from the embrace, even though my trauma-stricken body was screaming in objection, and I looked into the eyes of my savior.

It was a striking, interesting shade of chocolate, somewhere between a deep ochre and light brown. The sun seemed to catch his irises at an angle I could not explain. The irises were ringed with black, speckles of gold caught within them.

My eyes traveled up the man's face and took in his deep brown hair that had been swept back, and the friendly expression on his face.

He was a very cheerful-looking man, a stark contrast to Adam. Where Adam was all blacks and dark shadows, this man was all soft brown and friendly sable. It felt relieving staring at him, as though I was stepping into a gently-flowing river and it was washing away all my pain and fears. He chuckled as I scrutinized him.

"You're looking at me as though you're expecting something worse."

"I'm definitely not." I whispered. "How long was I out?" I croaked, rubbing my head as a splitting headache attacked it.

"About four weeks. That baseball bat really did knock you out. In fact, the doctor was certain you were slipping into a coma."

Four weeks?!

My eyes widened in realization. "The rogue wolves...the...glass shard—" I stuttered, trying to make sense of it all, but he shushed me.

"There's no need to worry about that now," he said, then gently pushed me downward.

"You need to take a rest while I fetch the doctor."

I resisted him, instead letting my eyes roam around, taking in every inch of my surroundings. I'd been kept in a bleak-looking room, its walls painted a depressing white, and strapped to a bed, which was starting to feel uncomfortably warm. An IV had been strapped to my left hand, infusing water into my body.

"Am I in a human hospital?" I croaked.

"Yes. You're in Seattle now, as far away from that small town as we can be." The man before me answered. Then he smiled again. "Pardon me. My name is Kenneth."

I ignored the hand he stretched towards me and instead swung my feet down from the bed. Seattle was too far away for me, too bleak and unpredictable. What would I do in this thriving metropolis? Where would I start from?

"I'm getting out of here," I mumbled, slipping my feet into the hospital-issued slippers by the bed. The man lunged forward and grabbed my arm before I could make any further move. "You won't want to do that."

"And why is that?" I snapped. "You saved me from those rogue wolves and I thank you for that, but I think I'll find my own way now."

"You were speaking a lot in your sleep," the man said suddenly, raising his voice. He came closer to me, his impressive brown eyes boring into mine. "I heard and learned a lot from your mumblings."

I eyed him warily. "What are you talking about?"

"Who's Adam?" He asked instead, deflecting my question. "Is he the father of your child?" I frowned, extremely overwhelmed and gripping my head as the headache threatened to overcome me. "Wh...what are you talking about?"

The air was fraught with tension as we stared at each other. My heart was hammering against my chest, my mouth tasting like ash. "I'm talking about the life that's growing inside of you." He said in a quiet voice.

"You're pregnant, Valerie."

Pregnant? Who? I asked as confusion and realization hit me at once.

I had a one night with Adam but that doesn't mean I'm pregnant now, does it? "I'm not pregnant...no, I can't be" I said gently as the back of my eyes burned with tears.

"It is confirmed, Valerie. You're four weeks pregnant" Kenneth muttered. I shook my head as I walked out to nowhere in particular.

My head was spinning, I couldn't think straight.

"No it's not possible, I.. I can't be pregnant" I cried as my pushed myself out of the room.

The strange looking guy was behind me, I could hear his footsteps as I struggled to snap out of this freaking nightmare.

I tripped on my gown and lost my balance but he was quick to stop me from falling hard to the ground.

"You're not strong enough for this, Valerie. You just need to accept it and we can overcome this together" he said gently and I gave in to the tears that had been threatening to fall.

I never imagined becoming a single mother, not in my nineteen years of living had I imagined being a single mother after getting rejected by the guy I had loved all my life...