From Outer Space

Chapter 42

Chapter 42

''Are you sure, eight?'' Lauren asks softly and Kyano nods at her with hopeful eyes.

''Eight veins.'' He whispers carefully and Lauren smiles at him.

''Good job, baby. You were right.'' she confirms his answer and Kyano grins at her before looking back at the leaf in his hands. ''Now, you want to play another game?''

Kyano looks back up at his mom and nods carefully. Lauren notices that ever since Brody's crazy outburst earlier, Kyano doesn't say anything when he doesn't absolutely need to. And it scares her.

Brody's anger frightened her a lot, so she can only imagine what it has done to her little boy. She has felt him tremble against her for at least thirty minutes after Brody tried to hit him. He was crying silently and it broke Lauren's heart into a million pieces to see him try his hardest to not make any sounds while the tears kept streaming down his cheeks, too afraid to upset Brody again.

Everything hurts. Physically, her eyebrow has stopped bleeding but she saw that her eye has bruised in the rear-view mirror and turned purple. All her muscles are completely drained from any energy or strength. The adrenaline has worn off now which leaves Lauren with terribly aching muscles and an overall just truly heavy body. She has no idea how she's supposed to take care of her son and try to run away from Brody when it's almost too much to keep her arms wrapped around her little boy.

But everything hurts even more emotionally. Seeing the fear in Kyano's eyes and body language absolutely destroys her. Of course, she's scared as well but she can't show it. She has to keep pretending to trust Brody and be strong for Kyano.

''What game?'' Kyano whispers softly, his eyes shifting to the driver's seat before looking back at his mother.

''Count colors?'' Lauren suggests. ''You count the black cars and I count the blue ones. Let's see who sees the most cars of their color.'' She smiles when Kyano nods and looks outside carefully.

They play for a long time, Kyano ending up winning because Lauren pretended to not see some of the blue cars they passed. But it got him smiling and even laughing at times, and that's all that truly matters to her.

''Lauren, we're almost there. Keep him quiet.'' Brody says from behind the wheel, sounding irritated. Kyano shrinks into Lauren as soon as the man speaks up and Lauren frowns.

''Brody, he's five. You can't expect him to keep quiet all the time. He's been whispering for the past hour.'' She speaks up, trying to carefully defend her son.

''I know that. I just need to focus and he's distracting me.'' He answers gently, seemingly not wanting to upset Lauren. ''Thank god we're almost there, I really need to take my mind off things. I will book us a private room, babe.'' he tells her and Lauren's eyes widen while her heart starts racing.

No. God no.

''W-what about Kyano?'' she asks him, trying to keep the tremble in her voice to a minimum and wrapping her exhausted shaking hands tighter around her son. He just looks at her with big eyes and keeps his mouth shut wisely.

''I'll see if there are family rooms with a separate bedroom for him. Don't worry, we'll get some alone time.'' He reassures her with a smile while Lauren gulps down her immense disgust, and her strong panic and fear.

''Okay.'' She breathes out, squeezing her eyes shut as soon as Brody's attention is back on the road again. She knows what's about to come and with Brody's anger and her exhausted body there is only one thing she can do.