A Daughter's Gift (She's Mine to Protect Sequel)

Voices

"What the hell?!" He roared. Seconds later, Chrys came running into the hall.

"What's wrong, Babe?"

"I, uh, I just- I thought I heard something." He told her, wiping his eyes with his hand." I'm probably just tired or somethin'."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah Hon, I'm fine. See ya later." He blabbered and darted out the door, leaving her standing there confused and worried.

Alone in her room, Bella had cocooned herself in multiple layers of blankets and was trying desperately to fall asleep. Yet as tired as she was, she was also terrified to close her eyes.

"We're not done yet." Eveline's voice snarled inside Bella's mind. It was the second time that morning, the other waking her up, that the voice had called to her.

"Go away! Leave me alone." Bella cried back at her.

"No! We got work to do."

"What do you want from me?"

"Your precious mommy and daddy don't deserve their happy little family. It was supposed to be mine! Now you're gonna help me get back what's mine."

"I won't!" Bella screamed out loud by accident; she had only meant to say it in her head.

Celes, who had been silently standing by her sister's bed for a few minutes now watching Bella writhe under the blankets, ran out of the room to find her mother.

A looming feeling of uneasiness hung over everyone for the rest of the day; even Chrys and Marguerite's afternoon coffee felt a bit off. Celes seemed to be lonely without Bella to play with and the three boys spent all day outside and away from the gloom inside the house; because of this, there was nothing but silence throughout the house and it starting to get to Chrys. The only happy person in the house seemed to be Evan who was enjoying bouncing on his mother's knee.

"You feel it too, don't you?" Marguerite asked her daughter-in-law when she was finally sick of the ten minute silence they had just endured.

"We're just tired is all. It was a long night last night." Chrys reasoned, trying to convince herself it was the truth.

"Jack has been talking to himself all day, Celes comes to you saying Bella was crying to someone when no one was around her, and, you said Lucas thought he heard a voice. Something's going on Chrys and it's just like all those years ago."

"Don't say that."

"Chrys." Marguerite warned as gentle as possible while still insinuating that Chrys was being ridiculous.

"She's dead, Marguerite! What this is isn't Eveline coming back to torture us again." Hearing Eveline's name made the older woman wince as if they were in a Harry Potter book and Chrys had just said Voldemort's name.

"Look, I agree that it doesn't make complete sense. All I'm saying is that it feels the same as before."

"Not like I'd know, right?" Chrys snapped, not considering how much it might upset her in-law. To this day, she still secretly felt as though her in-laws had unspoken feelings of resentment towards her for making it out of the Eveline situation before the shit hit the fan. It was clearly far from the actual truth, but a quiet voice in the back of her mind wouldn't let her think otherwise.

"Oh Chrys, please don't be like that. None of us chose what happened and it affected all of us."

Chrys just shook her head and downed what was left of her coffee, ending the conversation with more silence. They sat like that at the kitchen table for a while until they heard the squeaky opening of the front door following by a tired grunt which meant Lucas was home from work.