The Escape

Stay Safe

A/N: Upsetting Material Warning. This chapter is about everything happening in our world right now. It will discuss George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. I'm hoping this will help littles and anyone who reads this story that are feeling anxious or scared right now. If there is any hate or negativity on this chapter at all, I will delete your comments, report you, and block you.

Lucy POV

We're in the middle of a pandemic or at least that's what mom and mama were talking about yesterday. I don't fully understand what that exactly means, but I intend to find out.

I climb out of my crib before quietly making my way downstairs to turn on the television and watch the news. I feel fine doing this because I'm big right now.

I turned on the news and they were talking about something called Coronavirus. The only time I ever heard or saw the word corona was when mother was drinking and having me grab her beers. The thought caused a shiver to go down my spine.

They news peoples were talking about all of the deaths and showed images of people on these breathing machines. As I listen closer to this broadcast, everything sounds so scary. It makes me curious if that's why we have been in the house so much. Well besides Mom who just leaves to go to the grocery store and work. Mama keeps me busy here so I haven't even noticed.

I get pulled out of my thoughts when the news anchor says there is breaking news. On the screen there is a black man on the ground and police are holding him down. He's saying he can't breath but the police won't get off of him.

I had already been slipping while watching the pandemic news, but this causes me to fully regress. The man stops moving and I start crying. Seeing the man who I hear is named George Floyd be hurt causes all of the memories of mother holding me down to hurt me come flooding back and I began sobbing.

I think he's dead and the police are the reason why.

I'm shaking from crying so hard when I hear momma and mommy come down the stairs. I want to get up and see them so they can hold me, but I can't move right now. Momma comes around to the couch and smiles when she sees me, but it quickly turns into a frown when she sees all of the tears.

"Baby? Baby what's wrong? Are you hurt?" Momma quickly asks while she picks me up to cradle me in her arms. I continue to sob and just shake my head. Momma was getting ready to ask me more questions when mommy spoke up.

"Ame, look at the t.v." Mommy said quietly to momma who gasped when she saw the same thing that caused my breakdown.

Momma looked back to me, "Is that what upset you baby?" I just nodded and she cradled me closer to her chest. "I'm so sorry you had to see that baby. It's absolutely awful what happened to him."

Being held by momma has helped me calm down, but I'm still little. "Mommy, why de hurt him?"

Mommy came and sat next to me and kissed my head before she let out a sigh. "I don't know exactly what happened, but whatever it was should not have resulted in George Floyd dying. You know how your parents were bad people and they hurt you?"

I nodded my head at mommy's question not sure where it was going.

"Well there are bad people who will hurt others due to the color of their skin. I don't know why they do it, it's not right. No one picks their skin color and one skin color doesn't make someone a better person." Mommy told me as she rubbed my back.

"But I t'ought da po-wice was 'posed to help people," I whined and she nodded.

"The police are supposed to help people. That's why I became a police officer was to help people. If I wasn't an officer I wouldn't have found and helped you and I wouldn't have found and helped Evelyn. There are a lot of people who shouldn't be officers, but they are." Mommy told me and I tried to get big to understand better, but it wasn't working.

"Maggie not da same color as me. Are dey gone hurt her too?" I asked momma with tears ready to fall from my eyes again and she herself had watery eyes.

"Maggie's mommies take really good care of her and will protect her, okay? They won't let anything happen to her." Momma spoke confidently leading me to believe her.

"Mommy, your work people no hurt people wight?" I asked hopefully.

Mommy shook her head, "We don't have any officers right now who hurt people, but we have in the past. I wasn't well liked at my job for awhile because we had an officer who was treating people with different skin colors as us poorly. I stopped him from harming a man and reported it to my superior officer. I refused to let him get away and ultimately they fired him and made sure he could never work for another department again, he also got charged with attempt to harm." I nodded my head at mommy since I was glad she stopped him.

"Why you still po-wice though?" I asked not quite sure why she was.

"Because baby, I want to make sure all of the people in my community are safe. I want to be able to stop any bad officers from harming those in our community. I did think about leaving the police force for awhile, but I don't want to leave and something happens that I could have stopped." Mommy told me and I just nodded before laying my head on momma's chest.

Momma continued to rock me and mommy changed the channel to Sofia the First which I happily watched. I was still upset so I tugged on momma's shirt which she understood so she took it off and I latched onto the closest breast.

I hummed contently as I could finally feel myself relax after this morning's cry fest. Momma ran her fingers through my hair. I looked up to her and she smiled down to me. "We will always keep you safe Lucy Loo. And we will make sure everyone you love is safe as well. This is a scary time, but you have us. We love you." I heard her last sentence, but couldn't respond before falling asleep safe with my mommies.

A/N: This is an extremely scary time in our world right now and it can be hard on our mental health. I had taken a break from publishing work for awhile, but wanted to write this for when I came back. I hope you all are happy and safe right now. If you ever need to talk to someone my messages are open. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay sane. #blm