ROYCE POV
(flashback)
(still in rewind)
The long awaited call did come but the results I wanted weren't what I got.
I cannot fathom if it's my bad luck or just a bad day because they said it's gonna take longer for the accurate results to come.
The girl is currently with Leah safe but I need to get her back to her family quickly, so I call Leah.
LEAH POV
This cute little girl is currently with me in my house.
As soon as we reached home I had to make sure she eats something because the little time I could carry her was enough for me to know she was definitely underweight and possibly malnourished as well which I wanted to deny.
I wanted to take her to the doctor but Royce told me not to go anywhere public and just stay home, so I made some mac and cheese since my siblings love it and ordered some ice cream from a good place.
She's currently had about one-fourth of her mac and cheese after asking me if she could eat even though the bowl of pasta was in front of her.
I don't think she wants to eat anymore considering that she has been playing with her food since the last ten minutes.
"Do you not like it?" My sister Jane asks.
"N-no I love it" says Lorelei
"Are you perhaps full?" I ask
"y-yes" "Oh that's alright, you don't have to eat anymore than you can" says Jenna
Jane and Jenna are my younger sisters.
Jane is 11 and Jenna is 12.
They're both very talkative, so I thought they would scare Lorelei but they got along well.
"You can wash your hands if you don't want to eat anymore" I say hoping she'll have some more.
But she gets up to my disappointment and goes towards the wash basin.
"Jane ask her if she wants some ice-cream" I whisper to her.
"Yes ok" she whispers back.
"Lorelei, do you want some ice-cream?" Jane asks "W-what is ice-cream?" she asks
I look at Jane who's looking at me equally confused.
"Uhm it's something that melts in your mouth and you'll want more after you finish" says Jenna.
She's a bit more mature than Jane even though it's only one year difference and can mingle with anyone faster than her age usually does which I'm very thankful for in this situation.
"Thank you Jenna" I mouth to her
"Your welcome" she mouths back and smiles.
"Uhm am I allowed to have some?" Lorelei says timidly.
"Of Course you can" says Jane who also goes to the kitchen fetching a bowl and a spoon.
She puts two big scoops and hands it over to Lorelei.
She takes it and licks it from the bowl and looks up.
She blushed realising we were all looking at her and says "sorry, it just looked so nice I wanted to try it fast and since I just washed my hands, I…"
Jane realizes she forgot to give her the spoon but to my surprise she takes her bowl of icecream and licks it without using a spoon, Jenna does the same and we break into fits of laughter except Lorelei who looks confused but is smiling anyways.
"Do you like it?" I ask
"yes, it melts in my mouth and it's delicious, thank you" she replies, her smile getting wider.
Then I get a call amidst trying to help myself to some ice-cream.
It's from Royce.
I pick up.
"Hello?"
"It's Royce, how is the girl?"
"Oh uhm she's fine, she's eating some ice-cream"
"Alright, just wanted to check up on her, you have to bring her back here tomorrow morning, yeah?"
"Alright, but why-"
"I will tell you tomorrow, okay?"
"Yes" he hangs up.
Sigh.
I go up to Lorelei who just finished having her ice-cream and I say "you're staying here tonight with us sweetie, you'll be going back with me tomorrow okay?"
"Yes, okay"
"Good girl"
It's still late in the evening and Jenna suggests we go to the park.
So we do.
We're dressed comfortably in lots of layers so as to not catch a cold and we're off.
Luckily the park was empty today which is actually weird considering it's filled with many toddler moms and dog and cat moms but I guess it's a good thing since the swing and the slide is all to ourselves.
While Jenna and Jane run off towards the swing, Lorelei is standing by my side quietly.
"You don't want to play?" I ask her
"Oh uhm I have never been here before so I d-didn't know what to do"
Before I can answer, Jane comes over, holds her hand and drags her away but Lorelei is not overwhelmed, she's smiling and she looks happy but the happiness doesn't seem to reach her eyes.
Something about her eyes, they look dull and lifeless not what you expect the eyes of a five year old child to look like.
But then when you look at her eyes, her sadness is replaced by your fear, why I don't know but I'm scared to admit, I'm scared of looking into her eyes, I did once when I picked her up in the office and she was looking at me with a blank expression but it was a second contact with her black eyes and they seemed like they were dragging me in kicking and screaming, like a black hole and then my head started spinning and those horrible memories were back, but I snapped out of it and everything was gone, rather it was back to normal, a five year old little girl but there definitely so much more to her than what we see, something supernatural.
Pfft no way, something must be wrong with me. I laugh to myself and sit down on a bench grabbing my phone from my pocket.
Another missed call from Royce,
I must have missed it while driving.
I call him back.
"Hey"
"Yea sorry just wanted to check up on the little girl again"
"Oh she's fine, we're at the park"
"WHAT?!!"
"Jesus my ears, we're at the park, she's playing, why are you so startled"
"Get back home"
"What? Why?"
"I- Leah please, just listen ok, go back home, close all your windows, lock your door and sleep and early in the morning tomorrow, come to the office with the girl, please"
"Bu- ok, ok I will" he said please twice, and he definitely was very shaken up, so I went home with the girls as told, closed the windows and locked my door and told the girls we could watch a movie and have popcorn for dinner. Not a good food choice for dinner but once is okay right?.
We decided to watch an animated movie but not ten minutes into the movie and the girls were asleep but Lorelei wasn't, so we both went down to the kitchen and decided to make some hot chocolate.
She loved it and took her sweet time to finish it, so I thought she didn't like it but when I asked her she said "If it's yummy you should enjoy it slowly at your own pace, if it's not yummy you can quickly eat it and be done with it" a very new way for her to think which makes me smile.
"But if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it"
"But if I don't eat, who will?, won't you throw it?, isn't that wasting it, so even if it's not yummy, it's probably healthy so we should eat it, if not for our taste buds for our bodies health"
Awww who's gonna tell her it's unhealthy.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I must have said too much, don't mind me" she said shyly and continued drinking her hot chocolate.
I was so focused on her answer I didn't notice she actually spoke so much.
So frickin cute.
*Clears throat*
"Are you not sleepy?"
"No, are you?"
"No, not really but I think we should go to bed anyways"
"okay" she nods and we head upstairs into a different room, I tuck her in and kiss her head and pull away quickly, realizing my mistake.
"Sorry" I say quickly and look at her to find her holding her forehead and blushing.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
*Gets up, blushing hard
"Bye Lorelei sleep well"
"You too" she says smiling.