(Mina's POV)
The night they left the Dared house, the sky was a vast, indifferent blanket of stars, their cold, distant twinkling offering no blessing, no judgment. Mina carried Trisha tightly against her chest, the little girl a warm, heavy weight of trust, already deep in a sleep untroubled by the gravity of their flight. Her breath was a soft, steady rhythm against Mina's neck, a tiny metronome of life in the tense silence. Adam held her other hand, his grip not just a connection but an anchor, his fingers laced through hers with a firm, unyielding pressure as he led her with a predator's caution down the narrow, seldom-used back staircase.
Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs, pounding out a rhythm of fear and exhilaration with every cautious step. Each creak of the ancient wooden steps beneath their weight was a thunderclap in the oppressive quiet, and she was certain the very walls of the house-steeped in generations of tradition and judgment-would shudder and cry out, betraying their escape to the sleeping matriarch. Behind them, the grand house loomed, not just a structure of marble floors and gilded frames, but a living entity of cold silences and words sharp enough to draw blood. It was a monument to a legacy she would never be part of.
She didn't look back. There was nothing in that past she wished to claim.
When they reached the small, unassuming car waiting with its engine off just beyond the main gate, Adam moved with a swift, efficient grace. He opened the passenger door, the sound a hollow thud in the still night. "Get in," he whispered, his voice a low, urgent command woven through with a protective tenderness.
Mina hesitated for a fraction of a second, her body half-turned toward the sleeping fortress. "Adams... what if she wakes? What if she finds us gone?" The question was barely a breath, voicing the primal fear that had been her constant companion for months.
In the faint starlight, she saw his jaw tighten, a muscle flickering in his cheek. His eyes, when they met hers, held no trace of doubt. "Then let her. Tonight, we start over."
The sheer, unadulterated certainty in his voice was a balm, a solid ground beneath her trembling feet. She slid into the worn passenger seat, pulling Trisha closer into the protective circle of her arms as Adam closed the door with a quiet, definitive click. The engine coughed to life, and as the car pulled away from the curb, Mina watched the iron gates and the formidable house shrink in the side mirror, becoming smaller and smaller until they were finally swallowed by the night.
(Adam's POV – Later That Night)
The apartment building was a silent, anonymous slab in the darkness, a world away from the sprawling compound they had left behind. He led them up a single flight of concrete stairs, his hand firm on Mina's elbow. The air in the hallway smelled of disinfectant and, faintly, of the jollof rice a neighbour had cooked for dinner. He fitted the key into the lock, the metallic scrape echoing in the empty corridor, and turned it with a quiet, definitive click.
The apartment was dark, a void waiting to be filled. The faint, sharp smell of fresh paint and new, cheap linoleum greeted them, the scent of something raw and unfinished. He switched on the single overhead bulb, and the room was suddenly bathed in a pale, unforgiving yellow light that revealed everything in stark, ungenerous detail.
Their new beginning.
It wasn't much. Two small bedrooms led off a narrow sitting room where the floor tiles were cracked in several places and the walls bore the ghostly outlines of pictures past. The kitchen was a narrow galley that smelled faintly of kerosene and bleach. But it was theirs. It was a space devoid of judging eyes, of whispers that slithered under doorways, of venomous remarks artfully disguised as polite concern. It was a blank page.
Mina stood frozen in the doorway, Trisha heavy on her hip, her eyes wide and unblinking as she took it all in. He watched her scan the room, the bare windows, the empty corners, and his heart clenched with a painful mixture of pride and shame. He wanted to apologize-for the peeling paint near the ceiling, for the thin, floral curtains that offered no real privacy, for the sheer lack of grandeur, for every way in which this fell short of what she deserved.
But then she turned to him, her gaze moving from the room to settle on his face. And her lips, so often pressed into a line of patient endurance, curved into the softest, most genuine smile he had seen in a year. It reached her eyes, lighting them from within.
"It feels like freedom," she said, her voice full of quiet wonder.
The relief that surged through him was so potent it was almost physical, a wave that threatened to buckle his knees. He had gambled everything, and she had seen not the cracks in the tiles, but the promise in the space between them.
(Mina's POV – The First Morning)
Sunlight, clean and unfiltered by heavy drapes or tall compound walls, streamed through the single window the next morning. It fell in a wide, bright parallelogram across the floor, illuminating dancing motes of dust. Trisha, freed from the confines of stuffy rooms and precious furniture, toddled barefoot through the beam of light, chasing her own shifting shadow with breathless, uninhibited squeals of delight. The sound was like music.
Mina leaned against the doorway, one hand unconsciously resting on the gentle, firm curve of her belly, already heavy with the weight of their second child. She watched her daughter, and for the first time in months, the constricting band of anxiety around her chest loosened its grip. She could take a full, deep breath without the air feeling thick with unspoken rules. She could laugh, a real, startled laugh at Trisha's joy, without immediately looking over her shoulder to see if the sound had offended someone. She could stand in silence, her hand on her womb, and offer a prayer of gratitude without someone questioning the nature of her silence or the worth of her prayers.
Adam entered from the small kitchen, balancing a steaming kettle carefully in one hand. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the strong forearms she loved, and his hair was still deliciously messy from sleep. He grinned at her, a sheepish, boyish expression that made him look years younger. "I tried to make tea," he announced, as if presenting a great feat.
She raised a brow, a playful smirk touching her lips. "Tried?"
"Don't ask too many questions," he warned, pouring hot water into two mismatched cups-one with a chipped rim, the other advertising a brand of engine oil. "Just drink and pretend it's good."
She laughed then, a full, rich sound that spilled easily into the little room, bouncing off the bare walls and filling the space with a warmth no expensive decor could ever provide. And in that moment-surrounded by mismatched cups, wobbly furniture bought from a roadside seller, and the simple, profound evidence of their survival-it felt not like a mere apartment, but like a palace built just for them.
(Adam's POV – Later That Day)
They sat cross-legged on the floor of the sitting room, the cool linoleum a stark contrast to the plush carpets of his mother's house. Between them lay the humble sum of their salvaged world, unpacked from two suitcases and the trunk they had managed to save from the floodwaters. A small pile of clothes, smelling faintly of smoke and river mud. A faded photo album whose pages stuck together, which Mina had clutched to her chest as they fled their submerged home. A battered old radio that Adam couldn't bring himself to part with, though it now only crackled with static.
Mina held up one of Trisha's first baby dresses, the lace at the collar yellowed and brittle. She smiled faintly, a distant look in her eyes. "It smells like smoke, but... it survived."
Adam reached out, his hand covering hers where it held the tiny dress. His thumb stroked the back of her knuckles, feeling the delicate bones beneath her skin. "So did we," he said, his voice low and thick with emotion.
Her eyes softened, the distant look replaced by a deep, focused tenderness directed solely at him. She leaned her head against his shoulder, her weight a comfortable, familiar pressure. "Do you think it will last? This peace?" The question was a whisper, fragile as glass.
He hesitated, absorbing the weight of it. He could taste the fear behind the words, the memory of every other peace that had been shattered. Then he pressed a firm, lingering kiss to her hair, inhaling the simple scent of her. "It has to," he murmured against her crown. "Because I will not fail you again."
He meant it with every fibre of his being, with every beat of his heart. It was a vow etched into his soul. Yet, deep down, beneath the resolve, a small, nagging fear whispered its insidious truth: the world had stolen from them before. What if it had only been waiting for them to be happy so it could find a way to steal this from them, too?
That night, the unfamiliar sounds of the new neighbourhood were a gentle lullaby-a distant generator humming, the faint chatter of a television next door. Mina rocked Trisha slowly in the old chair they had found at a market, humming the same lullaby her mother had sung to her, feeling the child's body grow heavy and limp with sleep.
Her eyes drifted across the room and found Adam standing by the window. He had pushed the thin curtain aside just enough to stare out into the dimly lit street below. His silhouette was etched in tension, the line of his shoulders broad but heavy, as if bearing an invisible weight. He was so still, so utterly absorbed, that he seemed a world away from the man who had made her laugh that morning.
"Adams," she called softly, not wanting to startle him. "Come to bed. It's late."
He turned at the sound of her voice, and his face rearranged itself into a smile, a conscious, forced effort that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I will. In a minute. Just... thinking."
But his eyes betrayed him. In the half-light, they were full of a fire and a determination she recognized-the same look he'd had when he'd decided to court her against all advice, the same look he'd had when he'd vowed to rebuild after the flood. But now, interwoven with that fierce resolve, she saw shadows. The shadows of secrets not yet shared, of battles he was already preparing to fight on their behalf, of a cost he was already calculating.
Mina held Trisha closer, the child's warm, sleeping form a stark contrast to the sudden chill that had settled in her own heart. Their freedom, so new and sweet, felt suddenly fragile. Her heart was lightened by their new beginning, yet profoundly unsettled by the storm she sensed still lingered, not in their past, but at the very edges of their present, waiting.
Freedom had a cost. And as she watched her husband stare into the night, his face a mask of grim resolve, she feared they had only just begun to pay it.