The rain had stopped before dawn, leaving the streets of Alacosta slick and smelling of earth.
In the quiet corridor outside the recovery ward, Samuel sat slumped on a plastic chair, his head bowed. His shirt was still streaked with dried blood and sweat, and his eyes burned from lack of sleep. Somewhere inside that ward, behind a pale green curtain and the beeping of machines, his mother was breathing—alive, but hollow.
She had been unconscious when the doctor came out to speak with him, his face firm and apologetic. The baby was gone.
Too much trauma. The blunt force had ruptured something inside, and by the time they got her into surgery, there was no longer a heartbeat—a stillbirth. The doctor had said it cleanly, as if saying it that way would make it less cruel.
Samuel hadn't cried. Not then. Not even now. But something inside him had dropped into silence.
Twelve hours later, she stirred.
A nurse tapped him awake softly."She's conscious now. You can see her, but please be gentle."
He stood up, legs aching, neck stiff from sleeping in a chair. His feet felt too heavy.
His mother lay propped slightly against the pillow. Her face was pale and bandaged, the corners of her mouth dark with bruising. One eye barely opened, swollen to a slit. Her hand rested over her stomach.
Samuel approached slowly.
She turned her head toward him. She didn't speak. Her lips trembled.
He sat beside her and reached for her fingers. They were cold.
Her eyes met his for just a moment before she looked away, down toward her belly. Then came the sound—not a cry, not a scream, but something between a sob and a breath escaping her chest, like a wound had opened.
He didn't say anything. He only held her hand and let the silence carry what words could not.
A nurse came in not long after, her tone careful."We managed the emergency surgery and stabilized her," she said, voice low. "But for continued treatment, recovery, medications, and her overnight stay, there's still a balance of 2,000 balance left to clear."
Samuel nodded once, eyes blank. There was no point arguing.
The nurse handed him a folded slip of paper with the details, then quietly left the room.
He didn't speak to his mother again. She was drifting in and out, pulled under again by the medication. He watched her for a while longer, then rose and went outside.
The sky had begun to lighten with the early colors of morning. His back ached. His shirt was crusted with blood. He knew he couldn't stay like this—couldn't even walk into a shop without people staring.
He needed to change, and he needed money.
He returned the car quietly, pulling up beside the apartment where it had all happened.
The place looked dead. No sign of the man. But the moment Samuel stepped out, he saw the message.
Their things were outside, soaked in the remnants of the rain, scattered like trash.
His mother's sewing machine lay tilted on its side in the grass, its legs bent slightly. A box of baby clothes was open and half empty. His tools, her pots, books—a mattress flapped against the wall like a broken animal.
A note was pinned to the door with masking tape.
*Leave the car keys.Get out. You and your whore mother are done here.*
He didn't react. Not then. He just bent down and began gathering what he could.
There was an old storage shed behind the building—dusty, half-rotten, barely standing. He carried everything there in silence, one trip at a time.
When it was done, he stood in the corner of the shed and washed his face under the cracked outdoor tap. The water was cold, biting. He scrubbed his arms and hands until the dried blood swirled away.
Then he changed into a clean shirt and stared at the pile of everything they owned.
Then he went looking.
He walked to a nearby mechanic yard, a place he'd once helped out at for a weekend. The man running it glanced up and narrowed his eyes.
"What do you want?"
Samuel swallowed. "Work. Anything."
"You that boy from across town?" the man said. "The one that beat his guardian and stole his car?"
"No—""Get off my lot. Bastard thief."
Samuel didn't argue.
He tried the next garage, a dusty corner spot where younger boys swept up spare bolts and took instructions. One of them recognized him.
"You came here to beg?" the boy sneered. "After what you did?"
"I didn't do anything."
"You tried to kill your own uncle," they said. "Over a woman."
Laughter followed him as he turned away.
Everywhere he went, doors were closed before he even spoke. The man had already gotten there, spreading his poison like oil on water.
By the fourth rejection, something inside Samuel went cold.
He returned to the shed and sat beside the mattress, hands resting on his knees. The sun was slanting overhead now, painting lines across the dirt floor. Everything inside him felt empty.
He thought about the baby—the way his mother had rested her hand over her stomach in the hospital, the silence in that room, the bruises on her neck, the note on the door, the spit in that man's voice.
He covered his face with his hands and pressed hard against his eyes, trying to crush the burning behind them.
Nothing was working.Nothing was left.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his old phone. His fingers hovered over the name Tomas.
It rang.Then again.
*The number you're trying to reach is not available.*
He tried twice more. Same thing.
Samuel stared at the screen. Then he stood.
He didn't have much of a plan, but he knew where Tomas used to live. Maybe someone there knew where he'd gone.
He walked across town through roads that once knew his footsteps. His old block had changed. Some of the old boys were gone. Others were still there—just older now, harder.
Samuel approached a man leaning against a wall, arms crossed, a bent cap pulled low over his forehead.
"You know if Tomas still lives around here?" he asked.
The man gave him a squint, then chuckled."Tomas? Nah. He moved out a while back. Got himself a proper place now—out in Vista Heights or somewhere up the ridge. Doesn't come round much these days."
He jerked his chin down the street."Past the old corner shop. Someone there might know where exactly."
Samuel nodded and thanked him.
He walked off slowly, the weight of every insult and bruise following behind him like a second shadow.
Still, he kept walking.