Chapter 9

Doreen had gotten into the back seat already when she got to the car. And she was already strapped in. Sophia moved to open the back seat but Daniel gestured towards the front passenger seat.

The drive was far from a silent one as they drove to the ice cream shop. Doreen and Daniel went on singing to songs blaring from the speakers. Sitting in silence, she looked out the window at the moving clouds that ran across the moon. Her thoughts drifted back to the recurrent dream she always had. Always about that man and woman. Bits and pieces of the dream came now and then. She could now see the room they were in except their faces were still dark. The room was painted white and had gold curtains, whatever they were talking about seemed very important but she couldn't hear exactly what they were saying. She rubbed her temple feeling the headache come back. It always made itself apparent whenever she started thinking of the dream or tried to remember her past. Somehow it made her feel as though the pain was there specifically to prevent her from remembering.

"Are you okay?" Daniel interrupted her thoughts.

She looked at him, "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Why do I ask if you are alright?" He sounded angry.

"I didn't mean anything by that"

He snorted, "Oh really, I wasn't the one who asked that question so I wouldn't know"

"Why do you have to get angry by my question?" Surprisingly her voice was calm.

He didn't respond but only pulled over so quickly it threw her forward. She braced herself against the dashboard.

"We are here, we are here" Doreen chanted at the back.

Looking around, she saw that they were right in front of the ice cream shop. "Creamy Bites" it read on the sign board in bright colours.

Without a word, Daniel got out of the car slamming the door. He opened the back door and got Doreen out. Without a glance at her, he walked into the shop with Doreen.

Refusing to let him ruin the night, more for Doreen than herself, she got out of the car and entered the shop.

Daniel stood at the counter with Doreen. She stopped just beside him.

"What will you take?" Daniel asked yet didn't wait for an answer from her because as she opened her mouth he ordered chocolate for her.

He handed a strawberry ice cone to Doreen and turned to hand her her chocolate ice cone but mistakenly bumped into her as he turned making it smear on his shirt.

"You..." he started but stopped when Doreen started laughing at him.

"I'll go clean this up. Will be back soon. You guys shouldn't move from here" He said and left for the washroom dropping the remnants of the ice cream cone into the dustbin on his way.

"Uncle will get you another ice cream Sophia. Tell him you want Strawberry flavour. Its the best" Doreen said turning her attention to her ice cream.

Sophia folded her arms smiling at her. "I think I will, you look like you are really enjoying yourself"

"I am" she said busy with her cone.

The door opened and a family of about eight entered. They were loud, with smiles on their faces as they laughed about something that the man who looked to be a dad was saying. Just before the glass doors closed behind them, something caught her eye. A symbol.

She moved towards the door to get a good look. It seemed familiar to her but yet again she couldn't remember where she had seen it. It looked like a ladder with the sun on top of it in a squared figure. It was on a black pick up truck which was driving by. She stared at it till it drove away from sight.

"What were you doing?" Daniel's voice startled her.

"I was looking at some...."

He cut in, "Where is Doreen?"

"She is right ...." her voice trailed when she realized Doreen was not standing there.

"Where is she?"

"She was right there. She probably went to the washroom. I'll go check"

She rushed to the washroom to check but Doreen wasn't there. She rushed back out.

Daniel was asking people if they'd seen Doreen giving them her description.

"Did you find her?"

"No"

"You better hope and pray Doreen is not missing"

"Hey mister I think I saw her going outside as we were coming in" the little girl in the family of eight said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah she was wearing a blue cap and a yellow t-shirt right?"

"That's her. Thank you" Daniel rushed out of the shop, Sophia couldn't do anything but follow him.

Outside, the only thing they saw was Doreen's ice cream cone on the pavement.

There was no one around they could ask for help.

"How could you be so careless in watching her? All you had to do was just watch her and not move!"

"I didn't..."

"Of course you didn't. If you had watched her this wouldn't be happening. You shouldn't have accepted to come with us when Rhoda invited you. Now how am I going to explain to my sister in her present condition that I lost her little girl!"

"I'm sorry about all this I didn't mean to let all this happen..." her eyes burned with tears.

"No you are not. I'm now believing that you bring nothing but bad luck. You just imagine what do you think will happen to Rhoda if I tell her you lost her daughter! Answer me!"

Sophia's eyes filled with tears which started to fall.

"This is all your fault. All because of your carelessness"

She quickly wiped her tears at that and turned away walking which soon turned into running.

Her instincts told her to run and so she did.

*******************************

Daniel finished his venting to see her running and disappearing down a corner. Still angry, he turned and ran the opposite direction yelling Doreen's name.

After about twenty minutes of futile searching, he stopped his moving and looked around. He was in front of a closed supermarket. Taking in a deep breath, he turned to go back for Sophia as it was, she was a stranger in the town and he wasn't ready to loose two people that night.

As he moved back to the place he saw her disappear, he continued his search for Doreen. Whenever he saw passersby and asked whether they'd seen any girl that fit Doreens description, their answer was always in the negative.

Taking the exact route that he had seen Sophia take, he saw no sign of her. He continued walking on the pavement walking about four blocks down he realized he was in the vicinity where most of the criminals lived.

Surely Sophia wouldn't go in there, he thought. But she is a stranger here she might have probably thought that this was also part of the town.

He stood once more yelling Doreens name. There was silence and then there was a piercing scream before a voice yelled the name Sophia.

Doreen. That was Doreen's voice, he thought.

Without additional thinking, he rushed to the direction the voice was coming from. He ran as fast as his legs allowed him.

He finally came to an old children's park which had been turned into a dump site for cars. Moving between cars, he heard a muffled sound and moved slowing to a walk as he got nearer.

"So tell me Miss what made you think of visiting us here this fine evening" a mans voice came.

"Let her go"

That was definitely Sophias' voice.

"What? No she can't miss this party" another voice came.

Two men

He finally gained full view of where they held both Sophia and Doreen. One man, the bulkier of them had Sophia pinned against a pickup truck with one hand and the other holding a glittering object in front of her which Daniel assumed was a knife and the other man held Doreen by the shoulders. He couldn't really see their faces but he could hear Doreen crying softly.

He thought of calling the police before moving to confront them. As he took a step back, loose gravels crunched under his shoe drawing their attention to him.

"Let them go!" He yelled as his plans changed.

"Says who? We are kind of busy here" the bulkier guy said pulling away from Sophia and walking slightly forward towards him waving the knife like a flag. The smaller man seemed to have released Doreen.

"The police can be here any minute. Don't say I didn't warn you"

"Oh really. Thanks for the warning. I also have a warning for you, stay out of this"

"Hey!" Sophia called from behind him making him turn only for her to hit him in the face with something like a rope. In retaliation he swung the knife towards her face but she blocked it with her casted arm knocking the knife out of his hands. He swung his other free arm but she ducked whiles stomping on his leg.

He took a step back grunting in pain.

Daniel came to himself and started moving towards them. The smaller man just turned and ran as he approached.

His jaw dropped open when Sophia did a backflip kicking the man in the face in the process and landed on her feet with a slight stumbling. He fell to the ground hand on his face yelling about her breaking something, but quickly stood and ran as Daniel got close.

He got to where Doreen was and carried her in a hug so tight he was close to hurting her. "Are you alright?"

She nodded against his chest.

He turned to Sophia and saw she was holding a seat belt.

Where did she learn to fight like that?

She dropped it and avoided his eyes only looking at Doreen. Doreen reached for her so she took her from him.

He heard her grunt as she positioned Doreen on her hip.

"If she's too heavy for you, I can carry her" he offered.

She shook her head, "Lead the way"

He led them back to where he had parked the car. Sophia got into the back seat with Doreen still in her arms.

"I was so scared Sophie" he heard Doreen whisper.

"I know dear, I was too but it's all okay now. Here, I found this" she pulled Doreens blue cap onto her head.

"We'll get home soon okay"

"Okay" Doreen put her head on her lap.

Through the drive, he tried making eye contact with Sophia to check if she was okay but she kept avoiding his eyes.

Why was he feeling that this was his fault?

By the time they got home, Doreen was asleep so Sophia carried her inside. Daniel followed them quietly. He felt bad for how he had yelled at her.

"What took you guys so long?" Mrs. Asamoah asked when they entered.

"I'll go put Doreen in bed she's asleep" Sophia said already climbing the stairs.

"Daniel what happened?" Rhoda walked into the room with Adam

"We just ran a little late" He shrugged.

Rhoda wasn't satisfied, "So where are they?" She proded further.

He sighed, "Doreen fell asleep so Sophia took her to bed. In fact I'll go check on them"

Climbing the stairs he could feel his sister watching him. Getting to Doreens room, he found out she was still awake as the lights were on with Doreen sitting up in bed.
"Couldn't sleep?"

She shook her head, "No, I'm scared. He might cut me too if I close my eyes"

"No he can't do that to you. You are home now okay?"

"But he cut Sophia and said if I scream he will cut me too with his knife"

"Who cut Sophia? " Rhodas voice came from the door.

It all suddenly clicked in his head and he stood up rushing into Sophias room. Rhoda followed.
He found her sitting on the chair by the table her back slumped with her eyes closed and face beaded with sweat.
He knelt by her shaking her awake. Her eyes opened but couldn't really focus on him. Looking over her, he saw that the right side of her shirt was soaked in blood.

Lifting the shirt, he saw the cut but it didn't really look deep. It was a shallow wound which although wasn't bleeding but technically speaking wouldn't cause this much blood stain.

How did he miss it?

"Adam!" Rhoda yelled.

He ran into the room, "What happened?"

"It's Sophia"

"Daniel get her on the bed" He wasn't asking. Adam moved into the bathroom and came out with a first aid kit.

Daniel did as he asked and watched as he attended to Sophia who was wide awake now.

"I'm okay" she said.

"No you are not" Daniel retorted. "Why didn't you tell me he did this?"

"And risk you yelling at me again?"

He couldn't deny the fact that that stumped him, leaving him speechless.

"Daniel get out, now" Adam ordered after looking between them

"Daniel you owe me some explanation" Rhoda demanded following him out of the room.

He knew he did but didn't know how he was going to explain exactly what happened.

"I need it today" she continued.

So in the end he had no choice but to tell her what happened and he expected now he was going to be at the receiving end of Rhodas yelling. But there was nothing like that.

All she said was, "You could have just said you didn't want her to go with you. That would have saved her from getting hurt and all this from happening"

A/N
Good evening folks.... Confidence here. Im done with three papers this week, just left with two next week to end the semester that's Economics and Geography. Guess what? Since I want to show my gratitude to you all for your support, this chapter is 2300 words long minus this a/n Im currently writing. :D

I want to thank

Moskii
Skylark196
steph7ash
Aspiredforever
GodsWritingWarrior

Thank you guys. I appreciate your support. ♡♥ You guys are the best. This chapter is for you. As well as silent readers yeah like the one currently reading, yes I mean you:).

Do enjoy and don't forget to let your honest opinions flow.

Ko si se me te monka....stay blessed:)