Naomi Green

November 12,2003

Tuesday,  3;12 AM

Lakewood General Hospital

*22 years ago*

I wasn’t supposed to be in the room. 

I told myself that years afterward,  like it should’ve mattered,  like the universe would’ve unfolded differently if i’d just walked the other direction. But working as the head night nurse for 10 years quickly taught me things, and the Harricks were the wealthiest and most powerful family in Lakewood, and wealthy families always get “special accommodation.”

Special. 

Everyone said that word like it meant luxury.

That word meant something different in this town, more sinister.

Margaret Harrick had delivered her baby not long before. A beautiful  little girl. Brown eyes the color of chocolate,a full head of dark hair, tiny fingers curling around nothing. She didn’t cry. Not even once.

Most newborns cry out of instinct, but not her. She was as quiet as a mouse, but she stared up at me with wide, unblocking eyes. Watching me. Studying me.Judging me almost.

She didn’t have a name yet.

Someone  mentioned they were“waiting for the ceremony. I assumed baptism. God, I was stupid then, but it was a common thing to baptize the child after birth in this town, I didn’t do it with my son. Heavens no, I don’t believe in baptizing children as soon as they pour out the womb.  I was checking  the newborn’s  vitals when the mayor walked in.

Collin Harrick.

He wasn’t the jovial man the community adored. Wasn’t the man who shook hands and kissed babies for cameras. His face was colder than the tile floor, his expression was dark and painted grim.  Nothing from him now resembled the persona he paraded around the town.

“You could’ve been here while I was delivering your child Colin, what if the press  saw? What would they say you idiot?” Margaret snapped quietly, trying to keep her voice from carrying.

“I was busy,” he replied without looking at her.

“You weren’t busy, you were-.” Margaret inhaled sharply. ”I do everything, I do all the work, I make you look good, I deliver this child while you do what? I swear I would kill you if you-”

“Then kill me.”  I couldn’t see him but I imagined from his voice he had a smug look on his face. I was the only one who knew how they acted behind closed doors. I honestly don’t know when they had gotten comfortable revealing their true colors in front of me but they did.Maybe after 2 years ago when I had to enter their private house to stitch Margaret up after they had gotten into an altercation. At first they claimed she tripped. You just don’t trip and end up with a busted lip, and black eye. She soon revealed the truth of what I already expected they had gotten into a fight, he hit her. The next day I was called back. She stabbed him. They were toxic and dysfunctional to say the least. I’m glad i’ll never have that type of marriage . I kept my eyes glued to the monitor, pretending not to listen, but the tension in the room wrapped itself around my throat like a tightening rope. That’s when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Is the child viable?” He asked, looking at the papers.

Margaret’s answer before I could , her voice flat. “It has to be. The order requires purity.” 

“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Miss Green.”

“ Well I was talking to you.”

I saw Mr.Harrick physically take a deep breath like he was holding back the urge to strangle her. He faced back to me with a phony smile that looked different in his picture.  “Well is it?”

I forced my voice not to shake.

“Yes, sir. She’s healthy.”

Margaret stared at the baby with an expression I couldn’t decipher.
“She’ll go home after the Blessing,” she murmured. “But she won’t be raised by me. I won’t… attach. It would make the offering harder.”

Offering?
A chill rippled down my spine.

Colin scoffed. “She won’t be raised by me either. I don’t have time for a” he waved a dismissive hand, “a snot-faced baby.”“She’s your daughter,” Margaret hissed. “And the town wouldn’t like knowing the man who kisses babies for the cameras despises his own child, would they?”

Colin’s jaw twitched.
“I am not raising that child. She’s only here for one reason, and she won’t be needed until she’s thirteen.”

At this point I didn’t know what they were talking about but I could already assume it was something sketchy. Poor girl I would hate to be her.

Margaret nodded.
“At thirteen, she’ll be ready.”

“Well if neither of us will bother with this thing what do we do?” Colin.asked. I almost snorted. How can you refer to your own child as a “thing”? My heart broke for the little girl. Her parents were cruel, horrible people who put on acts just for power and trust, but behind closed doors they were monsters.

Thirteen?
Needed for what?

I didn’t understand and yet, I understood enough.
Enough to feel sick.

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Obviously. We’ll pay someone to keep her until then,pay the hospitals to keep quiet and pretend my pregnancy never happened, I mean not like the town knew I was pregnant anyway”

My stomach plummeted.

Paid off.
Hidden.
Raised for an “offering.”

I felt the air shift before Margaret even said my name.

“Naomi Green,” she said smoothly.My heart stumbled.

I froze.

“Take her,” she ordered. “Now.”

“Ma’am, I”

A metallic click filled the room.
Cold steel pressed against the side of my skull.

Mayor Harrick’s voice was low, almost bored.

“You’ll take the child.”

My pulse erupted into a frantic drumbeat.
I could feel the little girl’s stare burning through the blanket, as if she already knew what she’d been born into.
As if she already knew what I had just stepped into.

And what I would never escape

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. The barrel pressed harder into my temple, nudging me like a command.

“I-I can’t raise her,” I whispered. “I have a son. A home. A life-”

“You have a job,” Colin said. “And you have loyalty. And loyalty, Miss Green, is rewarded.”

“And disloyalty,” Margaret added softly, “is… corrected.”

Her eyes were empty. Hollow. As if she had already scrubbed away any trace of having given birth minutes ago.

My lungs tightened. I glanced toward the monitor, its steady beeping the only sign the world hadn’t completely crashed in on itself. The baby’s hand peeked from the blanket, impossibly small. She still hadn’t cried. Just stared at me with those wide, ancient eyes.I realized then that she wasn’t just watching me.
She was waiting.

Colin moved closer, hot breath brushing my cheek. “We need someone quiet. Someone obedient. Someone who won’t ask questions about the Order. You’ve proven yourself useful before.”

“I stitched your wife up,” I said. “That’s not the same as this.”

He smiled without warmth. “It’s exactly the same. You clean up messes.”

I felt the floor tilt under me. They weren’t asking. They had already decided. My refusal wasn’t an option, it was a death sentence.

Margaret reached toward the baby, brushing her fingers along the soft hair, but there was no tenderness in it. None. She looked at her daughter the way a farmer might inspect livestock before a slaughter.

“She won’t remember us,” Margaret said. “When she’s older. When she’s needed. The Order will take her back, and you’ll be compensated. Handsomely.”

“Thirteen years,” Colin murmured. “That’s all. Raise her. Keep her safe. Keep her pure. Keep her unseen.”

“And when the time comes,” Margaret added, “you let her go.”

A pulse thrummed in my ears: fear, anger, disbelief, all tangled into something sharp.

“I don’t want any part of this,” I whispered.

The gun clicked again closer this time, the cold metal digging into my skin.

“You already are,” Colin said.

My hands shook as I slid them under the small, warm body. The baby shifted, settling against me like she belonged there. Like she knew this was the beginning of everything.

Her fingers brushed my wrist light, deliberate, almost reassuring.

My throat tightened.

Colin lowered the gun but didn’t step back. “You’ll leave through the side door. No paperwork. No trail.”

“Not a word to anyone,” Margaret said. “Not even your husband.”

I clasped the baby closer, her heartbeat fluttering against my chest.

“What… What’s her name?” I asked.

Margaret and Colin exchanged a look brief, silent, unsettling.

“We don’t name the offerings,” Colin said. “It makes attachment… complicated.”

I swallowed hard.

“Then what do I call her?”

Margaret hesitated. Just for a breath. Some memory of humanity flickered across her face then vanished.

“Call her whatever you want,” she said. “It won’t matter in the end.”

But it did matter.

I looked down at the child, this quiet, watchful newborn who had already been condemned.

Her eyes met mine. Unblinking. Certain.

And in that moment, with a gun still hovering near my shoulder, my heart chose for me.

“Nicole,” I whispered.

Her little fingers curled around mine.

And for the first time that night, I felt truly, utterly terrified because I knew I would do anything to protect her.

Even from the people who wanted her most.