It had been a beautiful late summer day in Vice City, everyone enjoying it. Little Inessa was running around excitedly and almost went right into traffic but was picked up into someone's arms.
"Easy there, little one. They don't always slow down. What's your name?" 24 year old Maria Vercetti says.
"Inessa." Inessa says, Maria recognising the Russian accent.
"Nice to meet you, Inessa. Are your mommy and daddy nearby? I'm sure they must be wondering where you are." Maria says, Inessa lightly pulling on a lock of Maria's light brown hair.
"They're at the adult drinks place and said I could go around the park." Inessa says, pointing across in the direction of the bar.
"Well, you shouldn't really be out here alone, kiddo." Maria says, carefully crossing the street with the small child… and that was where it went haywire.
Inessa screamed and hung onto Maria as gunfire broke out, Maria shielding Inessa from the bullets as she ran with Inessa in her arms.
"Inessa, it's gonna be okay, alright? Just stay with me, sweetie." Maria says, stopping by a payphone and attempting to dial 911… but Inessa noticed something Maria hadn't.
"RUN, IT'S A-" Inessa screams, pulling on Maria's tank top again... but it was a second too late as the next thing that Maria and Inessa had felt was them being thrown 50 feet from the payphone and crash landing under a palm tree.
Tommy slammed on the brakes of his white Infernus and got out with his Colt .45 Python in hand, shooting two gangbangers dead as they tried to shoot Maria and Inessa before he ran to the small unconscious figures under the palm tree and crouched down by them, Inessa cradled protectively in Maria's arms.
Inessa managed to open her eyes… but she knew something was wrong and looked up at Tommy, pointing to her ears to indicate that she couldn't hear him. She looked at Maria as tears fell down her face before looking at Tommy for help, a look similar to 4 year old Angeline whenever she got hurt.
'Is she alive, mister?' Inessa mouthed to Tommy after he took her into his arms, Tommy checking Maria for a pulse and sighing in relief.
"She'll be…" Tommy starts to say, stopping as he remembered that Inessa couldn't hear him, instead pointing to Maria and switching his hand position to a thumbs up.
"Inessa!" A man and a woman shouted as they ran over, Tommy looking at them… and turning disgusted when he realised that the man had been drinking.
"What kind of parents are you, leaving a child unattended?!" Tommy yells.
"We were just across the street…" The woman says, Tommy turning infuriated. Before he could yell again, he felt Maria's hand squeeze his and looked, seeing her brown eyes open.
"Is… she okay?" Maria manages to ask through the sharp pain in her ribcage.
"I don't know… could she hear before?" Tommy says, Maria managing to look at Inessa and seeing her wiping away blood that was trailing down from her ear.
Pulling herself up, Maria stood up and limped to the Infernus… but she had barely had a grip on the towel before losing consciousness again and falling to the ground, Tommy handing Inessa to her mother before running to Maria, holding her in his arms and grabbing his phone out of his pocket, dialing 911.
The next time Maria had woken up, she was in the E.R of the Downtown Hospital, trying to get up and find Inessa but Tommy stopped her.
"What kind of assholes throw a grenade near a child?!" Maria shouts, herself more worried about Inessa since she couldn't find her and now infuriated. "Where is she, Tommy?!" She asks.
"Two doors down the hallway with her parents who, it seems, are having trouble paying up for healthcare." Tommy says.
"Hospitals shouldn't charge people." Maria says, examining her slightly burned and scraped arms. "Ouch… grenade burns or ones from the road that has sun beating down on it?" She says.
"I doubt it was the road, you weren't on it for long enough." Tommy says.
Maria tried not to cry right now but her worry for Inessa made her think back to the times that Carlotta or Frank, whenever one or both were high, would smack her around. The last straw was when Carlotta slammed the handle of a revolver into Maria's left ear and ruptured the eardrum when Maria was 13 and Maria decided that she was better off on the streets until the LCPD caught her one night and dragged her back home.
"What in the hell happened to you, Ria?! Tommy, what happened, did the Haitians try to kill her?!" Ken asked after running in.
Getting aggravated, Maria ripped her I.V and needle out, bandaged her hand and pulled the blood pressure cuff off before walking out of the room and finding Inessa.
"Is this the lady who saved you?" The woman asks, Inessa nodding.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm so sorry that she-" Maria says, the woman turning to her to try to comfort her.
"It's okay, it's not your fault." The woman says, also with a Russian accent.
"I'll help with the hospital bill, it won't be any trouble." Maria says, Inessa lightly playing with one of Maria's cherry red painted nails.
"If you would… we've already got enough on our hands with debts." The woman says, Maria now becoming concerned as she saw that Inessa didn't seem to be reacting to anything they were saying.
After the hospital bill was sorted out, Maria had to sit down again as the woman had noticed Maria's badly scraped knees that were bleeding through the bandages. But when the woman tried to unbandage them, Maria flinched as a memory flash of Carlotta screaming at her "You stupid little brat, scraped knees are your own fault!" crept into her mind, the woman realising that Maria wasn't too trusting of too many other women.
"Sorry… my mom wasn't too kind to me when I was younger." Maria says.
"I wouldn't say Inessa's father is much different but… well, in Russian ways, the father is the worker and businessman, he doesn't get much time to care for his daughter." The woman says.
Inessa rested her small hand on Maria's left arm as the woman removed the bandages from Maria's knees, seeing that the reason they were still bleeding is because they hadn't scabbed over completely.
Wounds were something Maria was all too familiar with.
