Prologue
Ella woke slowly and slipped out the bed, Roman was still sleeping and she looked over at his profile watching as the light from the full moon outside cast its silver glow across his face. She padded barefoot over to the window and looked out on the garden seeing the roses tinged with moonbeams. She knew if she opened the window she's smell the fragrant aroma coming from them, but then she also knew that she didn't like the window open. It scared her on some level and made her fearful.
Not that she could share that with Roman, he thought that she was amazing because she dealt with everything that had happened, Gardy and then Sammy's kidnap. She thought she was doing ok too, but now every little sound in the house at night and she was worrying over who was coming in. And just who they were after. Walking past the bed she carefully stepped out of the room and into the nursery.
She had to check on the children three, sometimes four, times a night. Make sure their window was shut and they were covered and ok. Sometimes she would just sit in the dark and rock back and forth in the rocking chair crying silently as she watched over them.
Megs was awake and looking at her with a solemn expression on her face. Her daughter was used to her coming in here at night now, seeming to sense that her mother wasn't that happy.
It made her hate herself even more because here in the nursery at night when Roman was asleep was the only time she could cry without him knowing about it. He'd demand reasons for her tears and in all honesty she couldn't give him any. Her tears were sadness and fear and hate and self-condemnation and panic. He'd try and calm her, showing her the children were all right and he was fine but it was more than that. It was everything. Everything that had happened and still happened.
How could she explain to him that even going out to the diner to see him filled her with panic and dread? That going out grocery shopping made her hyperventilate and that those moments when he insisted that they went for a walk or out to dinner were like living nightmares where she had no idea if someone was going to come looking for them or even worse coming for her children.
Moving over to Meggy she gave her daughter a brief smile fighting back her tears as she pulled up her covers.
"Sleep now little Megs," she cooed softly, her hand stroking her daughter's stomach gently.
"Mama." Meggy called out before turning her head and looking over at Sophie and Georgie.
Ella followed her gaze and gave another one of her all too brief smiles before looking at her twins seeing that they were fast asleep. She envied them their innocent slumber for the briefest of moments before the first cries from Sam alerted her to his waking. Going over to him she picked him up before he could scream and cradled him against her rocking him gently. His eyes opened and eh looked at her before nuzzling.
"Hungry little man." She whispered.
Jostling him slightly, and making him whinge she reached for the fastening on her nightdress and opened it before holding him so he could suckle. It took a couple of minutes before he latched on and began suckling. Moving them both over to the rocking chair she sat down and cradled him against her.
Not even the closeness of holding her beloved son was enough to stop her tears and she hated herself even more as she began to cry for having them look at her as she gave in to the sadness that she had inside.