Chapter 2

Red found himself sitting on a chaise on a beach. He did not recall how he got there. A great expanse of sand surrounded him that seemed to carry on and on, the only sound to be heard waves lapping up on the shore.

He peered out into the blue ocean, the bright morning sun scanning into his eyes, blinding him momentarily. Once he blinked and squinted compulsively, his vision cleared and, as if in a sudden burst of light, she was there.

Her back was turned to him as she loped into the water, knee-deep. Her dress was stark white in contrast to the depth-less ocean, to the heavy dunes of sand.

Lizzy.

He opened his mouth from where he sat in the chaise, desiring nothing more than to call her name, to bring her back safely to the shore. Yet while his mouth formed around the words, his voice was not working. A suffering, consuming despair filled him.

He couldn't get through to her, seemingly no matter how hard he tried.

She turned, her profile a focal point to the backdrop of the ocean and the bright, white rays of the sun surrounding her. One hand went to her heavily engorged, pregnant belly as she caressed it, the other hanging limply at her side as she bent with her knees, her slender fingers dipping into the water.

A great powerful gush of wind blew his fedora off his head, sending it into the sand meters away from where he sat, yet he could hardly care less. All that mattered was what was in front of him; That he not become distracted and lose sight of her, not even for a short second.

The sight of Lizzy, to see her alive again, it felt so bittersweet, so surreal.

The instance he regained use of his limbs, it felt like a sheer miracle. He staggered away from the chaise, battling against the sudden vicious breeze that picked up. His trench coat rustled heavily and the gusts of wind threw him sideways, almost knocking him off his feet, as he trudged through the thick mountains of sand to reach her, still keeping his eyes on nothing else but Lizzy.

It was as if nature alone did not want him to get to Lizzy, as if the entire world was against him.

As if they were in a glass dome of beach and sand, an echoing cry broke out through the air, the sound of a helpless baby desperate to be fed and reassured by human contact.

It did not matter though. There was one thing he had to do, above all else. And that was to reach Lizzy before time ran out.

Red came to an immediate stand-still by the shore when he saw Lizzy turn towards him, showing her back to the sun. He wondered if he was having a heart attack when he saw how pale she was, how drained of life, her hand still pressed against her heavily swollen belly.

"Lizzy," he called desperately, relieved his voice was cooperating with him. "Lizzy, please... you have to come to the shore. The currents too strong!"

The crying broke through whatever words it was that she was going to say to him in response, and everything suddenly stopped. Just like that, everything vanished. No beach, no sand that stretched on for miles and miles. No chaise, no violent bursts of air. Most importantly of all, no more Lizzy, but... darkness. Darkness filled his vision, and then there came that screeching noise of a baby, filling his ears.

His throat tight with grief at the lost image of her, he opened his eyes, the view of a ceiling coming into view, the warmth of the crackling fireplace. He looked around groggily, his head clearing. He was at the safe house, sitting as he usually was in his armchair, but he must have dozed.

Seeing Lizzy standing there in the water, the beach... it must have all been nothing more than a dream.

As awareness seeped into his brain, he recalled what parts of the vision that were most certainly not a dream. The child crying. Agnes.

He shot up out of the armchair, racing towards where he had placed her in the other room on the middle of the mattress, his knees sore as if he had truly been battling against the ferocious winds of nature.

His heart lifted as he stood over the tiny girl, wrapped tight in the pink blankets so that she wouldn't roll over during the night and- dare the horrendous thought even cross him - suffocate in her sleep.

"Oh, I'm sorry I left you, sweetheart," he whispered softly, reaching over to pick Agnes up, supporting her weight carefully in his arms as she resumed crying. He sat on the edge of the mattress, swaying gently and hushing her as he observed her face, the way her small eyes scrunched up, her pudgy cheeks red from the longevity of her crying. "Ssh, it's quite all right." He patted around her back with his fingers.

Red did not think he would ever tire of looking at her, despite how painful the howling was on his ears. It was all so tragically mesmerizing, watching her, really. He had full confidence that, once she grew into her skin, she would look exactly like her mother. The dimpled smile, the bright eyes. It was so unbelievably cathartic, holding the last piece of Lizzy that she had left behind.

Hungry. It occurred to him that she must be so unbearably hungry.

Her head turned towards his jacket, as if she was desperately searching for a way to feed. It only sunk in just how hopeless the circumstances that he found himself in were, when he stood, placing Agnes back down in the middle of the bed carefully.

He was in no uncertain terms prepared for this. He hadn't had to properly care for a baby since when Jennifer was first born over twenty years ago. It had been far too long, and he wondered if perhaps he was out of his depths. Perhaps he should consider what Lizzy had wanted to do before she had decided to keep the baby? Perhaps he ought to consider giving the child up for adoption?

He was not the best person in the world for the job of taking care and raising an infant, and he knew that without any doubts or delusions.

But he also knew the type of man that he was, and he was confident in it; He was not a man who ran away from his responsibilities. His main responsibility for now, though avenging Lizzy's death seemed more satisfying, was Agnes.

Her sobbing grew even louder and piercing when he found the bag Jacob had left for him. He found three baby bottles and the formula in the bag, then had to read the directions on the back of the canister. It seemed simple enough; the instructions to follow on what was a suitable amount to give a child Agnes's weight and age.

Once the bottle was done and the formula prepared, he went back into the room, sitting on the bed again. It was a moment of sheer and profound relief when, the instance he held Agnes curled up in his left arm and gently wormed the teat of the bottle past her small lips, her cries stopped, as another new instinct took over.

A pleasant silence filled the room as she sucked the liquid through the teat, making the occasional, greedy grunting noise that humored him. Yes, after all that dreadful noise, the one solution to make it all easily stop was to cure and satiate her hunger. Red felt ashamed that he hadn't thought of that earlier, though in his defense, it had been a dreadfully long time since he had even held a child in his arms.

Agnes looked rather sweaty and red. Concerned, he moved his hand to her forehead, touching her skin with the back of his fingers as he held her close. She felt warm, warmer than what was probably natural, so he unwrapped the blankets, loosening them from around her face so that she could cool off.

Without knowing why, his mind drifted back there as he held the back of her head in his hand with care as she suckled urgently, perhaps unconsciously.

"Congratulations, Elizabeth. May I see her?"

"No. Get out. Please, go away. Tom, tell him to get away."

"It's been a long day. She's had a lot of drugs..."

"It's not the drugs. This is my daughter. I'm begging you. Don't let him touch her."

It was, he felt, the most hurtful thing, to have to hear Lizzy react the way she had when he had entered the makeshift hospital in the old nightclub after having given birth to her daughter. She hadn't wanted him to go near her, let alone see or touch her child, and it had caused her great distress with his mere presence in the room. It had been as if Lizzy believed he was capable of doing something terrible to her child, as if he were that evil and repugnant.

Red felt his eyes go moist at the memory, the wound at losing Lizzy still so fresh and raw.

He peered down at Agnes, discovering the liquid in the bottle was very nearly all gone. She had drained the bottle dry- and so quickly. When she was simply sucking air from in the bottle, he wiggled the teat out of her mouth, watching her as she stared back up at him contently, blinking at him slowly through thick, dark eyelashes.

"Ah, there we go," he said in happiness at the lovely silence that was shared between the two of them. "You feel better now that you've been fed, don't you, sweetheart?" He felt no embarrassment at all in talking to her, as if she could even begin to understand him. "Forgive me. I should have already known that that were the true reason for your crying."

He wondered what Lizzy would think of them now, if she had come across them like this. A part of him suspected that she would be angry and defensive, that she would demand he pass Agnes over to her at once, that he get away from her. She would fear that he would end up corrupting her, causing her a miserable life filled with constant danger and heartache.

And yet, here they were.

"We'll make Lizzy proud," he said to Agnes, his voice thick, and he meant it with all of his heart. "I will protect you like I should have always protected her. I'll... guide you along, love you as much as I can, and keep you safe, because... you are hers. You are her child."

Hope this one was okay. Pardon any mistakes, English is not my first.