Chapter 36 His promise

Chapter 36 His promise
Flashback to Twelve Years Ago:

“Mum, stand up! We have to hurry, they're coming!” A little boy's worried voice pierced through the dark cupboard, and his mother nodded her head in acknowledgement. Her head was bowed, because she didn't want her son to see the blood oozing out of the cut on her face. There were a lot of bruises on her body, and she was too tired to walk.

“You have to go, Lucian. Be a good boy and go. I'd be at your back, quietly following you,” the mother stammered, her face twisting in pain. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, but refused to ask for help.

“I wouldn't leave you. I've said it before, and I'm saying it again,” Little Lucian replied stubbornly, and she sighed.

Lucian noticed his mother's quietness. She wasn't making jokes or talking like she used to, she was too quiet, and her head was lowered.

“Mom, are you alright? Do you need my help?” Lucian asked with a concerned gaze, but his mother shook her head. 

“I didn't need your help, Lucian. I'm fine,” she replied with a smile. Little Lucian looked at his mom in disbelief. She didn't look fine, and she was clearly shivering, but being the obedient son he was, he kept quiet. They were both hiding inside a wardrobe, because his stepmother had vowed to kill his mother for sleeping with her husband and bearing a male son.

Minutes turned to hours, and when his mother was sure that the outside was safe, they both came out of hiding and took to their heels. It was midnight, and the area was quiet with no passersby. 

Running was a bit difficult for his mom, so she called his father to ask for assistance. Unfortunately, she was turned down, and just when he thought that things couldn't get any worse. A car appeared out of nowhere and hit his mother, pushing her out of the road, down a bushy hill. Before she fell, his mother pushed him to the ground. That way the killer would think he was dead.

The killer came down from their car to check if his mother was still alive. Although it was dark to see, Lucian looked closely and discovered that it was no other than his stepmother.

His mother lay lifeless on the floor, and his stepmother spat on her. Little Lucian knew he had to do something and secure justice for his mother, so he ran away, afraid that his stepmother would also kill him and his mother would forever haunt him.

He kept running for what felt like hours till he reached a small town. He was very young and couldn't book a hotel. Tried and desperate, he turned to a bar hotel, and that's how he met her, little Sonia.

Lucian stumbled into the bar, barefoot and trembling. His clothes were torn, his knees scraped, and his eyes swollen from tears he refused to shed. The neon lights of the Red Moon Bar flickered weakly above him, washing his small frame in a ghostly red glow. Inside, the air reeked of beer, sweat, and cigarette smoke.

It was too loud. Men laughed, glasses clinked, and somewhere a jukebox crooned a sad old song. But none of that mattered to him, the only thing he could see was the faint shape of a little girl crouched behind the counter, her arms wrapped around her knees.

She couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve. Her face was streaked with tears, and a bruise marked the edge of her chin. A woman, perhaps her mother, argued with a man across the bar, they seemed to be talking about price. And the little girl's voice trembled as she begged them to stop. The man, red-eyed and angry, hurled a bottle at the counter. It shattered, scattering glass near the little girl’s legs. She didn’t scream; she just covered her ears and shivered. The woman didn't look concerned and she kept on arguing with the man.

Lucian froze. For a moment, time felt like it had folded over itself, the fear, the helplessness, the violence, it was all too familiar.

“Leave her alone!”

The words left his mouth before he could stop them.

Heads turned. The man, tall, drunk, and furious, glared at the boy. “What did you say, brat?”

Lucian’s heart pounded so hard it hurt, but he took a step forward anyway. “I said leave her alone!”

The man laughed, a cruel, raspy sound. “You got a death wish?” He grabbed Lucian by the collar, lifting him off the floor.

The boy didn’t fight back. He looked the man in the eyes, eyes that reminded him too much of his father’s, and said in a quiet, shaking voice, “You already look dead to me.”

The man froze for a moment, thrown off by the coldness in the child’s tone. Then, before he could react, a woman’s voice cut through the tension.

“Put him down!”

It was the bar owner, a heavy-set woman with tired eyes. She stormed out of the kitchen, holding a broom like a weapon. “You touch one more child in my bar, I’ll call the police!”

The man grumbled something under his breath and stumbled toward the exit, muttering curses. When the door slammed behind him, silence filled the room again.

Lucian fell to the floor, catching his breath. The bar owner kneeled beside him, inspecting his bruised arms. “Where’s your family, boy?”

He shook his head. “Gone.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Lucian.”

The woman looked suspicious, and she turned to another little girl who was hiding inside her office. She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Well, Lucian, you’re safe now.”

He didn’t answer. His gaze had already shifted to the little girl, the one still huddled behind the counter. Their eyes met, hers brown and wide, his gray and haunted.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

The girl blinked, then nodded. “My name’s Sonia.”

And that was how it began, two broken children in a bar that smelled of rain and rust, each finding in the other a fragile piece of home.

That night, the bar owner let them both sleep in the storeroom, curled up under a single threadbare blanket. Lucian stayed awake, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to Sonia’s soft breathing beside him. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but he made a silent promise, the first of many:

No one would ever hurt her again.