A WARNING
Finally, Jake’s perfect blue eyes closed on his small, chubby face.
It had taken two hours, but the sleep deprivation was well worth it in that moment. So sweet, so innocent, and finally asleep.
Rocking back and forth in the chair, Raelynn peered warily over at the empty cot.
Was it really worth the risk of waking him up and moving from the hard, wooden rocking chair to put him in there?
She warred with that decision until the obnoxious ring of her phone pierced the silence that had taken too long to gain.
Holding her stirring baby boy closer, she lifted herself from the chair, doing a gentle jiggle to gain feeling back in her numbed bottom.
Raelynn shuffled over to her phone that rested on top of the dresser. The light of it filled the room, as the vibration of the call made it move slowly across the wooden surface.
Picking it up, she checked the caller ID.
“Dad?” She answered in a hushed voice. Why was he calling at two thirty in the morning?
“Hey Kiddo,” He started, his voice raspy and strained.
“Is everything okay? It’s two thirty in the morning,” she said, distracted by her son, Jake, who had woken to the sound of her voice, despite how quiet she had tried to be.
He didn't cry, just tugged on a loose curl that had fallen from the brown mop on her head.
“Something is going on, Kiddo. I know this is abrupt, but you can’t trust anyone, not that scumbag you call a husband, José, no one. Something’s going to happen. It’s big," he rambled.
She should have known it was some new conspiracy hole he had fallen down. "What's big? What's happening?" She asked, knowing better than to shut him down before he had gotten to the point.
"They're working on it at a lab. A drug. Kind of. It’s about to go live, but it's not what they think- it's some kind of virus that is going to kill everyone. Our race can’t survive what has been created. You need to come home to Iowa now, so I can protect you.”
Rae rolled her eyes at his panicked words, which hinted at yet another conspiracy theory of his.
“You need to slow down. Have you been drinking again? You know I can’t leave. José wouldn’t dare let me go. It’s hard enough to even be let out of the house, let alone back home to Iowa. It’s a four-hour flight away from him, Dad,” she said, repositioning Jake.
“No, Raelynn, your husband’s in the middle of it, and it’s bigger than your shambles of a marriage. Sneak away in the night, he can’t know you’re gone. You have to trust me,” her father continued, and although over the years she had tried to indulge her father’s ramblings, this time she wasn’t in the mood.
She placed Jake down in his cot and began subconsciously pacing the room, a trait that had always annoyed her father, yet had always been her reaction to speaking to him.
“I know you don’t like José, but I didn’t get much of a choice thanks to your gambling debts. We can’t take this back now. Go to bed, Dad, and I’ll call you in the morning when you’re sober, so your words make more sense,” Rae said, leaning over the cot and rubbing Jake’s stomach gently.
“No, this time I mean it, Rae. You have to trust me, this virus is-”
“No, Dad, if I can’t trust José, then why should I trust you? The last time I made that mistake, you married me off to the highest bidder, and now you want me to leave? It’s too late for that. The damage is done.”
She cut off her dad’s plea and looked into the blue eyes of her son, which mirrored her own.
Raelynn knew she couldn’t just leave and risk José hunting her and Jake down.
She finished the conversation and hung up the phone, throwing the device onto the rocking chair.
She leaned over to pick Jake up, focusing her attention on him, trying to forget her father’s words despite the pit in her stomach urging her to heed them.
She put her phone in her pocket, then sat back in the chair, rocking gently in an attempt to get Jakey back to sleep.
“That, my Son, is why you haven’t met your grandfather,” she whispered to him, then leaned her head back and looked up at the glow of the stars on the ceiling.
“Drunk again, surprise surprise,” Raelynn muttered.
