It was after midnight when Reggie pulled up in front of Jade’s house. Ben insisted on double and triple checking every room, nook, and cranny before Jade locked herself in for the night. Some of her friends in Glennallen kept their doors unlocked, but even with its relatively low crime rate compared to places like Anchorage, Jade had always been careful and protective of her home, her belongings, and most of all her daughter.
Ben wasn’t working tonight, but he said another trooper he knew would park outside her house and keep watch.
Dez had fallen asleep in the back of the van, and Jade was relieved that tonight she could tuck her daughter into her own bed. She just wished she could find that kind of rest herself. Even with a squad car in her driveway, Jade jumped at every noise, convinced that Sapphire had returned to finish what she’d started. Jade wouldn’t admit it, but she was thankful when Ben called to check up on her. At one point, she even thought of erecting a barricade against the front door. When she wasn’t freaking out over every single stray sound, she was terrified that Dez was sick, that her core temperature had dropped, or that the medicine dumped into her IV had caused her heart to fail.
Between investigating every noise and running into Dez’s room to make sure she was still alive, Jade didn’t get any more than three or four hours of sleep total. Eventually she gave up on her own bed, and she crawled on the mattress beside her daughter, snuggling her tight while she stared at Dez and worried. Worried that Sapphire was going to try to kidnap her again. Maybe even kill her. Worried that the events of the past two days would scar her, change her, transform the bright, fun, sassy little girl into a timid, frightened creature.
Worried that she still didn’t have Christmas presents or money to buy any.
Years earlier, Jade had memorized verses about casting her cares on the Lord, trusting him to provide for all her needs, relying on him, and no longer living as a slave to fear. But as the endless midnight wore on, as her body kept reacting in terror to every single sound, every perceived change in her daughter’s breathing, nothing she remembered helped.
A picture of Ben floated through her mind, an image of him smiling and joking with her daughter. For a moment she experienced the peace and happiness she’d felt earlier when she was with him. Then the feelings vanished, and she was alone again in a dark, eerie room, with only her fears and her trauma there to comfort her.