Chapter 4

                                                   ~CIARA'S POV~

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

From the days of my childhood, I have never been able to understand what this phrase meant.

Does it mean that it is only a friend who is in trouble that is a real friend or is it something else entirely different? I pondered on this very riddle and I had almost given up on it.

Until now.

Now I know what it means by a friend in need is a friend indeed. What it means to have a friend who is there for you in tough times, What it means to have someone willing to sacrifice everything for you.

What it means to have someone like Ava Miller. That girl is a rare gem and anyone would be lucky to have someone like her.

Just as she had proven to me.

~FLASHBACK~

"I'm pregnant,  Ava."

Mockery. My demons were mocking me,  the words they spoke revolved along the lines of me being a worthless piece of flesh that no one cares about and I tried not to believe them, I did but as I saw Ava's face get paler with each passing minute I couldn't help but believe them.

"Is this a joke, Ciara?"

I lowered my neck and shook my head in shame, the laughter of the monsters inside me intensified and I almost cried from the pain I felt in my heart but the next words Ava said shut them up completely.

"Who is he?"

I raised my head and stared into her beautiful anger-filled eyes.

"I don't understand you, Ava."

She let out a dry chuckle and I couldn't help but get scared about what could happen if it were directed at me.

"Let me rephrase my question, who was the bastard that forced himself on you?"

My mouth was ajar and my eyes grew to the size of saucers as my brain tried to formulate a logical explanation as to why she would say that.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"It was rape, isn't it? I am sorry for not being here for you baby but I promise I will never leave your side again. All I need is his name and I will make him suffer."

I opened my mouth to talk her out of this but before I could get the words out, Ava beat me to it.

"Is it the chief guard? Or the one who has a scar on his lip or is it Charlie?  No wait, Charlie's not into girls. ugh, If Noah had the effort to build the discipline of…wait, is it Noah's?"

I lowered my eyes to the floor and slowly nodded my head and I didn't need to look up to see that the anger swimming in her orbs had intensified.

"I'm going to kill him."

I looked at her with so much speed that my eyes almost fell from their sockets but I couldn't care less about the pain I was feeling now, what was important was stopping the thoughts that ran through her head.

"What?"

"How dare he lay his hands on a woman against her will?"

"Ava, stop."

"If there is something I hate most in this world then it's a man who is too much of a coward to get a girl into his bed the old-fashioned way but don't worry, Ciara. I would purge this world of his existence even if it's the last thing I do."

She turned to leave the cell and my panic got the best of me.

"Wait, Ava."

She halted in her step and turned to me with a white-hot rage still burning in those eyes.

I looked away and lowered my head for the umpteenth time. "It wasn't rape," I whispered to her and prayed that the darkness in my head couldn't hear me.

Her eyes rounded and the anger that once burned in them turned to tenderness and something else that I couldn't understand. She rushed to me and took my frail form into her arms.

"Does he know about the baby?"

I shook my head and the tears I held spilled from my eyes.

"It's okay, Ciara. Everything is going to be fine..."

I cried harder into her embrace and the feeling of having someone to care for me.

"...you aren't alone, Ciara. I will always be here for you."

~END OF FLASHBACK~

It's been a week and not once have I doubted the words she said to me that day.

She brought me food and warmer clothes and even got one of the guards to clean my cell leaving the once vile-smelling confinement with a flowery fragrance, the only stretch was the restraints still fastened on my wrists.

A clean baby starts with a clean mother, were the words she said and she has made it her life mission to see to my every need.

"How is the best mama in the world doing today!?"

I lifted my head with my lips stretched into a smile. She walked towards me with a smile of her own on her lips and a tray in the other.

"I brought something for you."

She sat in front of me and the delicious aroma made my mouth water.

"Do you want some?"

I nodded my head without hesitation and a light chuckle left her lips, she held the spoon and scooped the contents, and fed it to me, my taste buds exploded from how delicious it tasted.

She held up the spoon again and I opened my mouth before she told me to and they exploded again.

As she continued feeding me and I continued eating, she began to speak.

"So I was thinking about baby names and I have a couple you would like."

I nodded my head, urging her to speak when I felt a dull ache in my tummy. It's probably because of how fast I was eating.

"I was thinking if it's a girl then her name would be Evagaline…"

The dull ache became a throbbing pain and I swallowed my saliva to find some relief. There was none.

"...and if it's a boy then his name would be Tobias, get it because It would be…are you okay, Ciara?" 

The pain had gotten more excruciating and tears fell from my eyes. I fell to the floor and curled into a ball.

"It hurts, Ava."

I was met with just silence and I turned to Ava who was standing there, staring at me.

"I know." That was all she could say.

I froze in place and a shiver ran through my spine as I heard the voice of the woman I called my friend.

"Ava, what is…"

"I only waited a week so I can hear the heartbeat of your little bastard when it does from the poison."

Tears fell from my eyes and the pain surging through my body was too much to handle. 

My eyes drooped and my vision blurred, but I could see the look of hatred in her eyes.