CHAPTER SONG: "I Was Wrong" by Sleeperstar
April 1st, 2020
London, England
Today she knew fate was playing a cruel joke on her...
Emmanuelle Hunterson sat cross-legged on the hard mattress on her hotel bed, barely fitting for two people, clad in her two piece pajama set, her wet brunette hair strung around her shoulders, small droplets of water dripping from her head towel.
Her phone vibrated in her hand, the miniature screen alight with a different number she wouldn't have recognized had the circumstances been different, but the nauseous sensation in her stomach implied otherwise.
The white words highlighted at the top of the phone screen assaulted her retinas as she blinked away the irritation of her sight, holding back a hiss of anger.
The audacity this man had to keep trying to reach out to her...
And the fact that he kept using different unlisted numbers, thinking she wouldn't recognize his multiple attempts to track her down.
The vibration of her phone continued as her thumb hovered over the green phone icon on the screen, inching down until the she finally touched it and answered the call, placing her end on speaker...
The sound of static filled the room amidst the background of horns and sirens of London's never-ending chaos that tempted her to abandon the sanctuary of her lonely room...achingly reminding her of home...
She waited, her heart pounding with fear as she contemplated hanging up the call...
Then, his gravelly voice, his tone drenched with alcohol and fevered from the aftermath of a possible fix of whatever narcotic he possessed as a lifetime substitute to healthy human companionship.
"You know that restraining order expired ten years ago now? And you can't rely on your selfish bitch of a mother to protect you."
Emmy stayed silent, holding her breath as she bit back the words crawling up her throat, slithering onto her tongue like bile...
Every curse word imaginable she wanted to scream at him...everything horrid she wanted to happen to him crossed her mind to tell him...
Her father was on the other side of the world as far as she knew, not that she had bothered to really check on where he was until recently...
Until he became the reason she had deleted all of her profile pages on social media, not that she had been involved in much beyond Facebook and the Richmond Library official website...
The sound of his mocking voice pulled her out of her contemplation, making her focus on the present.
"Did you really believe taking your mom's maiden name would really keep me from contacting you eventually?" He continued to push her on, goading her to react and it brought back to her memories she had battled to repress, even though they had all been only from her early childhood. "Over ten years, you've been too selfish to check in on your poor suffering dad."
Emmy clutched the phone in her trembling hand, tempted to throw it across the room if only it'd make him cease injecting this poison into her...
She could feel his large hand latching onto her small wrist as though she were a small defenseless child again, her feet dragging across the floor as she cried out, knowing her pleas would go unheeded and the pain would come...
NO!
That was in the past and she was no longer a scared little girl...and no longer this man's daughter as far as her own independence as a person was concerned.
"You got something to say for yourself, my sweet little Emmy?" He asked her in a sickeningly saturated tone, only serving to fuel her anger as she gathered up her strength to speak.
She inhaled a deep breath and braced herself for what she would say to him... hoping to God above that this would finally sever the ties to the man on the other end of the line.
"Ever since Mom told me everything about what you did, I've thought long and hard about what I've wanted to say to you. And you'll let me say what I need to and you won't interrupt me." She challenged him to respond to her command of order.
And he responded just as she expected him to...
"What could you possibly have to say to me, kid? You're weak and always will be weak just like your mother. Weak, useless and nothing but a burden to the people around you. Forget about me and your mama struggling to raise you as a little girl. Not even the best of men in the world will even look in your direction now that you've grown up..."
"SHUT UP! You shut the hell up, you bastard!" She yelled into the phone, her voice growing in strength. "You are not my father because a real father would never do to his child what you've done to me! You chose alcohol over taking care of me and you will never have the privilege of experiencing what fathers share with their daughters! If I fall in love with someone, you'll never be the person he asks permission for to marry me! You will never walk me down the aisle to him on my wedding day and you will never meet any children we might have!"
"You entitled brat! Just wait until I get my hands on you! I'll find you eventually, Emmanuelle Julia Hunterson!" He threatened her, acidic rage soaking each syllable of her full legal name...
"You're a drinker and a coward! There's nothing you can do to me anymore. I know I'm not perfect and Mom isn't perfect either. But I'm not that scared little girl anymore, and that means you're gonna listen to me or else I'll make you regret your finding how to contact me. It is my right as an adult to keep toxic people at a distance for my own personal health." Her voice lowered into a calmer pitch as her own anger ebbed.
The silence on the other end was communicating to her that she'd finally overwhelmed him with her words. And she continued to talk again...
"You will never contact me again in any form. By phone, letter, email, it doesn't matter. I never want to hear from you again. You will stay out of my life and this phone call will be the last time we ever speak to each other. If you ever contact me again after today, I'll go to the police and ensure that you're behind bars for a long time with this phone call as recorded evidence of you threatening me. Do you understand, Robert Barnes?"
She called him by his name, a name she was no longer tied to herself regardless of biological paternity...
A full ten seconds of static passed on the other end before he responded.
"And will you give me if I leave you alone?" He asked, in a somewhat quieter tone.
Emmy gulped before mustering up more words to say.
"You get a chance to start anew with your life and my reluctant forgiveness. If you possess any hint of human decency, you will never try to enter my life again." She finished her bargain with him, gulping down the dryness in her throat. "Do you accept my terms?"
A cold shiver crawled up her spine as she anticipated his response. Would he continue to threaten her, mock her with the demons of her past and the power he'd held over her with a volatile father-daughter power complex?
Crackling static emerged from the speaker, his voice low with a rumbling humility. "You're right, Emmanuelle. I may not have been a good father to you, but it was wrong of me to do what I did. I won't bother you anymore and I hope you find happiness in your life."
She exhaled a sigh of relief at his words, exactly what she'd needed to hear for all her life. Tears came to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as she spoke again.
"Thank you for saying that. I'll hold you to your word and this conversation never happened." Her voice cracked with a higher pitch with her emotions.
"Goodbye, Emmy." The man half responsible for her conception ended his side of the conversation with those two words, giving her the strength to conclude the call.
"Yeah...you take care of yourself." She stumbled over her words, not even speaking his name before she pressed the red icon on the screen to hang up, not wanting to hear another word from him.
Nothing but her shaking breath and the faint roar of nighttime London traffic flowed through her ears. She flopped down backwards onto the bed, landing her head on the crisp wrinkled pillowcase, holding her phone up in her hands as she scanned through her call history.
As though on autopilot, she deleted all of the different numbers he had called her from, possibly from different people he knew or numbers from public places. She arrived at the unknown number he had just called her from and exhaled a breath she hadn't known she was holding before deleting it and making him disappear forever from her life.
She had been bluffing when she'd said their call had been recorded. She just wanted for one moment to have the upper hand against him, and a gratified smile came to her face...
Unbeknownst to her, the spirit of a youthful soldier Lance Corp. Tom Blake watched the young woman exude such strength with her words rather than brute force.
He had seen everything in her future that could happen... she was on the pathway to her true destiny.
The only question he had was how would she come to be the bride in that picture within the war museum?
All he knew was her fate was forever entwined with his and that of his brother Joseph and steadfast comrade William Schofield.
.
.
April 8th, 1917
Flanders, France
The life-changing memory faded away into a calm darkness as Emmy's mind floated in between sleep and awareness and the nerves in her body awakened.
She slowly broke through the surface of consciousness, and she knew immediately that she was no longer in the truck, its engine rumble absent from rattling within her brain.
Her body lay horizontal on a comfortable surface, covered with a thick blanket up to her shoulders and she could feel that she was in a fabric she hadn't worn before, presumably a hospital gown...
A sudden headache assaulted the forefront of her skull and she emitted a groan as her heavy eyelids opened to a luminous white ceiling.
At last, her mind processed her complete surroundings as she recollected where she was...and she was to her surprise more relieved than frightened to still be one hundred years in the past like she would have been two days ago...
She had made it to the hospital...
"Joseph?" Her voice croaked out the name of her accompanying lieutenant, and she turned her head to seek him out or any other face she recognized. She looked around again at her surroundings and saw that her bed was flanked between two white curtains.
Strange shadows moved around her behind the curtains and the mixture of both men and women's voices floated in her ears, and she felt immense comfort that she was no longer the only woman around for miles.
Before she call out again for someone to see that she was awake, she heard the click of heels and the stomping of boots coming toward her direction, along with male and female voices speaking to one another.
One of them she recognized as Joseph Blake, and she internally thanked whoever was watching out for her that he had stayed until she had awakened.
"Lieutenant, do you not think it strange that you've no idea where this girl has come from?" Emmy could hear a British female voice kindly ask who she suspected was Joseph. She picked up immediately that the nurse's pitch changed from skepticism to slight admiration. "However, I could see in your eyes when you arrived with her that she means a great deal to you."
"Nurse Tallis, I have not known this woman long, but she's endured too much out there like so many people have these last three years..." Lt. Blake paused as his voice became choked up with the double meaning of his words before he cleared his throat to speak again. "What I may or may not feel for her is irrelevant. What matters is that she'll be able to heal and will be safe here."
Emmy could hear them coming closer to where her hospital bed had been situated and she closed her eyes, leaning her head on the pillow.
She struggled to steady her breathing and she could sense without hearing him speak again that Lt. Blake was nearby, his boots stepping up to her bedside along with the gentle click of the nurse's heeled shoes. The young brunette woman feigned still sleeping and she could feel both persons standing by her bedside.
In any other situation had this been in her present day era, this would have been off-putting and somewhat sinister, having somebody she knew for only a few days watch her sleeping and talking about her as though she wasn't even present.
But so much had changed since she had been thrust into the year of 1917, adding to the fact that she had fallen asleep in the arms of another man she entrusted to protect her...
Her heart ached as she thought of Will Schofield. Was he alright? How would she be able to contact him so he'd know she made it to the hospital safely?
Emmy moved her head on the pillow as though she were waking up, hoping neither of them picked up on her faking to be asleep.
"Miss Hunterson, can you hear me, dear? You're in the hospital with Lt. Joseph Blake." The nurse Tallis gently coaxed her to open her eyes and Emmy obeyed.
Joseph sat in a wooden chair by the wall a few feet away, faintly reminding her of Schofield keeping vigil in their tent of private yet faithful intimacy in the Second Devons encampment. His deep blue eyes were shaded with exhaustion, and Emmy wanted to ask if he'd slept or eaten anything since arriving to their destination.
Emmy saw his eyes flit between her face and that of the nurse as the older woman came closer to help her sit up on the bed and the questions came anyway. "Where...where am I? Who are you?"
"It's alright, Emmy. This is Nurse Tallis." Joseph spoke, his voice tired but still attempting to keep an optimistic tone for her sake. "She helped patch you up when we got here."
"What...what time is it now?" Emmanuelle asked, her head still pounding into a duller throb.
"It's around 3:00 in the afternoon. You fell asleep in the truck and wouldn't wake up when we got here. I was worried; you should've seen Captain Smith's face when he thought you fell into a coma." He sounded as though he were trying to joke about a serious situation.
"We have your leg in a fresh bandage and wrapped your ribs, the ones that have been cracked." Nurse Tallis, who Emmy could now see at a closer vantage, leaned closer to her patient and gently felt her forehead. The younger girl could glimpse her distorted reflection in the nurse's spectacles, and she knew it wasn't a pretty image.
Her face was splotched with sleep deprivation bruises and slight acne emerging from her pores. However many times her Schofield and even Lt. Blake had referred to her as attractive, she had never felt uglier in that moment.
But her appearance had to be cast aside so she could focus on the present situation.
The pain in both her sides made her aware of the bandages encasing her abdomen. She prayed she would heal in time for Schofield to take her away from here...
"You don't have a fever anymore, which is fortunate. It seems like you'll need to stay on bed-rest until you heal enough to walk without aid." Nurse Tallis informed her in a clipped cadence, but her tone remained kind despite her strict demeanor.
"How long will that be?" She asked as the nurse adjusted some wrinkles out of her woolen blanket.
"The doctor's estimate will be around ten days to two weeks." Nurse Tallis informed her as she stood up straight. "Here in a bit, we'll bring you something to eat."
"But, won't my treatment here need to be paid for? I don't have any money." Emmy asked the question before she could stop herself. Reality was finally coming to the forefront of her mind that she had no funds and no prospects in an era she wasn't born into.
The nurse didn't seemed too concerned with that question as she walked away to help clear some other duties.
"That's already been arranged, Emmanuelle." Lt. Blake spoke up to calm the worried girl. "Capt. Smith and I agreed to split part of our army pay for your medical bill."
"Joseph, I can't ask you to do that. You've done enough by risking yourself for me." Against her better judgment, she went to pull herself free of the blanket and slowly swung her legs off the bed to where they were dangling down towards the floor, not caring that Lt. Blake seeing her bare limbs could be scandalous from his perspective.
"Emmanuelle, don't you dare. I promised your Schofield that I'd keep you from getting hurt any further." He stepped forward as she placed her feet on the cold hardwood floor and stood as upright as possible on her feet.
Despite her trying to balance, she began to stumble forward until he took ahold of her by the shoulders to keep her steady.
The gesture was nothing shocking to her, considering how he had her in a more compromising position when he'd carried her in his arms back at the camp and in front of William, nonetheless. And bless her Lance Corporal's heart and soul, he had shown no sign of alpha male possessiveness like any man beneath him would when he'd witnessed Lt. Blake helping her in such a manner.
Her breathing caught in her throat as she found herself looking into Joseph's eyes. His pupils were dilated to where she could see her reflection within them, indicating his unbreakable focus on her. She slowly raised her hands and pulled his gentle grip off of her shoulders, feeling the calluses in his palms. Her fingers lowered down to his wrists, feeling for his racing pulse.
She could see the basic signals he was displaying of attraction, and she was afraid to know how deep it was.
Her own heart was beating against her will and before she could think to step back, Joseph leaned down, his head leveling to her own height.
He was aiming to kiss her...
She came to her senses and inhaled a breath, turning her head away to where his lips were mere centimeters from her cheek.
"Joseph..." She whispered his name, feeling shame and a pathetic betrayal as she thought again of Schofield.
Lt. Blake leaned back away slightly, but only served to tower over her shorter frame. "I'm sorry, Miss Hunterson. I...I don't know what happened there. Please forgive me."
Emmanuelle shook her head, keeping her eyes downcast to the floor to avoid his sorrowful stare. "You know exactly what you just did. I know enough about men when they express what they want."
She kept her voice at a low murmur to keep their conversation quiet.
"It's not like that. I tremendously respect Corporal Schofield and I... respect you as well. What I just tried to do was wrong and I want you to know that you don't owe me anything at all." His voice was soft, similar to how he had been when they first met back at the medical tent at his battalion's camp.
"If you know it's wrong, then why did you do it, Lieutenant Blake?" She asked, her voice rising in volume while not being for other people to hear.
She didn't miss the lost-little-boy glaze in his eyes when she referred to him by his rank rather than by his given Christian name. The raven-haired soldier never broke eye contact with her, allowing Emmy to perceive the dishonorable desire displayed in his still dilated pupils.
Even his voice had lowered into a raspy purr, gruff with the holdback of undeniable covetousness.
"If I gave you a truthful answer Emmanuelle, then I wouldn't be keeping my promises to the two people who were with my brother in his last moments."