Chapter 5 - The First Recording
Gideon found the old phone during his break at the hospital.
It was wrapped in one of Lumi’s socks.
No charger.
No note.
Only a cracked black screen and a memory card taped to the back.
He borrowed a cable from the nurses’ station.
The phone turned on.
There were no contacts.
No photos.
No games.
Only audio files.
Most were a few seconds long.
Furniture moving.
A door closing.
Lumi crying.
Maris’s voice.
“Stop making that face.”
Another file.
“You know what happened the last time someone embarrassed me.”
Another.
“Gideon will leave when he knows what you are.”
Gideon’s hands began to shake.
Then a longer recording played.
Lumi’s voice was barely audible.
“I want Dad.”
Maris answered:
“Your father is dead because he would not listen.”
Gideon stopped the recording.
His pulse thundered.
A coworker asked if he was all right.
He said yes.
He was not.
He copied the files to a secure hospital drive, then returned the phone exactly as he found it.
That evening, he placed it inside Lumi’s backpack.
He did not confront Maris.
Not yet.
He needed to protect Lumi without provoking retaliation.
He contacted a child-advocacy social worker he trusted.
Her name was Dana Brooks.
“Do not let Maris know you have the recordings,” Dana warned. “Document what you can. If the child is in immediate danger, call police.”
“What about the medicine?”
“Get the bottle safely if possible. Don’t test it yourself.”
“What if Lumi denies everything?”
“She may.”
“Why?”
“Because children often protect the person hurting them. Fear can sound like loyalty.”
Gideon thought about every time Lumi had cried with him.
“She was not afraid of being alone with me,” he said slowly.
Dana waited.
“She was afraid of what Maris would do after.”
The realization hollowed him out.
Lumi cried because being comfortable with Gideon was forbidden.
Because laughing with him might be reported.
Because trusting him might trigger punishment.
When Gideon arrived home, Lumi sat on the sofa beside Maris.
Maris stroked her hair.
“Did you have a good day with Gideon yesterday?” she asked.
Lumi looked at him.
Then at her mother.
“No.”
Maris smiled.
Gideon understood the answer.
It was not rejection.
May you like
It was survival.
👉 Gideon now had evidence, but Maris sensed that something had changed—and she began searching Lumi’s room for the missing phone.
