Chapter 4 - NIGHT TERRORS AND SILENT GUARDS
The sun dipped below the horizon, casting long, bruised shadows across the Morumbi skyline. Inside the Morumbi mansion, the night brought a different kind of terror.
Around 2:00 AM, a blood-curdling scream tore through the second-floor hallway.
"Mom! MOM! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
It was Julia, nine years old, waking up in the throes of a severe panic attack. Within seconds, bedroom doors flew open. Mariana rushed out of her room like a general reacting to an air raid, while Ricardo bolted down the hall from his master suite, his face pale with panic, reaching for Julia's doorknob.
Before Ricardo could turn the handle, someone slipped past him with swift, quiet precision.
It was Luía. She had been finishing up the laundry in the basement utility room when the scream hit, and she had moved faster than anyone else in the house.
Luía pushed the door open and flicked on the soft bedside lamp. Julia was thrashing in bed, hyperventilating, her eyes wide and unseeing, screaming her mother's name over and over while tearing at her own bedsheets.
"Julia! Julia, look at me!" Luía commanded, her voice firm, clear, and steady, cutting through the panic like a beacon through fog.
Ricardo lunged into the room, reaching for his daughter. "Julia, baby, Daddy's here—"
"Mr. Mendonza, stop. Don't crowd her," Luía intercepted him smoothly, placing a firm hand on his chest, stopping the billionaire dead in his tracks. "If you panic, she panics harder. Step back."
Ricardo stared at Luía, horrified and desperate, but something in her dark, unwavering eyes compelled him to obey. He took two steps back, his hands shaking.
Luía climbed right onto the edge of the mattress, not hesitating for a second. She didn't try to hold Julia down; instead, she mirrored the little girl's erratic breathing rhythm.
"In, two, three... out, two, three," Luía chanted softly, taking exaggerated deep breaths. "Match my breathing, Julia. Look at my hands. I am right here. You are in your bed. You are safe."
Julia’s frantic gaze slowly locked onto Luía’s face. The wild terror in the child's eyes began to recede, replaced by a desperate, gasping focus. She reached out blindly, and Luía immediately caught her small hands, pressing them firmly against Luía’s own chest so Julia could feel the steady, rhythmic beating of her heart.
"Breathe with me," Luía whispered. "In... and out."
For five agonizing minutes, the bedroom was filled only with the sound of synchronized breathing. Slowly, Julia’s trembling subsided. Her eyelids drooped, her breathing deepened, and finally, exhausted by the sheer adrenaline spike, she slumped back against the pillows, fast asleep.
Luía wiped the sweat from Julia’s forehead, smoothing her hair back gently.
When she turned around, Ricardo was standing in the doorway, staring at her as if she had performed an impossible miracle. Behind him stood Mariana, Laura, and the twins, all watching in stunned silence.
"How..." Ricardo whispered, his voice cracking with emotion. "How did you do that? The doctors gave us sedatives that didn't work half as fast."
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"Panic isn't a medical emergency here, Mr. Mendonza," Luía said quietly, stepping off the bed and walking past him into the hallway. "It's an orphan's nightmare. She doesn't need pills. She needs to know she won't wake up to an empty house."
As Luía walked back down the stairs to finish her laundry, Mariana watched her go, the fierce hostility in the twelve-year-old's eyes wavering just a fraction.
