Chapter 9

                                    

                                          
Onika's POV
I have been looking after Yara for the past few weeks. She has been experiencing severe night terrors and has been sleeping in my bed with me. I have been trying to talk to her about them, but I don't think she's ready for that conversation. 
She has recently returned to school, which is a positive step. Mama Tina has been a great help in keeping everything under control with Yara, as I don't have legal guardianship or custody of her. 
Today, we are going to the mall to buy her some clothes so she doesn't have to wear Giselle's things anymore. I'm also getting her a phone so she doesn't have to feel embarrassed about using my phone to talk to Giselle. She doesn't know about these plans, and I want to surprise her.
I go into my guest room checking to make sure she is okay. "you ready sweetie?" she nods her head. "How was school today?" I ask. "It was okay," she spoke in a low voice. "You sure everything is okay?" she nods again. "Okay, you know if something is wrong you can tell me," I say.
Yara smiles lowly.
I began walking out, but she stopped me with a hug. "Thank you." I smile.
We get into the car heading to the mall. She realizes where we're at once we pull up. I see her face light up. "I'm taking you shopping today," I say while pulling into the spot. Seeing the excitement beam through her made me happy.
In the mall, the first store we walked into was 'Forever 21'. I feel like this store is age-appropriate for a twelve-year-old, plus they have many different options for people with different style choices.
I see her looking at things but not picking up anything, she seems very timid. "Yara, pick out some things you like you don't have to be afraid." I assure her. "okay" she starts looking through the clothes on the racks. It seemed like this store wasn't her speed but she did get a couple of casual shirts out of there.
We walked around a bit more to a couple of different stores, her favorite so far has to be 'Zumiez' she got a whole bunch of things out of there, I can tell her style is very skater-esk. I even saw her admiring the skateboards so while she looked around, I got the cashier to ship the one I saw her pay attention to most, to my home. I also added a helmet, wrist guards, elbow and knee pads.
Out of 'Journeys' we got her a couple of pairs of different shoes.
Then our last clothing store 'Spencers'. I walked behind her making sure she didn't head too far into the store. She got a couple of silly hats and some hoodies. I can tell doing this made her day. 
It was now time for her final surprise.
Instead of just following behind me she held my hand. She's been doing this the whole day except for when she looked through the clothes. I believe this is her way of feeling safe like no one can take her from me.
We walked into the Apple store and she looked at me with so much confusion. I didn't say anything I just waited until we got assistance. "Hello, I put in an order online. My name is Tanya" I never give out my real name, it's to federal. "Hello, yes we do have your order. Let me just go grab that for you." The Apple assistant came back with an apple bag with my name label on it. "Here you go, we also made sure to put those Apple AirTags in there as well." The woman spoke. "Okay, thank you so much." she hands me over the bag. But, I hand it over to Yara.
"This is for you sweetie." her eyes start to water. I give her the biggest hug. "Don't cry" I wipe her tears. "Thank you Nicki." she hugs me tighter than before. I kissed her forehead "Anytime sweetie."
Immediately once we got home I set up her phone, placing mine, Giselle's, and Beyonce's number in her contacts.
I put an AirTag in her book bag, and I also put one in her shoe. I set up 'Find My' on her phone to just know where she's at, at all times. It's not that I don't trust her, I don't trust that family of hers.