She snorted before pursing her lips and leaving the room. The second she was gone, I whipped my phone out, and my stomach sank—it was dead. And I had no charger. My only way of getting a hold of anyone on the outside of this prison was gone. I couldn’t even call Del to see if she could help.
Hopelessness overwhelmed me, but then a contraction came on, so swift and painful that I had to use the bed to keep from collapsing. It reminded me why I couldn’t fold, why I couldn’t live within their boundaries. The only hope I had was that Kai knew the general location of where I was. He would find me. He had to.
After breathing deeply through the contraction that lasted about a minute, I decided a shower was necessary to calm my nerves and get the contractions under control. The bathroom was lined with salmon-colored stone, the white counters offsetting the hideousness of the shade. The stone shower took up a large part of the bathroom, with a clear sliding door. The water was as hot as possible when I got in and curled up on the floor, letting the rain showerhead pour water down on me.
I stayed in there as long as I could, breathing through three more contractions. The fact that they wouldn’t stop, now that I was trying to relax, terrified me. I wasn’t close to my own doctor—I refused to go into labor in this hell—and I was still only twenty-six weeks pregnant. I washed quickly, having yet another contraction in the process. They weren’t extremely painful but were getting to the point that I had to hunch over and concentrate on breathing.
After I dressed in the clothes that almost fit, my belly and the pump peeking out the bottom of the shirt, I did my hair in a braid down my back, loose strands falling in my face that still had a beet red mark across the left cheek. The thought of sleeping in that house made me sick to my stomach, even though I was in desperate need of it. Since that would be impossible, I made my way back downstairs to get some water. At the bottom of the stairs, I stopped right outside the parlor, listening to the murmured voices within.
“We just spoke with your father,” my mother said. “Everything will move forward as planned once the babies are taken care of.”
My breathing hitched. Those words again: “taken care of.” What does that mean to them? To me, it was a threat. They were threatening my children. I would do whatever it took to protect them. I had to do everything I could to get out of there.
Jared’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “With all due respect, ma’am, sir, I won’t go near your daughter with a fifteen-foot pole.”
I almost snorted at that. Thank the heavens I disgusted him so much; at least that part of my goal after leaving was accomplished.
But my father’s reply had me seeing red. “You don’t have to touch her. But you two will be married. Just keep your other endeavors under the radar. You did so….”
I’d had enough. I hurried past the parlor, making a mad dash for the kitchen. I would not marry that man. These people would not go near my babies.
After grabbing a much-needed bottle of water from the kitchen, I hurried out the back glass doors, waddling toward the bench swing that hung from the old oak tree.
It swung in the humid breeze while I lay on my back, staring up at the moss-covered tree. I had no one in this place. Not one ally. And I had no way of getting a hold of Del or Kai. No car, no way to jump the ten-foot fence when the trees were in the way and I was pretty freaking pregnant. Even if I walked out the front gates, they would drag me back kicking and screaming.
The hot breeze kept rocking me as tears ran across my cheeks and into my hair.
18
Chloe
It was stiflingly hot when I jerked awake, but it wasn’t the heat that woke me. A white car was coming down the drive. The sweat coating me wasn’t attractive, but I was grateful for the light skirt I had on.
I left the bench, my hips creaking and aching from falling asleep on the hard surface. The heat told me it was near midday, when it was the hottest and most humid. I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept, but it gave me the energy I needed to get through the rest of the day, and it had gotten my contractions to stop.
The walk up to the house didn’t take me long enough, but I had high, high hopes that Jared had left after that horrible conversation I overheard. Walking through the back doors, I heard muffled voices coming from the front of the house.
The voices moved closer, coming from the hall. I couldn’t even make a run for the stairs, since they would spot me if I did. So I went in the kitchen, scrounging through the cupboards for a container of peanut butter after getting some water from the fridge. My mother and an older woman with round, paunchy cheeks, gray hair in a chignon, and a white lab coat on found me sucking on a spoon of peanut butter.
“This is Chloe,” my mother told the woman, glaring at the jar of peanut butter in my hand.
While I was on the bench, I was able to find that strength within me, the strength that pushed me to leave in the first place. I wouldn’t allow this woman to stifle me ever again, no matter what hell she put me through, I wouldn’t let her snuff my light out. I returned her glare with the best mean-girl smile I could muster, which had her face hardening.
The woman looked me up and down, her eyes bulging when they rested on my stomach. “Can you leave us for a few minutes while we chat?” the woman asked my mother in a quiet tone, who turned a bored but haughty look in her direction.
“You have five minutes. Then we talk,” my mother commanded the doctor before leaving the kitchen.
She would likely be listening from the sitting room, but I couldn’t care less what she heard. The woman approached me slowly with pursed lips. She was looking at me as if I were a ferocious lioness, readying to pounce, which had me both wanting to laugh and feeling stronger. “I’m Dr. Francis. Can we talk for a few minutes?” she asked, her tone even quieter now. My mother had picked the wrong woman for this job. She wouldn’t accomplish her goals through this person.
“Isn’t that what you just told my mother we would be doing?” I deadpanned.
“Well, yes,” she said as she took a step closer to me. With a deep line between her eyebrows, she stared at my belly again. “Do you know why I’m here, Chloe?” she whispered as if she knew my mother was listening in.
With a raised brow, I said in a loud tone, “I have a pretty good idea. But you’re going to have to be the one to tell my mother she will not be able to accomplish what she’s trying to.”
Her lips became a thin line, confirming my absolute worst fear. I’d only guessed at it, not wanting to believe my parents were really that awful, but they were. They were monsters. “How far along are you?” she asked.
“About twenty-six weeks… with twins.” She nodded. “And I’m on a Zofran pump due to HG. They took me here against my will, so I was forced to leave behind my insertion kits and medicine.”
Her eyes were huge now, staring at the pump I had clipped to my skirt. It needed changing. It was almost out of medicine. When it was gone, I would no longer be able to fight the nausea that was always there. They’d already tried weaning me off it twice, and it was a no-go. I had the sinking feeling I’d be wearing the thing for the rest of my pregnancy. On top of the pump, they also had me start testing my pee to make sure I wasn’t becoming too dehydrated. I had none of my stuff with me. That more than anything else made me furious with my parents, with Jared for not letting me at least get some things before he dragged me home.