by A. M. Wilson
I look at the man who was supposed to be my forever, and my heart breaks anew at the blank stare he gives me. He doesn’t even regret what he’s done. If he did, I would see it.
“Stay the hell away from my sister!” Madison demands.
I’m startled by the vehemence in her voice. My sister is usually sweet and quiet. I’ve never heard such hatred come from her before.
His gaze moves from me to Madison. “That won’t be a problem.”
His words break off another piece of my heart.
He moves to go around us, and my stupid mouth opens before I can stop it.
“Why?” I wince at the way my voice sounds.
He pauses, and his shoulders stiffen. At first, I don’t think he’s going to say anything. He keeps his back to us but turns his head so I can only see the side of his face.
“Because it was time to move on to someone else.”
He leaves me standing there with his parting shot and walks into the shop. I’m frozen on the outside, unable to move or breathe, but on the inside, I’m left feeling like I’m sinking into quicksand, and at any moment, it’ll swallow me whole.
“I am so sorry, Dani,” Madison says beside me.
I let her pull me forward into a hug, but my arms hang limply at my sides.
Dead.
That’s exactly what I feel like.
No, that’s not right.
Even death wouldn’t be this painful.
Walking in the door, I look around my barren apartment. It’s much smaller than the one Reece and I were supposed to rent and didn’t come with furniture. With only my portion of the money we saved to get a place, I had to find something else. I only had enough for the deposit for the apartment and utilities and the first month's rent. If it weren’t for my parents, I’d be sleeping on the floor and eating off napkins. As it is, I only have the bare necessities. They wanted to do more or have me take a year off to save money before going to college, but I couldn’t stay in Westbridge a moment longer. I had to get away before I went crazy.
I walk numbly into the kitchen and drop my keys and purse on the counter. Going to the fridge, I pull it open, already knowing I won’t find anything inside. I close it, not really hungry anyway. I haven’t had an appetite in weeks, which suits my budget because I can barely afford to grocery shop. Even so, it’s almost midnight, and the last thing I ate was an apple, and that was this morning.
Knowing I need to put something in my stomach, I grab a sleeve of crackers from the cabinet and take them with me to my bedroom, snagging my phone from my purse on the way. I only have a lawn chair in the living room and no TV yet, so I spend most of my time in the bedroom. My twin-sized mattress is more comfortable than the lawn chair.
My parents have tried to give me more money, but I refuse to let them dip into their retirement fund any more than they already have.
On leaden feet, I walk over to my bed and gingerly sit on the side. The past few days my stomach has been giving me fits. I know it’s not from eating. I’ve lost weight. I’ve always been on the slim side, but my hips and my collarbones are starting to stick out more, and my face looks gaunt.
No matter how much I try to forget about Reece and what he did, I see him every time I close my eyes. I see him in my dreams, and I see him when I’m awake. Everything reminds me of him. I’m in a rut of despair, and I’m struggling to find my way out of it. I know what I’m doing isn’t healthy. I’m withering away to nothing.
It’s been six weeks since I moved to Florida, eight weeks since I’ve seen Reece. Classes started four weeks ago, and I’m already failing most of them. Something has to change.
I’m bending over to untie my shoes when a sharp pain pierces my stomach. I suck in a breath, and it only makes the pain worse. I look down when I feel something warm between my legs, surprised when I see red coating the yellow comforter over my bed.
“What the hell?” I wheeze out when another pain stabs at me.
Black spots dance in my vision, and I slide from the bed to the floor, instinctually knowing I’m about to pass out and I need to be on the floor so I don’t hit my head.
Unconsciously, as I lie there on my side, gripping my stomach from the horrible pain and waiting for the darkness to swallow me whole, I foolishly wonder what Reece is doing.
And if he has any idea what we’re both losing at this very second.
My eyes slide open and move to Reece as the memory of that horrible day fades away. No one knows about the miscarriage, not even my parents or Madison. I don’t know how long I laid on the floor, but I woke up sometime later in a pool of blood. I’m not sure where I found the strength, but I managed to grab my phone from the bed and call 911. The doctors said I was lucky to have survived. In those excruciating moments, knowing I was losing Reece’s and my baby, I wish I hadn’t.
As much as thinking about that time still hurts, I know I need to tell him. With the possibility of us not making it out of here alive, it needs to be now. He was honest about his reasons for hurting me. Now it’s my turn.
I have no idea how to begin. How do you tell the man who was once your entire world before he hurt you beyond measure that you lost their child? I just blurt it out with no couth at all.
“I had a miscarriage after I left for college.” I immediately regret how it comes out.
Reece, who has been lying on his back on the floor with his head on the end of the bed and his arm tossed over his eyes for the past hour, jerks his arm away. His head spins so fast to look at me I wouldn’t be surprised if he woke with a crick in his neck tomorrow.
“What?” he croaks.
Instead of answering, I slowly sit up. Tucking my legs up against my chest, I wrap my arms around them, ignoring the protest of the scabs on my back. I rest my chin on my knees and stare off across the room.
“Dani!” I flinch at the gravel in his tone. “Talk to me. What in the hell did—”
“It was six weeks after I moved to Florida,” I start in a monotone voice. “I didn’t realize I was pregnant at the time, but lying on that floor, scared shitless from the pain and all of the blood, I knew right away what was happening.” I keep my eyes pinned on the wall on the other side of the room as I ask a question I’ve asked myself a million times. “How in the hell does a woman not know they are thirteen weeks pregnant?”
“Jesus, Dani.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Reece climbing onto the mattress. I keep my eyes averted from him, not ready to see the pain I know he’ll feel at hearing this news.
“What happened?” he asks, the hoarseness in his voice telling me what I’m not willing to look at yet.
“I had just gotten home from working a ten-hour shift. With you not there paying half the bills, I had to work more to make up for it. If I wasn’t in school, I was at work. I had been on my feet all day, so I thought the pains in my back were from that. I hadn’t been eating well the past couple of months, so I blamed the stomach pains on not eating anything since that morning.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Boy, was I wrong.”
The warmth of Reece’s body as he hesitantly slides closer to me does nothing to ward off the chill gripping me.
“I passed out when the pain became too much. I woke up sometime later and managed to grab my phone from the bed to call for help. According to the doctors, I almost died from blood loss. Waking up in that hospital with them confirming my fears was the single worst moment in my life. At that point, I didn’t care if I lived. The doctor said it wasn’t anything I had done, that it was more than likely a defect in the placenta that caused the miscarriage. But even so, I’ve always blamed myself. And I’ve blamed you.”
It’s not until then that I force myself to look at Reece. The devastation on his face matches what I’ve felt for years. I thought seeing it would help lessen the pain, knowing that he felt even an inkling of what I felt. But seeing the tears in his eyes, the paleness of his face, the pure loss of something so precious as our child only makes it worse.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ever call me? I would have come right away.”
I’m not surprised at the anger in his tone. I’ve kept this secret from him for twenty years. Despite the pain he caused me when he carelessly threw me away, he had a right to know.
“Because I didn’t want you there if that was the only reason. I couldn’t face you, knowing you were with another woman.”
“But I was never with her,” he protests. “I told you that.”
“Not at the time. You said it was time you moved on, and to me, that was with Coreen.” I let the mask I’ve been wearing for years fall from my face and let him see the destruction he caused. “Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you with her. It was only a kiss that I witnessed, but how was I supposed to know it wouldn’t or hadn’t gone any further? My mind played games with me and conjured up you being with her in every way possible. I was already struggling enough, even before the miscarriage. I didn’t need you there making it worse.”
A tear slips down his cheek, and he doesn’t bother to wipe it away. “I’m so fucking sorry, Dani.”
I shrug and go back to staring across the room. “It was twenty years ago. As painful as it was, it wasn’t meant to be.”
He scoots closer on the bed, moving slowly as if afraid I’ll lash out at him. The thing is, as much as I’ve hated Reece for the past twenty years, the emotion isn’t as strong as it once was. I don’t know if it’s our situation and the forced proximity or if I’m just tired of feeling the hatred. Telling him about our baby was hard, but the intense weight that’s been a constant on my chest isn’t quite so heavy.
“I saw your parents and sister a few months after you left. They never acted strange. I would have expected your dad to try to kick my ass.”
“I never told them. They were already worried about me enough. I didn’t want to add more.”
I look over when Reece doesn’t say anything else for several long moments. He sits on his heels with his hands fisted on his thighs. The hard set of his jaw is in contrast to the agony that’s still resting in his eyes.
A small part of me still doesn’t trust the man, but knowing why he did what he did repairs some of the fractures in my heart. The reasoning behind his actions was shit, but I can almost understand. Watching his brother go through what he did couldn’t have been easy. Even before I left, I knew finding out what happened to Aislin was taking over Niko’s life. He wasn’t the happy teenager he was before she disappeared. I can only imagine it was much worse for Reece to watch it because he lived with him.
“Can I—” Reece cuts himself off and clears his throat. “I really need to hold you right now. Can we…?” He looks down at the bed without finishing his question.
Instead of answering him, I carefully lie down with my front facing him. Relief flashes on his face, and he lets out a shaky breath before he lays down in front of me. He gently slips his arm between my head and the mattress and pulls me closer. Turning my head, I rest it against his chest, closing my eyes when I hear the rhythmic beat of his heart. His other arm lays over my waist, careful not to disturb the marks on my back.
“There’s no way to tell you how sorry I am, Dani. Letting you go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Before and since. If I could go back and do things differently, I would in a heartbeat. Not because we lost our baby, but because no matter how much I tried to prevent myself from being hurt if I lost you somehow, it was wasted. For years, every time I fell asleep, your face that day was the last thing I saw, and it was the first thing I saw when I woke in the morning. It still haunts me. Losing you in some other way couldn’t have hurt any worse.”
Silent tears slide down my cheeks at all the time we missed. We still would have lost our baby, but we would have had each other. We could have mourned our loss together.
As I lie there wrapped in Reece's familiar arms, I wait for the instinct to pull away, but oddly, it doesn't come. I snuggle deeper into his warmth, and for the first time in a long time, especially given where we are and what we're facing, I feel safe and content.
21
Reece
I wake sometime later. It could be the next day, or it could be only an hour after I wrapped Dani in my arms and held her tight against my chest. I don’t dwell as I extract myself from her warmth and move across the room again.
I never thought being kidnapped and held captive with Dani would force us to come clean about our issues, but we’ve solved more in the time we’ve been here than we have in the past two decades. I don’t yet know how I feel about that. About the skeletons set free from the closets we’ve kept them in. Not knowing how she feels either is the reason I give us space and move across the room.
I force my thoughts away from the fact we could have had a fully grown adult by now if she hadn’t miscarried our baby as I slide my back down the wall separating the two rooms. I don’t want to linger on the things we could or couldn’t change, and the fact that none of it may matter if we can’t get out of here.
Glancing around the room again, I feel a bone-deep chill as I recall Bolt telling us about Aislin. Knowing my sister-in-law shared this space brings little comfort. Nobody found her for fifteen years, and I know I don’t have it in me to survive that long.
As my thoughts flit from that dark one, my gaze lands on Dani’s resting face. Even in sleep, the gauntness of her features is apparent. Her cheeks appear sharp and hollowed. Dark circles ring her eyes, both from the lack of sustenance and ongoing torture. My chest compresses when I recall the feel of her in my arms, of her bony hips and slim torso and torn skin on her back. If she still had clothes, they’d be swimming on her. I know—my jeans hang loosely from me.
The sound of keys and locks brings my attention to the door as conditioned as Pavlov’s dog with the bell. The desire to fight sets fire to my muscles, but I don’t move. Bolt has proven more than once that I won’t get out of here by force. A mistake needs to be made or a rescue. Niko wouldn’t give up on me.
What if he does? A troublesome voice sounds in the back of my head. Doubt. Pain. The truth is I was a shit brother. I left him as alone as he left me when Aislin disappeared. I couldn’t expect him to put in the same effort. Not when they’ve finally found one another and started their life together somewhere far from here.
As I gaze angrily at the woman who stands between us and our freedom, I still feel a flare of joy at the yellowing bruises ringed around her throat. My hands itch to do so much more damage to the deranged woman.
“Good morning, sunshine!” she chirps and kicks a tray of food in my direction. Bits of scrambled eggs fly off the plate. I want to snarl at her for being so wasteful of the very sustenance Dani needs to survive, but I keep my mouth shut for fear of retaliation. No doubt she’d starve us for a week if we didn’t appear grateful enough.
“How many days?” I croak through a parched throat.
“Twenty-nine.” Her eyes flash, and her grin widens.
I nearly dry heave. An entire goddamn month? How is that possible?
“I said wake the fuck up!” Bolt suddenly screeches. At the loud sound, Dani rolls off the mattress and onto her hands and knees.
“Eat quick. We have more fun to do today.” Bolt retreats through the open door.
I shove the tray at Dani. “Eat. Take all of it.”
Dani eats half a slice of toast in one bite. “What about you?” she says quickly, eyeing the door.
“I’ll wait for the next meal. It’s not even that much, and you need it.” I rove my gaze over her face, hoping she understands. I probably look like shit too, but she has a lot less on her body to lose. She responds by shoving a forkful of eggs in her mouth. For a few seconds, only the sound of Dani’s fork clanking against the tray fills the room.
The sound of metal scraping concrete precedes Bolt through the door. She drags an overhead lamp with four canisters already lit with blinding white bulbs and has a black duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
“You,
pretty boy. On the mattress.”
Fuck. Fuck. Shit.
Every time I’ve gone to the mattress, I’ve had to rape Dani. I’m glad I refused to eat because I feel like I could throw up right now. The thought of being forced to touch her again in that way… I can’t. I’ll refuse. I’ll end my goddamn life right now. Let her put a bullet in my brain.
Twenty-nine days is an eternity locked in this hell. Dani’s strong like Aislin. Without me here to torture Dani with my bare hands, Bolt will be forced to do it herself, and maybe that’s an even match. Dani could gain the upper hand without Bolt weaponizing us against one another.
The rise to my feet is slow as if my mind knows it might be the last time. I refuse to make eye contact with either of them as I cross the room to the filthy mattress and lower myself until I’m sitting on my heels. Only then do I lock eyes with the bitch getting her rocks off, keeping us locked here. Only then do I unleash every ounce of hatred locked inside.
“You look ready for a fight,” Bolt remarks and holds out her remote. “I don’t need to remind you what happens when you fight, do I?”
“I’m here.” I spread my arms out. “I did as you asked. Tell us what to do.”
“I think you’re going to like it,” she rasps in an excited whisper. “You get to give your girlfriend a little break.”
I force away the shadow of confusion on my face and keep my features schooled.
“It’s not fair to her that you’ve gotten off scot-free this entire time.”
“That’s bullshit,” I snarl as tension invades my shoulders and back.
Bolt’s head cocks.
“Reece,” Dani warns in a hushed tone.
“No? How very noble of you to think that your pain has been on the same level as hers.”
