“How’d they get you?” said Mary.
“Excuse me?”
“How’d they manage to nab you?” Mary sighed. “I was walking home from work. I know I shouldn’t have been walking alone at night in the human part of town, but that’s where my work is and my husband and I can’t afford a car. They pulled up next to me in a van and next thing I know somebody is putting some wet, stinky cloth over my mouth and I wake up here.”
“I was at a doctor’s appointment,” said Alex. “The father of my child, or, one of them, was with me. I insisted he could leave me alone in the doctor’s office for just a few minutes. They drugged me too.”
“Wow, in a doctor’s office? In the weare territory?”
“Yeah.”
Mary let out a soft whistle and muttered under her breath. “Wow, he sure does have some nerve.”
Mary trailed off and Alex’s mind started to wander. She thought of Charlie. He must’ve been so angry with himself after getting back to the hospital room and realizing she was gone. Him and the other two brothers were probably out looking for her right now. Alex’s chest started to loosen and breathing got easier.
Yes, that’s right. They are out looking for me right now. They will come bursting in any minute.
A door opened at the top of the staircase across from where Alex was tied up. Light poured in, illuminating the section of the room where Mary sat. She couldn’t be much older than eighteen. She was skinny, pale, and extremely pregnant.
A large figure descended the stairs. He was too big to be human. He was carrying two trays of food. Without saying anything he placed one tray in front of Mary and walked towards Alex.
“Wait a minute,” said Alex. “I know you. You were one of the punks tagging the Armstrong mansion last month.” The punk remained silent. He put the tray down at Alex’s feet. “How do you expect me to eat with my hands tied up?” Only then did she realize that Mary was already stuffing her face. Her hands had not been tied.
A second figure came down the steps. This one was much smaller, definitely human. “Go ahead and cut Ms. Greenford’s hands free.” She recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it. The man’s face was still in the shadows. “Even with the use of her hands, how far could she get with a belly like that?”
The weare took a switchblade from his pocket and cut the rope. Alex’s arms and hands were numb from bloodlessness. It felt tingly and painful as the blood and feeling rushed back to her upper limbs.
The man turned his gaze and Alex caught a glimpse of his face. “Sheriff Brown?” Whether it was from the shock or the musky air, something caught in Alex’s throat and sent her into a coughing fit.
“Hello, Alex,” said the sheriff, talking over her coughs. “It’s nice to see you again. I haven’t seen you since I picked you up that one time for trying to steal a pack of gum.” He chuckled. “You remember that? You were so damn scared. I put you in the back of the car and turned the siren on, just to teach you a little lesson. I dropped you back home and told you next time I’d throw you in the slammer! I remember you cried all the way inside.”
“Yeah, it’s real funny,” said Alex, regaining her voice. “Lying to kids is such a hoot. Now enough story time. Tell me what I’m doing here.”
“You have no one but yourself to blame,” he said. “You sealed your fate the second you decided to give yourself to the dogs.”
“You sick bastard.” Alex spit in the sheriff’s direction. “You’ve let your hate grow and grow and now it’s turned you into a monster.”
“Me?” he laughed. “The monster? That’s rich. I’m trying to stop the monsters, and stop people like you from letting them take over the entire city. Hell, maybe the whole world!”
“If you hate them so much, why are you working with them?” Alex nodded in the direction of the weare.
“For now, we share a common goal,” he said.
Alex scoffed. “You really think you’re going to be able to pull this off, don’t you?” Alex brought both her hands to her stomach. “I’m telling you now, you won’t.”
“I got you, didn’t I?”
“Sure, you got me. Congrats on drugging an unsuspecting pregnant woman. You deserve a round of applause for that one. But you won’t get my baby.”
The sheriff scoffed. “We’ll see about that. You better eat up! Don’t want that precious cargo of yours going hungry.”
Alex stared down at the tray with disgust. She’d been given a browning apple, a soggy slice of bread, and a cup of warm juice. No matter how hungry she was, she was not about to eat in front of them. She didn’t want them thinking she was even remotely accepting her situation there.
The sheriff shrugged, not seeming to care if she ate or not. “Let’s go.” He nodded at the weare. “We’re got news of another human woman wondering around weare territory. We gotta’ pick her up before she gets any ideas.”
They started up the stairs. Mary let out a soft whimper that quickly turned into scream. “Oh, oh no,” she said. She yelled again and clutched her stomach. “This can’t be happening. I’m not due for another two weeks.”
“Grab her!” the sheriff ordered. The weare picked Mary up and started up the stairs with her. “Put her on the bed upstairs, and I’ll call the buyer.” Mary shot Alex a terrified, helpless glance.
“Don’t worry, Mary!” Alex yelled. “I’ll get you out of this. I promise.” She had no idea why she was saying all these things. She had absolutely no idea how she’d get them freed and she barely even knew this woman. “Just be strong!”
“Shut up!” the sheriff yelled at Alex. He looked back where the weare had stopped on the stairs. “Get going!” The weare disappeared through the door with Mary. The sheriff gave Alex a threatening look then followed the two of them up the stairs.
The door closed behind them, and Alex was launched into a cold, damp darkness.
New Friends
Alex figured out quickly that they fed her twice a day, which made it easy to keep track of her days locked in the basement. On the morning of her third day, or what she guessed was the morning, nobody came to feed her. She hadn’t eaten much of what they’d been bringing her –– usually just the piece of fruit and never the moldy bread or the old deli meat. Sheriff Brown had scolded her the night before for not eating her full meals. He claimed she was starving her baby and shouted in her face that she was a bad mother.
“Why do you care how much I eat anyway? Or if I starve this baby?” Alex yelled back. “I thought you considered my baby an abomination. What do you care if it dies?”
“It may be an abomination, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless.” He didn’t elaborate. Instead, he picked up the slice of bread Alex left on the tray and tried to force feed it to her. She slapped his hands away and kept her mouth shut. Eventually, he gave up and told her, as he walked up the stairs, that if she wanted to act like an ungrateful bitch then he’d treat her like one.
Apparently, treating her like an ungrateful bitch meant not feeding her, which, for the time being, Alex was fine with. She was sick of being in the company of that arrogant, murdering bastard.
There wasn’t much to do, locked in the basement alone, save sleep and think. Alex did a lot of both. Mainly, her thoughts wandered back to the Armstrong mansion. She thought about the brothers and tried not to imagine how angry and scared they must be feeling right now. She knew they would be doing everything in their power to save her, and while she possessed unwavering faith in them, a part of her worried they would arrive too late. Between the stress and lack of food, she was more likely than not to go into early labor. That was obviously what happened to Mary, whom for the record, she had not seen or heard from since the poor woman was hauled upstairs mid-contraction. She attempted to keep her faith in Mary alive as well, and every time the door opened, her heart would jump a little, in hopes that it would be someone bringing her back down to once again be locked in the basement. It was a horrible thing to hope for, but it sure as hell beat the a
lternative.
Her mind cycled through hundreds of different scenarios for how everything might turn out for what felt like days. At some point she slipped back into sleep and her thinking became dreaming.
The sound of soft footsteps brought her back to the waking world. Her head was swimming and her stomach graduated from hunger growls to hunger pangs. It was the weare. He was holding a flashlight and walking gently on the balls of his feet, as if to sneak.
Is he sneaking for my sake? Does he think I’m still asleep?
Just as she was about to shut her eyes and feign sleep, the weare whispered something to her.
“Hey, you awake?”
She wasn’t sure if she should answer. He’d never spoken to her. He only ever brought the food tray and sometimes said a word or two in response to one of Sheriff Brown’s comments or questions.
“I need to talk to you. Wake up.”
His tone sounded anxious, frightened even, which Alex took as a sign he wasn’t there to hurt her. “What do you want?”
“I need to know. Did you eat any of the bread?”
He shined the flashlight on her, nearly blinding Alex in the process. “Get that out of my face!”
“Shhhh!” he said. In the moment, she’d forgotten herself and had spoken at full volume. “He doesn’t know I’m down here. Now please, just tell me, did you eat any of the bread.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think?” He sighed, frustrated. “I need you to be sure.”
Alex thought about it. Had she eaten the bread they brought her for her first meal? No. She hadn’t. She was about to but when she brought the piece up to her mouth, she heard Mary scream from upstairs and immediately lost her appetite.
“No, I haven’t eaten any of the bread. Just the fruit.”
“Did you drink the juice?” he asked.
“Yes. Always.”
He let out a short, anger groan. “Okay, okay. It’s fine.”
“What’s going on? Why do you need to know what I have and have not eaten?”
“He’s been drugging you. His wife bakes it into the bread, injects it into the fruit and mixes it into the juice. Luckily, the acid in the fruit and the juice counteracts some of the effects.”
“Effects of what? What has he been drugging me with?”
“It’s a labor inducing drug. He’s been trying to force your body into early labor.”
Alex rubbed her belly gently. “Oh my god. I should’ve guessed.”
“Listen, I have to go. He could come looking for me any second.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a baggie with half a sandwich. “Take this. It’s from my lunch.”
She took it, but didn’t unwrap it. He squatted down next to her.
“Trust me,” he said. “I promise there’s nothing in it. Except turkey and mayo.”
Alex unwrapped it and took a greedy bite, then another, and in three it was gone. “Thank you,” she said through a full mouth. She finished chewing and swallowed. “But why are you helping me?”
“I never wanted to be a part of this.” There was a noise from upstairs. The weare froze and stared up at the ceiling. Everything was quiet again. He looked back at Alex. “I went to tag your guys’ place as a dumb joke. Next thing I know, Perry has me roped in to some crazy scheme he cooked up with the sheriff to kidnap pregnant women and sell their half-breed children. The sheriff said he’d arrest me on some bullshit charge if I didn’t do as he said. I have a sick mother to support. I can’t afford to go to prison.”
“That’s what he’s doing with the children?” Alex felt like she might throw up. She grabbed the collar of his shirt. “You can’t let that happen to my baby. Please, you have to get me out of here.”
He gently took her hands and pulled them from his shirt. “I’m trying. Look, your boys have found the husbands of the other women who’ve been captured and they’ve formed an angry mob of sorts. I tipped off one of my buddies, who said he’d spread the word about where you guys are being kept. As far as I know, the other women are still in the house somewhere. I’m sure your people will come breaking down the door any minute. You just have to be patient.”
“Billy!” The sheriff’s voice came booming through the house. “Where are you, you worthless mutt?”
“I’m in the basement!” he yelled back. “Trying to get the bitch to eat.” He winced in Alex’s direction and whispered, “Sorry.”
“Leave her be,” called the sheriff. “I need you up here. We have a problem.”
“Roger that. I’ll be right up.”
“Wait,” said Alex. “So you’re just going to leave me?”
“I need to act like everything is normal, or he’ll get suspicious and maybe move you someplace else or something.” He touched Alex’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I promise, everything will be okay.”
“Can you just tell me one thing?”
“What is it?”
“What happened to Mary? Did you guys kill her?”
Billy shook his head. “Mary is still alive. All the women we’ve taken are. We sold their babies, and now the sheriff is lining up buyers to purchase the mothers as well. One of them is supposed to be dropping by this afternoon actually.”
At that very moment, as if on cue, they heard a car door slam outside.
Billy took his hand off Alex’s shoulder and stood up. “Looks like the buyer is here. I hope those big, strong husbands of yours are close by.”
Bartholomew wasn’t sure who he was more worried for, Alex or Charlie. Ever since the incident at the hospital, Charlie had been a jumpy, self-hating ball of stress and fury. He blamed himself entirely for what happened and would not hear any argument to the contrary. His brothers tried countless times to console him, and the husbands of the other women taken explained how they too missed the signs, but Charlie wouldn’t listen.
The day after Alex was taken, Mr. Armstrong thought, naively, that Charlie might have started to get over the trauma of the previous day and focus on what needed to be done. Unfortunately, Alex’s family arrived at the mansion that day, and Uma demanded Charlie recount the events at the hospital over and over again, in excruciating detail, and whatever progress Bartholomew thought his son had made was completely derailed.
Thankfully, by the morning of the third day after Alex was abducted, the group had formulated a plan, which gave Charlie, and the whole Armstrong and Greenford clan, a much-needed distraction.
“Let’s go over it one more time, make sure we all know exactly what our individual responsibilities are,” said Xavier. The group consisted of Bartholomew, his sons, Alex’s parents, Hera, Eli, and two men whose wives had also been taken.
“Okay, first, Joel and his construction buddies are going to arrive at the abandoned house next door to Sheriff Brown’s,” Xavier began. A friend of Eli’s had given them a tip the day before as to where Alex might be held up. “You will set up as if you are starting demolition on that house. You wait for our signal.” Joel nodded in agreement. “Our guy on the inside has been instructed to provide the sheriff with a false lead. He’s going to tell him that a pregnant human was spotted driving through the downtown area of the weare territory. Uma and Hera will be driving the truck in disguise, Uma will be made to look pregnant, and your guys’ job is––”
“To keep the sheriff busy, we know,” said Uma. “While we’re here triple checking everything, my daughter is locked up somewhere, scared and alone. We need to go, now.”
“If we mess up any part of this plan, we could lose Alex forever,” said Xavier. “The sheriff has armed policemen patrolling his house at all hours. He has at least two adult male weares working for him.”
“One of whom,” said Clark, “is our man on the inside though, right?”
“Yes,” said Teddy. “But we can’t rely on him entirely. He was willing to pass along some information and lie, but that doesn’t mean he will be willing to go up against his friend in a fight.”
“Once Hera calls
and tells us they have eyes on the sheriff,” Xavier continued, “the rest of Alex’s dads, you’ll be hiding in the bed of the truck in case Uma and Hera find themselves in any hot water. Joel, the call is your signal. You and the crew need to make some sort of spectacle. It needs to be loud and distracting –– something that cannot be ignored.”
“We were thinking of setting fire to the abandoned house,” said Joel. “Nothing too big that could get out of hand, just something to make people want to come investigate.”
“That’s perfect,” said Teddy. “The fire will serve as our signal then as well. Whatever men are left patrolling after you start the fire will be mine and Charlie’s responsibility.” Charlie didn’t say anything. His eyes were fixed on the table. Bartholomew tried to remember if Charlie had eaten anything that day. He was pretty sure his son had skipped both breakfast and lunch. “We’ll take out whoever we need to, using whatever means necessary. Xavier, Mark, and David,” Teddy looked towards the two husbands. “You guys have one job: get in the house, get the women, and get out. Charlie and I will make it as easy as we possibly can, none of you should have to fight, which is good, because Xavier is still a little sore––”
“I’m fine,” said Xavier. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Either way,” Teddy continued, “Charlie will try to get everyone out of your way so all you have to do is get the women.”
“Got it,” said Mark.
“Understood,” said David.
“Good.” Xavier stood up from his seat at the dining room table and scanned the faces of the group. “Assuming everything goes according to plan, we will all meet back here afterwards.”
“What about the sheriff?” It was the first thing Bartholomew had heard Charlie say all day. “What are we going to do with him?”
Everyone turned and looked at Bartholomew. Apparently, as head of the weare council, the serving of justice was his responsibility. “I’m, uh, not sure. This is foreign territory to me. He will have to be tried in both the weare and human courts. Maybe we could arrange to have a joint trial of sorts. If you can get him across the border, I have the power to arrest him over here. I guess we’ll go from there.”
The BabyMakers’ Shared Property Page 12
