Flesh and Blood

by Sian Rosé

  Once outside the room, and after he’d locked it up, Steve eyed Minnie’s belly cautiously, then looked her up and down.

  “You’re not going to…” he trailed off, unsure of the correct terminology. “…not in my new car…” he mustered, vaguely waving his hand in disgusted gesture.

  Minnie shook her head.

  Not if she could help it.

  In silence, Steve guided her through the usual routine that had it been hardwired into her brain. Brisk, cold shower. Pills. Vodka. Car. Daylight. Unbearably heavy, swirling sensation in the back of her skull as black spots swam in front of her, and her eyes kept zoning in and out of focus. Cold air on her skin as the car door was pulled open, and she was bundled out of the vehicle like a sack of potatoes. Led blindly for a few paces, then into a building that smelled musty and unfamiliar. A low, quiet exchange between Steve and another man. Presumably discussing the fee. The price of her pain and humiliation.

  As she continued through the usual motions, she began trying to escape her body for the ordeal- to dissociate herself for the imminent suffering that would soon follow.

  But, this time, she couldn’t.

  It felt like she was treading water as she felt a large, dry-skinned hand taking hold of her wrist and gently pulling her along. As she put one foot in front of the other, a blinding pain suddenly ripped through her core, leaving her feeling as though her insides were being torn out. Her vision kept sputtering out and blurring, as though she were watching a crackly, poor-quality video cassette, but no matter what, she was still there. Still feeling it all. Spongy fabric beneath her; the warm tug on her arm; the intense wave ploughing through her abdomen.

  “What the fuck, Steve?”

  A drowning cat being dragged out of water; Minnie’s eyes suddenly fluttered open- the flabbergasted snap of an unfamiliar man bringing her into consciousness. Her mouth fell open as she felt a warm puddle spread beneath her, fluid dripping down her legs and onto the carpet of the small living room.

  “Oh Jesus,” Steve grumbled, more in annoyance than shock. He rubbed his forehead and shot Minnie an angry glare, “for fuck’s sake. Come on,” he leaned forward and roughly gripped onto her forearm.

  The man beside him, an older, Asian man with slicked black hair, batted him away. “Where are you taking her? To a hospital?”

  “What? What the hell do you care? Look, do you want her or not? I’m a busy man,” Steve sounded impatient. Minnie stared helplessly at his beady eyes and the intense cruelty swirling behind his irises.

  Cold and hard as a spike of ice.

  The Asian man looked from him, then to Minnie, his lips pressed together. He looked troubled, conflicted. But she had no time to worry about this, as another contraction delivered a hard punch into her gut, which made her body hunch over. She moaned, unable to stop the pained noise escaping her lips. She’d gotten good at controlling screams of pain over the months. It had become clear pretty quickly that, more often than not, crying and whimpering just led to more suffering.

  “2 hours,” the Asian man said in a small, almost muffled voice.

  Steve arched an eyebrow and stared at Minnie doubtfully, “don’t think you’ll be able to do much with her,” he said. Quickly, he gave a nasty chuckle and added. “But whatever floats your boat. 2 hours it is. I’ll be back then.”

  The client saw him out. Hot tears of pain and fear began to dribble from the corners of Minnie’s eyes. Her entire body felt hot from the stress. Without thinking, she pushed herself up off of the couch and started to hobble across the room towards an opposite door, clutching her stomach. She needed to escape. Her attempts to run had always ended badly before; however, this was one occasion where failure was not an option.

  For nine mostly awful months, her body and her baby had been neglected, tortured, abused, and plied with more alcohol than Minnie had ever drunk before in her life. This was not going to be the end.

  Adrenaline raced through her veins, pushing her through the pain and the heavy fog of intoxication that was smothering her like a deadly veil. Heart pounding hard in her eardrums, she roughly pulled open the door and felt relieved to find a kitchen. Immediately, her eyes were drawn to the knife block on one of the surfaces, which she staggered over to, almost slipping over in amniotic fluid as she went.

  The moment her sweating palm clutched onto the handle of the knife; her entire body seemed to collapse in on itself; fresh agony ripping through her with a vengeance. Gripping onto the kitchen counter, she looked down to see splashes of blood now landing in thick pools beneath her feet on the tiles. She screamed.

  Suddenly, a big hand was covering her mouth, clamping tightly over her lips. Although she attempted to lash out, Minnie found herself frozen rigid with the pain. Crying, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe.

  “Look- I’m not going to hurt you,” the Asian man’s voice whispered sharply in her ear. “You hear? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Minnie swallowed. Her chest still weighed down heavily, her heart sinking into her stomach. She didn’t believe him. How could she? It had been so long since a person hadn’t hurt her; it was almost a foreign concept. But, he was strong. Holding on to her firmly, he somehow coerced her body so that she was squatting down in the corner of the counters, her hands white as they tensed hard on the tops.

  “What’s your name?” the man said, his voice barely audible over her distressed pants and moans. He gently lifted her dress.

  “Minnie,” she murmured in a frightened whisper, her lower lip wobbling with terror as she saw him grimly inspecting her naked lower half. “Please don’t hurt my baby,” she blurted out before bursting into a fresh fit of uncontrollable tears. “Please…” she begged, as nine months’ worth of tightly compacted and buried agony gushed from her soul in a hot, ugly rush.

  The Asian man shook his head and looked up at her. Her light eyes met with his deep brown ones. She saw tears welling up inside them.

  “My name is Adil,” he said, “I…” he closed his mouth as if he had thought better of finishing the sentence. Instead, he sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I’m a doctor, okay? And I want to help you.”

  Normally, her brain would have exploded with questions, then, if she wasn’t in such a state. Steve never took her to nice men. Not the kind who saved lives for a living. He took her to vile, heartless animals who wanted nothing more than to abuse her and feed off of her needless pain. Maybe they were rich but never kind. Never a doctor.

  Another involuntary, rasping shriek came from her mouth as she felt weight descend into her pelvis. Her head fell back as she cried out, intense burning wracking her body.

  “It’s a boy.”

  Minnie caught a flash of tiny flesh but heard no baby crying as Adil worked quietly. He gathered up the slippery, glistening baby and quickly carried him away into the bathroom, out of her sight. She remained in a still, broken heap on the kitchen tiles, completely stunned; the stench of bloody fluid strong and stagnant in her nostrils.

  In her bewildered daze, she wondered when the sudden, overpowering rush of love would come over her. In vain, she waited for the adrenaline to strike and jump-start her body into action. But she was wracked with exhaustion. She could not even muster up the energy to stand, her head so weak that she could barely even lift it.

  For the first time, Minnie did not fight it. She let her heavy eyelids fall, and she let the blood pour out of her in buckets. Somewhere, deep in her heart, she could hear the pendulum swing as seconds, minutes passed.

  Whilst her little baby was taken somewhere far from her, and she bled out there in that strange kitchen.

  Chapter Forty-two

  2019

  Enthralled, Flo kept her small nose pressed up against the cold glass window of the RV. In her shiny pupils, the image of the unfurling twists and curls of orange fire lashing the trees were reflected, dancing and moving together, hypnotizing her. Even after the billowing black clouds of smoke had dissolved into the inky backdrop of th
e night, and the car was speeding away fast into the distance, Flo could still see the blaze. Inside her chest, her heart raced. She’d never felt so high.

  Just like that, an entire community wiped out.

  And it had felt all the more satisfying knowing that there was a good reason behind their grisly massacre.

  Opposite her at the table of the RV sat Zach, who was also staring out into the darkness, gazing aimlessly at the rapidly passing tree boughs that lined the motorway. Unlike Flo, he looked far from pleased. In fact, the tight-lipped frown on his face suggested quite the opposite.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Flo scoffed.

  Ignoring her, Zach flashed her one quick, irritated glance before getting up from the table and stomping off down the other end of the RV, leaving the eight-year-old alone in the middle section. Dad was driving, Mum was upstairs tending to Stella’s wounds, and Flo had no doubt that Lloyd was likely doing something characteristically disgusting, such as taking a huge shit or wanking into a sock.

  The child grumbled, unable to understand why her family was not feeling as elated as she was. They’d fucked those arseholes up. Destiny’s body floating pathetically at the top of the pond; Sambuca and Pat shot dead like a pair of helpless stags. The entire caravan park had gone up in flames, and every single one of the fuckers who’d attacked her sister had met a long, painful end. The edge of her lip curled upwards as she allowed herself to relive the adrenaline coursing through her forearms as she brought up the hilt of the knife and rammed it down into the flesh. Then again, and again. The skin and muscle getting softer and softer, easier and easier to penetrate with each stab. Flo licked her lips, reminiscing the taste of rusted blood on her skin. A shiver of delight crept down her spine.

  On the table in front of her, she delicately lifted the small Tupperware box to eye level and inspected its contents. As a general rule, Mum and Dad discouraged keeping souvenirs of any kind from their crimes. But that night, the two of them had acted defeated. Weaker than usual.

  They’d agreed to let her take a trophy or two.

  Unable to contain herself, Flo peeled the lid up off of the box and let her fingertips caress the top of the soft, spongy entrails crammed inside the transparent plastic.

  Like her mother, she was very interested in human anatomy, so had jumped at the chance to complete her very own mini autopsy. Of course, it had been quite rushed, and she hadn’t know where and how to cut properly. But still, the little girl was impressed with herself.

  Smiling widely from ear to ear, she marvelled down at the section of glistening intestine in her box, as any other child might look at slime or play dough.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Spring, 2000

  Bizarrely, upon waking up, Minnie felt the most comfortable that she had felt in months. It was dark, but it was warm. Smooth, clean-smelling blankets embraced her skin; beneath her, a soft mattress cushioned her perpetually aching skeleton. Her eyes opened to yet more darkness. She blinked, attempting to make sense of the gloom, before wriggling about inside her cosy cocoon. Instantly, she wished she hadn’t, as a sharp pain seared up her body from her crotch. Something squelched; thick dampness irritating her inner thighs. Heart thudding hard in her eardrums, the teenager pushed down the blanket from her body and froze.

  Where the hard, rounded egg of her belly had been, there was now a deflated mound of jelly in its place.

  Immediately, memories of giving birth in the kitchen flooded back to her. All at once, she felt as though some vital piece of her was missing. A stab of shame impaled her in the gut as she remembered how selfishly she had lost consciousness, leaving her defenceless child at the hands of some random pervert who wanted to solicit sex from a human trafficker.

  “Shit…” she swallowed, scrambling out of bed just in time to vomit all over her bare feet. She retched and gagged as stringy bile fell from her lips, acid dripping from her nostrils as her body broke out in a cold, frightened sweat.

  A door opened, and the room suddenly flooded with light.

  Minnie’s head shot up, puke still glistening over her chapped lips as she stared with wide, terrified eyes at Adil, who was standing in the doorway of the room.

  “You’re awake,” he said quietly before turning his eyes to the floor as if he were embarrassed.

  She glanced down at her body, suddenly absurdly self-conscious. Both of her legs were streaked with frighteningly bright red blood; the loose-fitting cotton t-shirt she wore was also drenched. Her chest swelled. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to look up and see her mother staring back at her. She wanted to be carried away from there, cleaned up, fed, and put back to bed.

  In her own bed, away from all the shit of the last year.

  But she had no idea whether her mother even cared that she was gone. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it for so long, but now she wondered if they were still looking for her or if they’d never even bothered to begin with.

  “Where’s my baby?” Minnie asked, biting back tears.

  Adil frowned and took a deep breath. He stared down at his feet, shuffling them awkwardly like a schoolboy caught out misbehaving.

  “Adil?” she repeated, with more urgency, her voice gravelly.

  He looked up at her then, with deep, intense brown eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh and a defeated shrug of the shoulders. “He…”

  Before the doctor could finish his sentence, Minnie collapsed onto her knees and curled forwards, clutching at her saggy mid-section as grief spiralled through her core like a corkscrew ripping her innards. She let out a loud, animal-sounding moan of pain.

  “Minnie…” she could hear Adil coming towards her, his feet quickly tapping on the carpet.

  “You… you killed my baby,” she shrieked, bawling into the carpet where her face was planted firmly into the floor. She had no intention of getting up. “You…” she choked and spluttered, more bile spewing from the corners of her mouth and dribbling onto the floor. Her grief weighed impossibly heavy in her chest.

  Was it really because she believed that Adil had murdered the child?

  The tightly locked and secured door in the corner of Minnie’s mind suddenly blasted open and out poured a hot, thick mess of all of her deeply buried fears. All of the drugs, all of the alcohol… the beatings, the lack of food and water, and pre-natal care…

  What chance had her baby stood? How could any defenceless, unborn child have survived for so long in such terrible circumstances?

  She flinched as she felt the warmth of a hand resting on the top of her shoulder. Minnie was about to get to her feet and start thrashing about madly in a chaotic flurry of madness and grief when Adil spoke. Even underneath the croak of her cries, his soft, solemn voice broke through and sent a chill down her spine.

  “Your baby is not dead.”

  At that, the teenager’s head snapped upwards, her jaw opening in astonishment. “But… you…”

  Adil’s eyes were watery as he stared at her. Both of his hands were on her, and she couldn’t help but take comfort from his touch. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt any kind of nurturing, and there was something about him that lulled her into believing his concern was genuine.

  “I called child protective services,” he said calmly, although there was no denying the shame that tinged his expression.

  Minnie remained silent, too stunned to speak.

  “Your son will be put up for adoption. He’s healthy and strong,” Adil continued. “I know this must be awful for you, but if I sent you back to those people with the baby, I…”

  SMACK.

  The man’s cheek blazed red whilst the palm of Minnie’s hand burned with the sting of his skin.

  “I’m a victim here,” she cried, her voice breaking. “You want to help us? Why didn’t you call the police?” she stood up, her face sodden, vision blurring. “So what is this? You send my baby off, and that’s your good deed, is it? And what about me? I just get to go back
to…” she choked again. A new part of her heart snapped off and died, disintegrating into nothingness in the pit of her stomach as she envisioned that terrible house, the terrible room, and the terrible suffering she and Ronnie had endured for so long.

  Adil bowed his head. “I’m a coward,” he replied.

  Minnie swallowed and shook from head to toe, clenching her clammy fists as she glanced behind him at the open door. She considered making a dash for it whilst his head was down.

  “What’re you so scared of?” she breathed out, never taking her eyes off of the doorway. “What is it? Steve?”

  “Steve is nothing,” Adil replied, finally looking up at her. “It’s what he is a part of that I am afraid of.”

  Images of the man with the fake IDs in the café; all of the dodgy businessmen that paid to rape her; Steve and his slimy face as he sucked up to them. It became clear then. The whole thing was just one big crime ring that she and Ronnie had so stupidly been sucked into. Then, something else occurred to her.

  Heart racing, she took a step backwards, fear prickling beneath her skin. “And… you don’t want to get caught,” she said before she could stop herself.

  Adil gasped as if she had stabbed him straight through the chest. “I didn’t know what I was getting into,” he said miserably, “really, I didn’t. It was only when you turned up here… in that state, and I started talking to Steve… that’s when I realised just how messed up this all is…” he swallowed and shook his head in disbelief. “I want to help you… I wish I could. That’s why I sent the little boy away.”

  She pursed her lips tightly together, holding in fresh sobs at the thought of being knocked out, or drugged, then waking up again back in that cold, dark shithole of a room at Steve’s house. She envisioned another woman, another man taking her little newborn son home from the hospital, giving him a name, referring to themselves as mummy and daddy.