by Katie Ashley
“Really?”
He nodded. “It was a wedding gift our former president gave to his wife. She’d had a rough go in life. Lots of men had hurt her over the years.”
Even though I didn’t know her, I felt a strange affinity with this former president’s wife. We had both found ourselves members of a club no one would ever want to join. “He sounds like a good man.”
A pained expression came over Rev’s face. “He was.”
“Was?”
“He got killed a few months ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied. My heart went out to Rev because I could feel the sorrow emanating from him.
“Thank you.”
Grimacing, I pushed myself up in the bed. “And I’m sorry for accusing you of being like the men who . . . hurt me.”
“Don’t be sorry. You can’t help the way you feel. And I know what you went through.”
Cocking my head at him, I asked, “So what’s ‘Rev’ short for?”
“Reverend.”
My brows shot up in surprise at the thought of Rev having a religious calling. “You’re a minister?”
“No, but my father was.” At what must have been my continued inquisitive expression, he drew in a breath. “When my brothers and I patched into my father’s club, we took road names that bound us as a family and honored his former life as a minister.”
“Former life?”
Renewed grief etched its way onto Rev’s face. He didn’t respond for a few moments. Staring down at his hands, he said, “When I was eleven, he left the pulpit and went back to the biker world. My two brothers and I followed in his footsteps, much to our mother’s disappointment.”
Feeling guilty for dredging up his pain, I said, “I’m sorry. I seem to have a special gift today for bringing up things that make you feel bad.”
He gave me a small smile. “Don’t apologize,” he replied. “Speaking of fathers, I’m sure you’ll want to get in touch with your family. Although we found out your identity, we thought it would be better for you to contact them.”
A pang of regret stabbed me at the thought that it had been Rev who brought up the subject of my parents and not me. The truth was I had forced myself to bury any thoughts I had of them in the deep recesses of my mind. In those early weeks as Mendoza’s captive, I’d thought about my parents a lot. I wondered what they were doing and how they had reacted to my abduction. I fantasized that they had pulled strings and dispatched some Special Forces unit that would arrive at any minute to save me. But as time went on, the weeks turning into a month and then two, and no one came for me, I had to force myself to stop thinking about them. I had to reason that I had left them little to go on when it came to tracking me down.
Focusing on something else Rev had said, I questioned, “You know who I am?”
He nodded. “Annabel Lee Percy, originally from Virginia but living in Texas.”
My brows rose in surprise. “You were able to find all of that just by me telling you my name?”
Rev smiled. “My fellow Raiders have talents. Of course, it wasn’t that hard going through the missing persons reports for girls named Annabel.”
“I see.”
Reaching into his back pocket, Rev took out a phone. “Would you like to call them now?”
“No. Not right now.”
Rev’s brows furrowed in confusion at the panicked note in my voice. But at that moment I didn’t have the energy to try to explain my complicated family. I’m sure it sounded strange that I didn’t demand the phone from him to have a tearful reunion. Trying to lessen the abruptness of my reaction, I said, “I’m just a little too tired right now. Maybe in the morning when I’ve had more rest.”
Although he nodded, I could see he was confused. Fortunately, just then my attention was drawn away from Rev by a gentle knock at the door. When I turned my head, I saw Dr. Edgeway standing in the doorway. He smiled. “I see you’re awake.”
I nodded, and he started into the room. “Mind if I check to see how you’re doing?”
“No, that’s fine.”
Rev stood up from his chair. “I’ll step out.”
While I knew that I needed privacy for the exam, my chest tightened at the thought of him leaving. He must’ve sensed my apprehension because he said, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
“Thanks.”
Once we were alone, Dr. Edgeway came over to me. Instead of beginning the exam, he stood awkwardly beside the bed, his hand shuffling some loose change in his pocket.
“Is something wrong?”
He gave a slight jerk of his head. “Before I examine you, there’s something I need to ask you about.”
“Okay,” I replied apprehensively.
Dr. Edgeway then pulled something out of his pocket. When he held it up to me, I gasped. It was the emerald and diamond ring I had briefly worn. I hadn’t even realized it was gone. I wondered if they had taken it off me before surgery. “My ring.”
“Your ring?” he questioned in an accusatory tone.
Shrinking back in the bed, I said softly, “Yes, it’s mine. It was a gift from someone, and I’d like to have it back.”
“Who gave it to you?” he demanded.
“A—a girl.” I swallowed hard under his intense stare. “Yesterday or the day before. I don’t remember.”
His anger slightly dissipated. “Did she have red hair?”
My brows shot up in surprise. “How did you know that?”
A wounded look appeared on his face. “Because she was my daughter.”
My chest clenched in agony. “She was?” He gave a brief nod. I had first seen the redheaded girl from the window of Mendoza’s bedroom. She arrived with two other girls the day after three girls had been sold. Her appearance after a barrage of blondes and brunettes made me wonder if I might have new competition for Mendoza’s affections. I guess I hoped it more than anything. But when she wasn’t brought into the main house, I realized I was to have no relief.
Suddenly it all began to make sense. “So that’s why Rev and his men stormed the compound: to get your daughter back.”
“Yes. It is.”
A horrible feeling overcame me. “Didn’t she make it out?”
Dr. Edgeway closed his eyes in pain. The torment on his face spoke volumes of the level of his grief. “No. She didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I had only had a brief meeting with the girl. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. But in that moment, I mourned her as if we had been lifelong friends.
Dr. Edgeway didn’t respond. Instead, he stared down at the ring. “This was a high school graduation gift to Sarah from her mother and me. She had always wanted an emerald ring like her mother had.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine why she would have given it away.”
I knew that what I had to say was only going to make Dr. Edgeway feel worse. “She didn’t want to give it away. She only asked me to hold on to it for her in case she could one day get it back.”
His silver brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Now it was my turn to close my eyes in pain. “The day after I arrived at the compound, Mendoza immediately made me his favorite. Besides being with him, one part of my job was to help acclimate the new girls who were brought in. Since I could speak English, I had to inform them of what was expected of them. Anything they had on them was taken. Jewelry was allegedly used to pay for their food until they were sold.”
Bile rose in my throat as I thought of the frightened girls I had been forced to talk to. I understood their fear even though I hadn’t received the same treatment. Instead, I had received my induction straight from Mendoza. Of course, mine was far different from that of the other girls, since I was selected to stay at the compound.
Focusing on Dr. Edgeway again, I continued. “I guess it was just two days ago when I met Sarah, and she asked me to take the ring and keep it for her. Since none of the other girls had been so attached to what they had, I felt I had to do as she ask
ed. So I took it. And when Mendoza noticed it on my hand, I lied and told him I had wanted to pretend it was a present from him.” Revulsion rose in me at the memory of having to play those survival games. “After he beat me, he let me keep it.”
Dr. Edgeway cursed under his breath. “I’m sorry you endured that just to make Sarah feel better.”
Tears stung my eyes. Tears of anger. Tears of anguish. Tears of desperation. While I should have been touched by Dr. Edgeway apologizing for the physical pain I had endured, the blackened part of my soul wanted to lash out at him. How could he possibly think his sorrow could ever take away the degrading and deplorable things that I had experienced? Words only minimalized the suffering I had been through. But just as fast as the rage had risen up inside me, the more rational side of my mind reasoned that the man before me was a grief-stricken father trying his best to wade through the quicksand he now found himself in. “I’m just sorry I never got the chance to return it to her.” My voice hitched as I in turn minimalized his suffering with mere words.
“So am I,” he replied. With an agonized sigh, he slipped the ring in his pocket. “I suppose we better get to the task at hand before Rev wonders what is going on in here.”
“Okay,” I replied as I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.
He eyed the machines I was hooked up to and the IV bag. “While I should be grateful there was a hospital to bring you to in this godforsaken place, I’m not impressed with their level of care compared to back in the States,” he remarked.
When he reached for the sheet, I involuntarily gripped the edges tighter. Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s to be expected after what you’ve been through, especially with a male doctor.”
After I released the fabric, Dr. Edgeway pulled the sheet down and then eased my gown up over my abdomen. “The incision looks like it is healing well, no signs of infection.” When he lightly tapped my stomach, I flinched. “It’s not surprising that you’re sore. Besides the surgery, you had been worked over quite extensively.”
“What exactly did you have to do?”
Dr. Edgeway didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he put my gown back in place and pulled the sheet up. Finally, after what felt like an eternity had passed, he cleared his throat. “The blunt force trauma you sustained caused your spleen to rupture. If Rev hadn’t found you when he did, you would have died from internal hemorrhaging in another hour.”
Bile rose in my throat as I painfully recalled my last hours in the compound. “I’m not too surprised that Mendoza left me to die. . . . He wanted me dead.”
“It was pretty evident from your injuries that’s what he intended.”
“So you just had to take out my spleen?”
After glancing down at the tile floor, Dr. Edgeway shook his head. “The blunt force trauma also caused a miscarriage—” My gasp of horror forced his gaze to meet mine.
“I was . . . pregnant?”
“Yes. You were.”
I could barely wrap my mind around such a thought. Of course, I had long been denied my birth control pills while in captivity, and since I was owned by Mendoza, he didn’t bother with condoms. I guess nature had taken its course. But the thought of carrying that monster’s child made my stomach roil in revulsion. At least there were some small mercies, and I had lost the baby. As much as I loved children and wanted them someday, I didn’t think I could have withstood raising a child of Mendoza’s.
“But I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The miscarriage caused a tear in your uterine lining that couldn’t be repaired. The only way to stop the bleeding was to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”
Although Dr. Edgeway appeared to continue speaking, I couldn’t make out anything else he said. Absently, my hand came to rest on my abdomen. My now-barren abdomen. “I can’t have children,” I whispered in disbelief. I suddenly hoped and prayed that at any moment I would wake up from the nightmare, even if it found me back at Mendoza’s compound.
“You can’t carry a child, but you can still have a child of your own.”
“What?” I questioned absently.
“Annabel, look at me,” Dr. Edgeway instructed. When I finally met his gaze, he said, “You still have your ovaries. With today’s modern fertility treatments, you can have your own child via a surrogate. It isn’t impossible, especially for someone from your background.”
I know he didn’t intend it, but it sounded like Dr. Edgeway thought that I should be grateful for the wealthy background I came from. Allegedly it would be my salvation—the only way I could ever have a child of my own flesh and blood. But at that moment, money, status, or prestige didn’t mean shit. It sure as hell hadn’t saved me from Mendoza. And there was no way financial wealth could reassemble the fractured pieces of my life. There were some things that money simply could not buy.
“Annabel, you will heal and move on.”
“But I’ll never have life within me,” I challenged.
He shook his head slowly. “No. You won’t.”
I felt like I was being pummeled with new waves of grief and loss. After all I had endured, now I had survived only to learn I could never carry a child?
Why?
For the thousandth time I asked myself that one question.
Why?
Why me? Why did bad things keep happening? It struck me in that moment that while I might’ve physically escaped from my nightmare, I would be forced to continuously endure the emotional aftershocks. I became so overwhelmed with dark and desperate feelings then that I didn’t think I could keep my head up. “I’m very tired. I think I need to rest.”
“I’m sorry, Annabel. If I could have gotten to you sooner and under different circumstances, maybe I could have repaired the tear without having to remove the uterus.”
Even though he was sincere, I didn’t want his apology. Nothing he could say or do could ever make things right for me. No one could. At that moment, I realized I had traded one hell for another.
From this day forward, I would never be anything more than a shameful burden to my parents. As a woman who had been defiled by criminals, I would be considered damaged goods. Preston would never date or marry me, and for that matter neither would any other man in our social circle. Even if someone did, I couldn’t bear the picture-perfect family for him. No political propaganda commercial would want to feature a couple along with their surrogate.
There would be no going back to the life I had had before. The future that spread out before me was desolate and bleak. As I closed my eyes, I wished that Rev had never found me, and instead had allowed me to die on the floor of Mendoza’s compound like the worthless trash I was.
SIX
REV
When Breakneck came out of Annabel’s room, he was ashen. Since he had been in there a long time, a surge of concern that something had gone wrong overwhelmed me. Grabbing his arm, I asked, “Is she okay?”
His agonized eyes met mine. “No, she’s not.”
My heart clenched. “Wait, did she—”
“After her examination, I had to explain to her the severity of her injuries and the course of action I had to take.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“I had to do a partial hysterectomy.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“She isn’t taking the news very well.” He shook his head. “In fact, it’s devastated her.”
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Annabel was going through. Having children was something so intertwined with being a woman, and now she had lost that. If she was someone who had always wanted kids, I’m sure the news was a complete blow on top of everything she was already dealing with. “I’ll go and talk to her.”
Breakneck nodded and then walked farther down the hallway. When I opened the door, Annabel didn’t even look up. Instead, she kept staring s
traight ahead. “Hey,” I said softly as I walked over to the bed. A chill shuddered through me at the visual evidence of how much the news had affected her. It was like seeing an entirely different girl. Not that she didn’t deserve to be a basket case after what she had been through, but it was certainly alarming.
“I thought you might want to talk,” I said.
A single tear slid down her cheek. “I just want to be alone.”
“Okay. We don’t have to talk. But why don’t I sit here with you for a while?”
“Whatever,” she muttered, closing her eyes.
With an uneasy feeling, I sat down in the chair beside the bed and kept quiet, but it was a long time before she fell into a fitful sleep. When one of the nurses came in to check her vitals, she brought back a sedative. Once the liquid seeped from the IV into Annabel’s veins, she finally found a peaceful sleep. Then it was my turn to toss and turn in the chair.
In what was becoming our on-the-road ritual, Bishop shook me awake the next morning. Sometime during the night, a roll-away bed had been brought in, but I didn’t even remember moving from the chair. Rubbing my eyes, I asked, “What time is it?”
“Little after seven. I brought you some breakfast.”
“Thanks, man.” I pulled myself into a sitting position. As I glanced around the room, my gaze focused on the rumpled sheets of the empty bed. “Where’s Annabel?”
“She wasn’t in bed when I got here. Pretty sure she’s in the bathroom.”
A prickly feeling like nicks from barbwire went through my chest. I strode across the room and pounded on the bathroom door with my fist. “Annabel? Are you all right?” When there was no reply, I pounded harder. “Annabel, answer me!” I commanded in a voice harsher than I meant to use.
“Leave me alone, Rev,” came the weak reply.
As if I possessed Superman’s X-ray vision, I knew exactly what was transpiring behind the door. If I strained my ears, I could hear the almost inaudible dripping of blood. Taking several steps back, I ignored Bishop when he asked, “Rev, what the hell are you doing?”
