A hot tear leaked from her eye, running down her cheek to pool in her ear. He reached for her hand and moved it between them. He was hard, his skin hot. She considered wrapping her fingers around him, squeezing until he screamed. But she was still chained to the wall. If she hurt him, he’d hurt her worse. He’d make her pay.
He ran his hand roughly over her breasts, sensitive from the pregnancy, and she cringed. He moved his hand down her side, pausing slightly before moving over the swell of her belly. She felt a tiny bump from within, once and then again. Her heart stuttered. The baby. She’d just felt the baby. His breath stalled, his body giving a small tremble, as he removed his hand quickly as though her skin had burned him. Had he felt it too? He ran his hand back up to her breast, his own stomach meeting hers as he lowered himself. He paused again, a strange sound emerging from beneath his mask. Frustration? Distress?
He stood quickly, zipping himself back into his pants. She scrambled to a sitting position, confused, wary. Had her pregnant body, the feel of the baby moving within served to quell his arousal? She was glad of it and not. She didn’t know what it would mean for her. At this point, it might be her only value.
Marshall walked to the door and she thought he’d leave but he only left for a moment and when he came back in, he had a fast food bag and a . . . quilt. He threw the quilt at her, his eyes glittering from beneath his mask with some emotion she couldn’t read. Why was he providing comforts to her? She couldn’t understand it. He placed the bag next to her and then turned and walked out the door. It closed behind him with a click, the lock engaging from outside.
Once his footsteps had faded, she sat there in the dim quiet for several minutes, turning her hand on her wrist, stretching it, glorying in the small bit of freedom. Why hadn’t he chained her back up? Did it even matter? She was still held prisoner, still unable to free herself. But now . . . now she could feed herself. She could take the food he’d left and bring it to her mouth. A small bit of dignity, something to remind her she was still human.
She removed the burger and fries from inside the bag and took several ravenous bites, hardly tasting the food, desperate to stop the burning hunger in her gut. Another bump from within. She dropped the burger to its wrapper and moved her unshackled hand to her rounded belly, placing her hand over the spot from where the tiny kick had come. She felt it again, her heart squeezing tightly in her chest as her breath hitched.
I’m not alone. You’re here, aren’t you?
It felt surreal. Like a miracle in the very last place she’d ever expected to encounter one. She knew it wasn’t—that it could be broken down into simple biology. Coarse language. She’d been raped and she’d conceived. But to Josie, it felt like more than that. Something that was only hers, something others probably wouldn’t understand the beauty of, and perhaps she didn’t either except on a level she could hardly explain. Starlight in a blackened sky. Blinking to life where before only darkness existed.
The tiny being inside her was already making his or her presence known, already grasping for life, fighting for its existence, staking its claim. And she was the guardian of that life. The protector. She was its mother. A surge of love washed through her, so suddenly and so strongly it stole her breath.
Strengthened her.
Gave her divine purpose.
It humbled her, caused a fierce protectiveness to grab hold.
It was up to her to stay alive long enough that Marshall would free her, or that she’d be found by someone else. A transient maybe? Someone looking to rent out the abandoned building where she was being held? Someone must own this lot. Even if she hadn’t heard anyone in many months, there were still possibilities of being found—things Marshall didn’t control. Reason for hope. She just had to hang on to it. Stay alive so her baby had a chance at life too. Or die trying.
It was all she had. All anyone had. To keep fighting with the tools available to you until your final breath. It was what the innocent