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“I know.” Pregnant. Aurick’s baby. Prophecy.
“Was it really that important that the Mazonist Brothers didn’t hear any bits of the prophecy?” she asks.
I wipe my mouth. “You have no idea.”
“How’re you feeling?” Niles asks as he examines my sore forehead. Why does he have to be so nice? So caring?
“Splitting headache. Nausea. Tender breasts.”
He raises his eyebrows. Looks down at my boobs. Back up to my face. “Ah.”
The table laughs. But I can’t shake the prickle of nerves rising on the back of my neck. The feeling of someone watching me. A wave of unease. A stare burning a hole in the back of my head. I turn around to peer over my shoulder, scanning the sea of beat down faces, inspecting whether anyone is setting their focus on me.
We follow the single-file line to the regale hour in the stadium. I follow behind our group at the end, holding my forehead to ease the sickening throb from knocking myself out last night. I can’t even bring myself to laugh as Warrose makes a joke about Niles having baby arms. Or Niles flexing to show the group his muscles.
Everything hurts, and I feel paranoid.
We enter the stadium, but as I step forward to follow my group inside, several pairs of arms wrap around my stomach, chest, throat, and legs. I try to scream, though some kind of cloth is shoved into my mouth. A hand secures itself there to keep me from making any noise.
I know how to fight back. I know how I should manipulate my body to break free. But they have me in a tight grip, too many of them are holding me down. And my head is fucking pounding. I squirm, buck, thrash around, but I’ve gotten nowhere. We’re ushered down a private hallway, into a dark, secluded room.
The five men and two women start yelling at me in Old Alkadonian. I try to tell them I can’t understand but am unable to speak through the ball of cloth.
What if they try to hurt my belly?
Panic triggers my adrenaline. I’m tingling from head to toe. Ready to fight. Waiting to see what they plan on doing with me.
I’m slammed on a table, held down as a skinny blond man holds a tool in front of me, small like a pair of scissors without sharp blades. He waves it around with a taunting smile. Blond beard. Thin, measly limbs. It’s the same man who tried to masturbate to Ruth.
Damn it.
I try to ask what he wants, but it comes out in a muffled slur of vowels.
Without so much as an explanation, my hand is held out toward him, and he hovers the metal tip of the tool toward my index finger.
Wait…
My maneuver to swivel off the table is seamless. Judas always used to describe my stealth and fight as like a feral cat. Hitting the floor, they all reach for me, but my legs hook their ankles. A few drop. Hands latch around my throat. When did my wrists get chained together?
I’m defenseless as my vision fogs up.
With a thud, someone tosses me back on the table. I gasp into the cloth, heaving as I try to gain my bearings. Did I pass out? Ankles are chained to the table now. I sway and shift with the dizziness from being strangled.
“Holonasecoon!!!!” I try to tug my hand away, but they have me pinned to the point of dried cement, chained, and outnumbered.
“Pahhhleeese!” Do I tell them I’m pregnant? Would they care? Could they even understand me if it weren’t for this cloth in my mouth?
The skinny man smiles with his rotting, brown teeth. And with one swift squeeze, he clamps the tool around the tip of my nail. My eyes bulge from their sockets. I gasp as he rips it clean off the meat of my fingertip.
“Ahhhhhggg!!!”
The pain swoops in like an apocalyptic forest fire. Searing through my hand, winding up my arm. I howl against the rag, choke on my own screams as he does it again and again and again. The awful sound of nails peeling off raw, exposed flesh.
Why are they doing this to me? What have I done?
My thoughts rot in my brain, turning into a sour mush. My eyes go blurry and blind through the thick coating of tears. I’m shaking, suffocating, unable to make sense of the beginning or ending of my anguish.
The dark, decaying room spins, and I turn my head to the side. Vomit floods my mouth, being blocked by the gag and a hand. It has nowhere to go, nowhere to exit. I try to swallow it back down, the chunky, sour substance, but it just keeps purging back up. I convulse forward, gargle on it, fight not to breathe it in.
