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Only this time, my eyes were scratchy, and my throat was dry. Maybe I’d been drinking because my head also felt big, like I had a hangover.
I tried to bring my hand to my face to wipe away a sweaty piece of hair, but it wouldn’t move. I yanked harder, thinking maybe I was still asleep. Maybe I was in that place between dreams and awake when you weren’t really in your body yet. When you were still clinging to a nightmare.
“What’s this?” It was definitely the voice of my nightmares.
I blinked, and this time, my eyes opened. Bright light filtered in from skylights. They blinded me, bringing back my recent memories.
Joyce hurting me. Mike helping. The stab of betrayal.
The first thing I felt was relief because I was alive. She hadn’t injected me with a poison. I was still here. I could fight.
The sunlight told me it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two since Joyce knocked me out. It illuminated a dirty warehouse. Dust covered old, rusted machines and work tables. It was several inches thick on the floor except in the places where the roof was leaking, and pools of water had formed on the ground.
The air was stagnant and held the stench of disuse. A spring chill ran down my spine, and I was glad it wasn’t summer or I’d die of heat stroke in this place. There was nothing but corrugated steel walls to stop the weather from getting in.
“I asked you a question.” My spine tingled for a new reason now.
I lifted my eyes to the familiar voice. My mother-in-law stood before me, her arms crossed like she didn’t want to touch a single surface. As if she was too good to be standing in this abandoned building.
It all came rushing back. Joyce saying she didn’t like me. That I tricked her sons. Her drugging me. Mike going along with it.
“What are you doing?” I screamed as she moved towards me. My arms jerked, but thick rope wrapped around my wrists, tying me to an old metal chair. The sound of it creaking under my weight echoed in the building as I pulled on my restraints. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to give way. That would just leave me on the dirty floor.
She ignored my struggles as she held out her hand. Between her long, manicured nails was the small pregnancy test I shoved into my pocket this morning.
“You’re pregnant.” It wasn’t a question, but maybe it was my answer out of whatever this was.
“Yes. I took the test today.” Her bitter expression didn’t change, even as my voice cracked. “So p-please let me go. Think of the baby.”
She stepped back, and I finally drew in a breath that wasn’t soaked in her expensive perfume. The smell of disuse and dust was better than her.
She looked so out of place here, in her high-end clothes, with her leather handbag over her shoulder. It would be funny if it weren’t so goddamn scary.
Her eyes narrowed at my pleas, but I would be a fool to think I’d find mercy in her. I hadn’t found it in her son. My heart jumped in my chest as the screeching of a door opening filled the warehouse.
Joyce’s mask slipped. Her features changed to worry before she schooled them again. She shoved the test into her pocket. “Don’t mention this.”
“Who is that?” I shouted as she walked away. I couldn’t see the door around the corner, only the shaft of light telling me it was there and open. “Let me go!”
I screamed, but it was as if she didn’t hear me. She was barely out of sight when I thrashed on the chair again. The bindings dug into my arms as I pulled. The harsh fibers cutting into my skin. My grunts filled the air, covering the sounds of approaching footsteps. The fear clouding my vision made it so I didn’t see the man until he was standing beside Joyce.
“Well, she looks fun.” His mouth tipped into a smile as he studied me. He was around my age, maybe a little younger. He wore casual but upscale clothes. And he had a trendy mullet haircut.
“Who are you?” My chest stuttered. I didn’t bother asking him for help because I knew he wouldn’t give it. He didn’t seem surprised to see me here. Or upset that I was tied to a chair.
My throat closed as he came closer. His expensive tennis shoes slapped on the concrete before he crouched before me. I struggled to pull oxygen into my lungs as he smiled. It was evil, like looking at the devil himself.
“Your new master.” His gaze flicked over me, making my stomach roll as he lingered on my covered cleavage. “Maybe.”
I knew fear. I lived with it for years. It was an old friend. A weight that settled on my shoulders.
But this man evoked a feeling worse than fear. It was terror, the kind that gripped your gut. That made the contents leap into your throat.
I swallowed down the acid as I stared into his dead eyes. Not a spark of life in them.
Before I could speak, he produced a knife. This wasn’t a simple pocket knife. It was long and serrated, making me wonder where he’d been keeping it.
“Stop!” I screamed so loud my ears rattled. “I’m pregnant.”
