“Oh, Brooke,” she murmurs. “I knew it.”
My stomach drops. “How?”
“The biscuit,” her voice softens. “With the honey. That’s what your mother craved when she was pregnant with you. She couldn’t keep anything else down.”
“You have to help me,” I beg, leaning forward as far as the restraints allow. The rope cuts deeper into my ribs. “Please. I can’t stay here.”
Mary’s gaze drops for a second, like she’s weighing something she already decided.
“Sweetheart, this is bigger than you and me. Decisions are already in motion.” Her voice lowers. “There are things I can’t interfere with.”
“Auntie,” I whisper. “Please.”
Her eyes flicker, just once. Pity maybe, or regret, then it is gone. She looks at me as if she has already made her choice and learned to live with it.
The door creaks.
Mary straightens instantly, hands folding neatly in her lap, composure snapping back into place like a reflex.
John enters with the calm of a man delivering a verdict.
“Your best option is not a pleasant one,” John continues, “you’re being transferred to Elliot’s Manor.”
Mary’s composure wavers. “John…she’s pregnant.”
John turns toward her slowly. “What?”
“She’s pregnant,” she repeats. “That changes things, right?”
John stares at her for a long moment. Then his gaze slides back to me.
“You should have told me.”
I glare at him. “And what would you have done? Give me a baby shower?”
“How far along?”
“I don’t know.”
He nods once.
“This complicates things,” he says.
Mary steps closer, her voice tight with hope. “Does that protect her?”
John looks at her.
“No.”
My grip tightens against the chair until the wood digs into my palm.
“If Brooke is just another capable young woman, they can find ways to use her for a long time,” he continues. “But pregnancy changes that. She’ll slow down. She’ll get tired. Eventually she’ll be too far along to do much of anything.”
My jaw tightens.
“They are not the kind of people who enjoy maintaining complications,” he adds. “They prefer efficiency.”
John slowly paces in front of me, hands behind his back.
