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“Yeah,” I say, trying to nod, but I’m afraid to make any fast movements. “It might not be twenty passes, but it’s a start,” I manage.
“Do you want to do it again?” she asks.
I want to say yes, but my stomach is churning. I don’t know if it’s my head injury. I don’t know what’s the matter, but I dash out the door and around the corner of the house just in time… to lose my lunch all over the ground.
I hold the side of the house, gasping, my eyes damp with tears. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I’m not getting better. In fact, I’m afraid I’m getting worse. What if I have internal bleeding? What if my brain is swelling?
Ximena appears at my side, and she touches my arm. She reaches around my shoulder and helps me move back, away from my vomit, back to the front of the house facing the yard.
“Na estado?” she asks, dark eyes large, face lined with worry. “Beibi?”
My eyes hold hers a moment. I don’t know their language, but some words sound the same in any language.
“What did you…” I can’t finish my sentence as I race through the math, as I race through all of it.
From the time I arrived in Monagasco and met Cal, we’d pretty much had a long, sex-filled holiday until I ran away. Then when he found me, we’d spent the proceeding days making up for lost time.
How long has it been? I don’t remember having a period since… before we left for Monagasco. So many weeks ago… A month ago? Two months? Oh, god, I don’t even know!
How could I be so careless? I’ve never been careless about such things… It’s yet another way MacCallum Lockwood Tate came in and turned my carefully controlled life upside down.
Sliding my hands over my cheeks, I know none of that matters now. What’s worse is it only makes me long for him more. Tears flood my eyes. Cal… I need Cal. I can’t be here in this… prison camp away from him, possibly facing death, and pregnant with his child.
Pushing away from Ximena, I shake my head. “No!” I gasp. “Not like this.”
I have to get back. I don’t know how, but I have to get out of this place. I have to save our baby.
Holding the wall, I trail my fingers along the blocks as I make my way to the house. Selena is inside humming a tune while she cleans up the dishes.
“Hey,” I go around to where she’s standing and hold her hands. My desperate mind is scrambling for any possibility. “Tell me about your school.”
She smiles so big when she sees me and jumps forward to hug me. “You saved my mama. You are a good person.”
“It was nothing,” I say fast. “Tell me about your school. Do you have a teacher?”
This makes her laugh. “Of course, I have a teacher! Miss Jimenez. She’s my best friend Elana’s mother.”
“Elana? Does she live here on the island?”
Selena nods. “Her mama is one of Enrique’s women. They stay on the other side of the island.
My insides plunge. “What do you mean? She’s not a real teacher?”
“She has a book, Will-iam Shakespeare,” Selena only stumbles slightly o
ver his name. “She taught us to speak English and write our names in English.”
Closing my eyes, I shake my head as my hope begins to die. “But she never leaves the island? She doesn’t know how to get away from here?”
Selena’s brow wrinkles, and she looks at me as if I just suggested the most outrageous thing. “No one leaves the island.”
“But the boats… How do you think I got here?”
“Yes,” that makes her nod. “You were brought on a boat. But the boats don’t take us away.”
Pacing the small space, I chew on my nail. “How old are you?” I ask, pausing.
“Thirteen,” she says, “but Mama says I’m twelve. Mako leaves us alone if we’re twelve.”
