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Chapter 11
JADE
Present Day
Two Weeks.
That’s how long it’s been since the people closest to me betrayed me. That’s how long it’s been since I came to seek refuge in the only place I’ve ever felt safe, where I knew I wouldn’t be forced to accept my fate. Two weeks since the last time I sawhim.
Though, a lot has happened in two weeks.
It wasn’t a long walk, give or take ten miles, to my old foster home from the house I was at where I found my brother. After all it was here in Pleasant Hills and I’ve come to realize when running from monsters one usually runs pretty fast. I managed to get away, I escaped the treacherous monsters who betrayed me, the only question that remained was for how long. Because if I’ve learned anything in my few months here in Hillcrest Hills, it’s that these monsters are ruthless and that can only mean they will soon come knocking on my door.
For starters, I had to turn off my phone which was ringing incessantly with calls and messages from Sebastian, Scarlett, and Stella. I refused to answer him, I couldn’t even look my own sister in the eye let alone speak to her, and well Stella, she was punished by association. If she knew where I was, I'm sure they’d somehow convince her to tell them, some bullshit excuse about it being for my own good. That I wasn’t mentally stable enough to survive on my own or something of that sort and she’d cave, and the last thing I need is for them to come and find me.
However, as much fun as it’s been and as much as I’d like to stay here and hide away for the rest of time, this place, my safe haven, has now been tainted. Because it has also now become the place where I found out my entire life is about to be turned upside down, flipped horizontally, and twisted vertically. So although I so desperately need to stay here and wallow in deserving and totally justifiable self-pity, there’s so much I need to prepare for. And there is no better day than the present to make my surely awaited return.
Because today is Sebastian Silver’s eighteenth birthday, and I’m carrying one hell of a present.
Last week I overheard my foster mom Sarah on a phone call with Scarlett while I was coming downstairs for dinner. Sarah assured her I was doing okay and that I just needed some time to cool off and think things through, after all I had just found out my father was dead, that my brother was the one who killed him, and that my sister and the guy I was currently fucking, both knew. So sue me if I needed time to recover from that corrosive bomb. Of course shortly after I arrived, my foster moms found out about my other, slightly more precarious predicament. Not by choice, but because I haven’t been able to keep anything down since I first found out the delightful news. However, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to scarf down everything and anything in sight, especially if it’s sticky, fried, and coated in a glaze of sugary confection. The horrors of cravings versus morning sickness.
Although my moms’ swore to me they wouldn’t say anything, I’m not sure how long I can keep this to myself. I’m not ready to tell Scar, or anyone for that matter, especially not Sebastian. Hell I’m not even ready to accept the reality of what is clearly happening even if it’s blatantly obvious. I’m having a baby, and not just any baby, a baby with one of Servite Academy’s Elite, a baby with one of the notorious Four Horsemen. In typical Jade fashion, I went for the broodiest, sexiest, and all around most heartless son of a bitch there has ever existed, and there’s not a damn thing I could do about it.
Nonetheless, I can’t say that this came without warning. Since the day I arrived I’ve known something was wrong. My emotions had been running high for a while, but my body just seemed a bit off. Combined with all the stress accompanied with my sister’sdisappearance, with the Dalton’s henchmen who attacked me in Galen Grove, being constantly hot and cold with Sebastian, and how I’ve been desperately hoping to find some clue as to where my brother could be, I hadn’t realized that my period had been late. Three weeks late. Which if Sarah’s calculations are correct, makes my date of conception around the second week of January, the dreaded night I ran into Sebastian’s unsuspecting arms after the huge fight I had with my sister. A week into my stay here I finally found the nerve to grab a pregnancy test, five to be exact, from the Walmart down by the mall. I figured I’d have less of a chance of running into someone I knew there than down at one of the pharmacies or convenience stores closer to the high school. I almost asked my foster moms to go for me but I realized it would be best if I kept my suspicions to myself. That didn’t last long..
I took the tests, and fell asleep numbly in my bed, not a damn tear leaking out of my sockets. Not like I had much left after crying myself to sleep for a week straight after I saw Roman. My good friend Tequila kept me in good company on those long tearful nights.
Shit.
I curse myself for drinking myself into oblivion for a week straight, for weeks actually since the fight with my sister, and even before that there’s always been a bottle glued to my hand, but how the fuck was I supposed to know I was preg…
I can’t even get myself to finish the sentence. I can’t be fucking pregnant.
What a cliche I’ve become. Orphaned girl from the wrong side of the tracks, seduced by the rich bad boy, another goddamn teenage pregnancy added to the statistics. Of course, I’ll be eighteen in less than a month, but that doesn’t make a difference. Not that I’m judging those who have been in my position before, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever want kids. Especially not now at this age. It’s not like I had the ideal childhood to be in a hurry to start my own little pack, but here I am. Just shy of eighteen, pregnant, with a child of my, well I don’t even know what we are, and I guess that’s the bigger problem.
Because on top of being just another cliched teenage pregnancy, I’m also fucking alone.
If my mother could see me now.
I close the door of my old bedroom behind me as I drag my feet down the stairs, my overnight bag with a few changes of clothes and other essentials I also grabbed at the Walmart over my shoulder, as I head to the kitchen for dinner. I decided I’m leaving tonight, heading back to Hillcrest Hills, back to the Academy, and back to the liars and traitors I once called friends. So what if I’m being overly dramatic. I’m fucking pregnant for fucks sakes.
I find Sarah hunched over the stove, the savory aroma of her signature hearty beef chili filling the air around me, while Grayson is seated in a chair at the dinner table, a cold beer in her hand as she scowls at something she’s reading before her. The rest of the kids under their care are nowhere to be found but being Saturday and all that isn’t very strange. Sarah hears me come in as I drop my bag on the bench by the hallway leading to the front door before moving to grab a seat beside Grayson.
“I’d offer my help Sarah, but it smells too good to go to waste if I were to stick my hands where they definitely don’t belong.” Grayson chuckles beside me, clearly remembering the day I almost set the foster house on fire with the exact same pot of chili brewing on the stove. It was the fourth of July if I’m not mistaken, Grayson was going to barbeque some burgers and hot dogs in the yard, and Sarah made some chili to accompany them. I was starving and Sarah said we couldn’t start eating until the chili was done. So I figured I'd speed up the cooking process a bit.
“How you managed to get that entire pot of chili into the oven, let alone get the oven turned on is beyond me,” Sarah says, bringing me a glass of water and setting it down on the place setting before me. I glance over at the beer in Grayson’s hand, the beer I’d much rather be drinking but she’s quick to quirk her eyebrows at me in warning. Right, pregnancy equals no alcohol. For nine fucking months. I sigh loudly, grabbing the glass of cold water and bringing it to my lips gulping it down in one drink.
“I was already fifteen. I knew how to read and the oven button said start,” I respond, answering Sarah’s rhetorical question.
“Yet you weren’t old enough to figure out a pot doesn’t go in the oven?” Sarah asks, once again not really expecting a response.
“A pot can go in the oven by the way,” I say, “I researched after, it’s totally possible.”
“The problem wasn’t the pot darling, it was the rubber handles,” Grayson says, not able to contain her laughter any longer. I roll my eyes at her just as Sarah moves back into the kitchen ladling a few scoops of the delicious chili into two bowls and bringing them over to us.
“Well this one is edible, unlike the pot we had to throw out that night,” Sarah says, setting my bowl down on the table in front of me. My stomach starts rumbling with a ravishing hunger as I inhale the savory and spicy aroma that suddenly turns to an overbearing scent of cumin and chili powder.
“I’m going to be sick,” I yell out before rushing over to the nearest trash can and puking whatever remained of my lunch into it. I hack into the bin for a few moments before straightening up and turning back to face their eyes are wide with worrisome yet sympathetic looks. “Is it always like this?” I ask, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve. I guess I have to change once again before heading out or I’ll smell like vomit at the party tonight.
