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Ransom helps me through it, and then gets me a glass of water.
I gulp it down gratefully, even if my stomach is still unhappy.
I know he’s got a point about the possibility of me being poisoned, but I don’t even want to think about that. And most likely, if Olivia was going to have someone poison me, it would be with something fast-acting. Something I wouldn’t have a chance to recover from.
There used to be times before I met the guys, where the combination of working long hours, dealing with school work, and barely eating anything because I couldn’t afford too much would leave me feeling sick sometimes, but it was never anything like this.
Never anything that came on so suddenly in the morning—
I suck in a breath as soon as I have that thought, my chest going tight. Hopefully it’s just a coincidence that I’m feeling this sick out of nowhere first thing in the morning, but…
With shaky fingers, I reach over to rub at my left arm, feeling for the place where my birth control implant is supposed to be.
But the usual bump of it isn’t there.
It’s gone.
My stomach drops out.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my god. Oh fuck.”
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to take deep breaths, trying to calm down, but it’s no good.
When Troy abducted me in Mexico, I was drugged, barely conscious for an unknown amount of time as he transported me back to his safe house outside Detroit. I’ve never had any real idea what he or his men did to me during that time, although I was well aware that at some point, they stripped me and changed my clothes. I didn’t want to think about it too much, since every time I did, it just made me feel more horrified and helpless.
But the truth is, he had the perfect opportunity to remove my birth control implant during that time. After the men got me back from Troy, I was beat up and bruised, with cuts and lacerations all over. It didn’t even occur to me to check for it, partly because it never occurred to me that Troy mightwantto get me pregnant.
“Oh god,” I murmur again, the words thick and choked.
“Willow?” Ransom comes over and crouches on the floor beside me, but I barely notice him, caught up in my own panic.
He strokes his fingers through my hair, brushing it back from my face. His hands are gentle, but I feel like I’m removed from the moment. Like everything is happening to someone else, and I’m watching it from behind a pane of glass. It’s all muted and distorted, and I have enough of a handle on things to recognize that I’m in some sort of shock.
“You’re scaring me, angel. Please talk to me. What’s wrong?”
The concern in Ransom’s voice cuts through the fog in my head a little, and I blink up at him.
“I…”
My voice sounds wrecked, half from the panic and half from my throat being raw from throwing up. I shake my head, not even sure how to begin to get something like this out.
How can I tell him?
How can I even come to terms with something like this?
A part of my mind casts around for some other explanation. Some other reason that I might be feeling sick. If I am pregnant, maybe the father is one of the brothers and not Troy.
But I know it doesn’t line up like that. Up until Troy captured me, I was on birth control. The implant was safely tucked away in my arm, doing the work of keeping me from getting knocked up. There was no real chance of me getting pregnant.
And now…
I cover my face, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes as if I could block out everything if I just try hard enough. My head is spinning out of control, and my heart is racing so fast it feels like it might beat out of my chest.
“Shit,” Ransom murmurs. “You’re pale as a fucking ghost. I need you to tell me what’s wrong.Wasit poison? Do you feel worse? If we need to get you to a hospital or something, then we have to move—”
“No. That’s not it,” I manage to choke out.
“Then what is it?”
