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“You never heard of fuckin’ Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate? These are madmen who call themselves leaders. They have no fuckin’ limits on what they will do or who they will hurt.”
“The only way out is over, Addison, don’t forget that okay?”I hear Charlie's warning in my head as I sink into the chair beside me.
“My sister.” She still lives among them. “I should have taken her with me. I was just so panicked and scared. I couldn’t have my baby there, I had to get us out.”
“Shhhhhh. You did what ya had to do.” Skid moves to kneel in front of me.
“I have to get her out of there. It’s been years, she will probably have a husband and children of her own by now.”
“Addison, calm down.” Skid holds me steady. “We’re gonna work on it.”
“Work on what? You can’t stop him from coming for us. You can’t be with us twenty-four hours a day, Skid. Charlie needs to go to school. I can’t see this ever being over. He’s got me just as trapped out here as I was back there. And knowing that Everleigh still suffers it—”
“Addison!” Skid’s grip on my arms gets tighter as my breathing becomes more erratic. He’s trying to calm me down, but he doesn’t understand. I lived there for all those years. The Elders are leading these people to believe the outside world is cursed when, in reality, they are the threat.
“Breathe,” he reminds me, taking deep, steady breaths to try and encourage me to join in. “You don’t want Charlie to see you like this.” His voice remains calm but it does no good. My chest is tightening by the second. I haven’t had a panic attack for years and with my heartbeat thudding in my ears, I try so hard to focus on the fact that right now, in this moment, we’re safe.
“He can’t hurt you, now. You did the right thing, you got both of you out. And look at me.” Skid takes my face in his hands harshly. “Iwillmake sure he never comes near you again. I’m going to find that man and I am goin’ to kill him. I will kill every single one of ‘em if that's what it takes.” I see the sincerity in his eyes and what happens next is an act of pure impulse.
I lean forward and press my lips against his. His rough palms still frame my face and he doesn’t use them to push me away, instead he clings to me tighter. I feel them slide up to the back of my head and grip my hair, his tongue slipping between my lips and making all my anxieties disappear.
A loud crash comes from the bedroom, and when Skid quickly pulls away we both rush to the bedroom door and find Charlie standing among the track and trains that have been tipped out all over the floor.
“Sorry, Mama.” He looks up at us and I breathe a sigh of relief that he’s okay, picking him up into my arms, but I don’t miss the look of guilt that’s on Skid’s face.
“I just remembered there’s somewhere I gotta be.” He nods his head, making no eye contact as he rushes out the front door and leaves me wondering if it will always be this way between us.
“Skid!” I scream his name and he comes crashing through the door like a tornado looking real worried.
“Come quick, you have to feel this.” I reach out for his hand and place it on my stomach where I can feel the baby moving around. “Do you feel that?”
“Yeah, I feel it.” He looks a little uncomfortable at first but it doesn’t take long for a smile to creep onto his face. Skid looks real handsome when he smiles, it feels kinda special too, since he doesn’t do it all that often.
“Is this the first time?”
“Yeah.” I nod back, suddenly very aware that his fingertips are touching my bare skin, it puts a real strange feeling in the pit of my stomach and makes my whole body feel tingly. “I mean, I’ve felt flutters before but never this. This feels completely different.”
Skid keeps his eyes focused on the hand he has placed on my stomach, seeming every bit as fascinated as I am.
“Do you ever think about having kids?” I ask, curious to how Skid plans to move on with his life. If what I heard about him having a wife that died was true, I wonder if he’ll ever be able to love again.
He pulls his hand away like my skin suddenly burns.
“I should get back to lookin’ at the heater.” He keeps his eyes on the floor as he leaves me alone and walks out the room almost as quickly as he came into it.
I sigh and stroke my expanding tummy. When I found out I was pregnant, I instantly went into protection mode. My first focus was to get me and my unborn child away from that horrendous place. And the more time that passes, the more I’ve realized how crazy it all was.
Sometimes, thinking that the child that grows inside me belongs to Abraham makes me shudder. I have nightmares of my time in that cold, damp prison he kept me in until I conceived, and just lately, the only way to make myself feel better is to imagine that things were different. When I’m alone with my memories and they start to become too painful, I make new ones up in my head. Ones where the child that grows inside me belongs to Skid. I pretend that this house that he’s been working so hard on is for the three of us to live in together.
Sharing moments like the one we just did makes me excited for my future, not scared of it. It’s something I have to keep to myself. I could never admit to Skid how I feel. Yet every now and again I catch the way he looks at me and wonder if maybe he might feel it a little too.
It's getting dark when Skid finally comes down the stairs, his tee is stuck to his skin from sweat and his black hair is stuck to his forehead causing him to look damn hot.
“Well, it’s workin’, I had to near enough take the damn thing apart but I got there in the end.” He smiles at me awkwardly as he moves toward the basin to wash his hands.
“Thanks.” I smile, trying my best not to stare at him.
I don’t know if it’s pregnancy hormones, but lately, I've been craving a lot more than just Nutter Butters. I often think about Skid in other ways than just being my baby's father. I think about how it would be to kiss him, and how it might be to have him hold me at night in bed. A few days ago I even touched myself in the shower when I thought about how it would feel to have him lathering my body with the sponge instead of doing it myself.
