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This time, he chains me to the radiator himself, almost as if he needs to punish me personally for all my wrongdoing against him. He would never give his assistants such pleasure.
His grip on me is harsher, more intentional and aggressive than it had been. He’s actuallyangrythat I’m pregnant.
Is it because he knows it’s Akim’s baby?
Is hejealous?
If he figures out that it’s Akim’s baby, he’ll have even more leverage to get Akim to do what he wants for him. I suddenly feel one thousand times guiltier than I did before. My very existence in his life has put Akim’s life in jeopardy.
Luka slams the door on his way out, deadbolting it twice this time, even though none of us has ever managed to escape from the basement.
When he’s finally gone, I curl up into a ball and break down. I can’t hold back anymore. I don’t know what I could have ever done to deserve this, especially after being cheated on by Elliot. What kind of person am I that this is my fate?
“It was your first time?” a quiet, mellow female voice asks. She’s about ten feet from me.
I pause before answering. I haven’t spoken to these women at all, and they’ve never tried to speak to me either. I thought we had some sort of unspoken agreement.
“I’m pregnant,” I squeak through the tears as I hold back more heavy sobs. My whole face is hot and wet with tears, and right now, I can’t imagine a time when it won’t be. I don’t know how I’ll get through day after day of this knowing how detrimental it is to my baby.
Ourbaby.
“Pregnant,” the voice repeats, and I can hear in the lilted, elongated second syllable that this woman is likely not a native English speaker.
“Yes, I’m pregnant, and I’m trapped here,” I say, unsure of how much this woman will understand before she can no longer empathize with me. Knowing that most of these women can’t even communicate with me makes me feel more alone than if I’d been here by myself.
“I was pregnant when I came here, too,” she replies, her voice distant as if hypnotized by the reality of her situation.
“What happened to your baby?” I ask, my voice quivering as my racing heart wavers it.
No response.
I wait for her to say something, and for at least twenty seconds, I listen closely for any indication that she’s there at all. I don’t even hear her breathing.
Was it really that bad?
“What happened to your baby?” I ask again.
No response.
My bones are chilled by her silence. Her final statement,I was pregnant when I came here too,gives us a grim similarity. Her silence at my question furthers my belief that something awful happened to her baby, and it will happen to mine too.
She knows that something awful is going to happen to me here, and she knows that telling me what thatsomethingis will do nothing but cause me to panic. For that, I can thank her for her kindness.
But it does bother me that I feel unprepared. I can’t make another plan to escape if I have no idea what’s coming. It’s a matter of survival, of life and death.
I’ve developed a habit of telling time based on the noises that I can hear from upstairs. It was about five PM when I was brought up from the basement for my physical evaluation, and since then, I’ve been able to understand the rise and fall of human noises as the sun rises and sets. The only time I’ve been thrown off my rhythm is when somebody randomly shows up in the middle of the night for god knows what reason.
In the blackness of the basement, all I can think about is the fate of my baby if I’m not able to escape this place. Luka’s already on the lookout for me since I already tried to break away, which means that he’s likely gone through and meticulously closed off any creative exit spots in the estate.
All I know about my parents is that they died in a car crash. It was no fault of their own; a drunk driver hit them, coming head-on on the wrong side of the highway. It was raining, so they could hardly see where he was. They left me behind through no fault of their own, and I’ve never blamed them for that.
What would happen to my baby if I was sold to some cruel man across the globe? Would my child hold it against me for their entire life?
I know for a fact that Luka would never, ever have the decency to allow the child to meet their father, Akim. In fact, he would more than likely use the baby as a bargaining chip to get what he wants from Akim at all costs.
If he even lets me keep it.
Occasionally, I’ll drift into a semi-asleep state where I dream about my baby. In these dreams, I’m almost always eight or nine months pregnant, and I’m shocked at how quickly the pregnancy has progressed, terrified even. I’m always lying on a hospital bed in the middle of a hallway in the labor and delivery unit of a run-down hospital sitting in a field, surrounded by nothing.
