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ALLIE
“He didn’t say anything?” I whispered to Jace later after we got home from the doctor’s office with an IUD stuck up my vagina and a severe cramp pinching my insides.
While I had been way too nervous to tell the nurse that the abortion wasn’t for me, she had made me take a pregnancy test beforehand to confirm. When it came back negative—thank God because I couldn’t have Jace’s baby at the moment—she offered to give me some birth control.
The nurse told me that I’d have some side effects tonight and tomorrow, like cramps and nausea, and that I had to wait an entire week to have sex again—not sure how that was going to happen, but we’d see. I wasn’t too upset about me at the moment; I had Mom to worry about.
Jace shook his head. “No.”
“Not even when I walked into the back? He didn’t take Mom anywhere, right?”
Jace turned in his bed and rubbed my stomach. “No.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and stared up at the ceiling, watching the moonlight flicker against the walls. It didn’t make sense in the slightest. Harlan had been dead fucking set on keeping Mom out of the doctor’s office with me. He had to have known that something was up; I couldn’t believe that he hadn’t said anything.
But maybe he was waiting until we got home, until he couldn’t be stopped.
“Jace, I have a bad feeling,” I said, grabbing my stomach and curling into a ball. And it wasn’t the side effects of the IUD either. It was a feeling that something really fucking bad was going to happen, a feeling that Mom was in danger.
And as I was about to jump out of bed, I heard Mom scream so fucking loudly.
“I’m sorry, Harlan! Stop it, please!”
My eyes widened, and we both got out of bed.
Jace caught my wrist. “Wait, I need to get that fucking gun.” As I waited by the door, bouncing on my toes, he hurried around the room and pulled open a bunch of drawers, tossing things out of them. “Where the fuck is it?”
“Harlan!” Mom shouted.
“Fuck it. I can’t wait.” I rushed out into the hallway.
Jace hurried after me, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind him. “It’s not where I left it. He must’ve fucking taken it. He’s a fucking psychopath, Allie. Stay here in the hall. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall now. Nothing good would come from me crying my eyes out. We had to deal with Harlan one way or another.
So, I shook my head and continued forward. “No. My mom is out there. I won’t stay calm, and I won’t let him kill her. She’s the only family that I have left, Jace. I fucking love her.”
“And if he kills you too?”
Knowing that we were losing precious time, I kissed Jace on the lips and pulled him toward the living room. “We don’t have any time. What happens tonight happens. I love you. I hope you know that.”
Mom lay in the middle of the living room, grasping her stomach, blood smeared across her teeth, as if Harlan had punched her in the mouth.
Drunk off his ass and waving a gun in the air, Harlan swayed and stared at Jace with wide, devilish, horrifying eyes. “Look who thought he could come save the day.”
I lurched forward to help Mom, but Jace held me back.
“Don’t be stupid.”
My stomach tightened, throat closing up. Don’t be stupid? Don’t be fucking stupid? Let Harlan wave a gun at Mom, punch, kick, beat her while she is pregnant? I couldn’t fucking do that. I couldn’t.
“Let her go!” I yelled at Harlan, tears in my eyes. “Please, she didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Didn’t do anything wrong?” Harlan let out a lifeless laugh. “She fucked another man behind my back, like your stepbrother’s whore mother did. She did plenty fucking wrong, Allie. Don’t fucking tell me she didn’t.”
“She’s not preg—”
“I made her take a pregnancy test two minutes ago. She’s pregnant.” He leaned down and trailed the gun up Mom’s throat, making her whimper out. “You are, sweetie, aren’t you?”
