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My eyes widened as something occurred to me. “Oh, shit,” I said, sitting bolt upright.
“What’s wrong?”
“Remember what I said about them monitoring me for the next few weeks?” I said in a hushed voice, looking around the room. “What if they’re listening right now, and they know I told you?”
Jensen shook his head. “They’re not. Zara came in here a few minutes ago, and she had no idea what we were talking about. Remember?”
“Oh, right.” I breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back in the hospital bed. “I guess they didn’t bother bugging this room because they figured I wouldn’t remember anything right away. And I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t come in and helped me.”
He nodded slowly. “I bet they’ve bugged your phone with some sort of listening device and a keylogger so they can keep track of everything you say or write. Do you know where it is?”
“Either Zara has it or the police do. It’s not in here.”
“Okay.” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “What if they find our message history in it? They’ll know I know something then, won’t they?”
“I deleted all the messages on my end yesterday, just in case,” I said. “I was paranoid because I didn’t know who the Rosmerta contact was or what they were capable of doing, and I didn’t want them to find out that I broke the rules and told someone about the letter.”
“Okay. Good.” Jensen rubbed his forehead, eyes flashing with concern. “Zara said they’re going to take you to that Playground place at the twelve week mark, right?”
“Yes. I’m eight weeks along now.”
“That gives us a month,” he said, gaze lingering on my midsection under the blanket. “Four weeks to find solid, undeniable proof to take the society down.”
“That’s not long,” I murmured, nervously twisting a corner of the blanket into a knot. “Not in the grand scheme of things.”
Jensen set his jaw and straightened his broad shoulders. “I’m going to get you a burner phone so we can communicate in secret,” he said. “Your bedroom at home is probably bugged with a camera and listening device, so if you want to message me on the burner, put it inside a book and make it look like you’re reading while you text. That way the person who reviews the footage won’t get suspicious.”
“Okay.”
“You need to act like you don’t remember anything from last night,” he went on. “If they know you do remember, they’ll keep an extra-sharp eye on you over the next few weeks. Or they might even take you early. So you have to act totally clueless.”
“Okay.” I sucked down a shaky breath and rested a hand on my aching forehead. “God, this is so fucked up.”
“I know,” Jensen said softly. “But don’t worry. I’ll get that proof.”
My eyes misted over. “How?” I asked, voice threatening to crack.
“I’m not sure yet. But I’ll get you out of this, Amerie.” Jensen leaned closer and stroked a tender thumb along my jaw. “I promise.”
Jensen
I clenched the steering wheel tightly as I turned into the school parking lot. My eyes were focused on the road, but my mind was consumed by rage, shock, and sorrow.
I hadn’t slept for more than five minutes at a time since I visited Amerie in the hospital yesterday afternoon. I still couldn’t believe what she’d discovered down in that cave. Couldn’t believe so many people in this town were part of a baby mill scheme that functioned on the backs of women who were essentially slaves.
That scheme included my parents and older sister. I didn’t know they were in the Rosmerta Society for sure, because I wasn’t at a level where I was allowed to know such things, but I was fairly certain they were. Our family definitely had the right amount of wealth and prestige in this community to be part of it.
Of course, I couldn’t say anything to any of them. Until I had a solid plan formulated, I had to play dumb and act like my world hadn’t tilted on its axis over the last twenty-four hours. Amerie’s life literally depended on it.
As I pulled into a parking spot, I slammed my fist against the steering wheel and let out a growl of frustration. How the fuck could so many people in this town be seduced into aiding such a terrible system?
Even as I wondered that, the answer was already lingering on the periphery of my mind. Money. Everything in this sick fucking world always came down to that. Always. The allure of a rich and easy life courtesy of all the favors and access that the Rosmerta Society granted was enough to convince most of them to join, even when they knew it all came at the expense of pregnant slaves.
The rest—who still had a whisper of a conscience—probably deluded themselves into justifying and accepting the existence of the scheme by saying things like ‘Most of the women choose it for themselves as a way to pay off debts’ or ‘They’re well taken care of and live for free, never having to worry about rent or mortgage payments or bills of any kind’. As if such a scheme could ever be fucking ethical. And that wasn’t even counting the girls like Amerie who were sold by their own families and forced to take part in the scheme.
Bile rose in my throat as my mind drifted back to everything Amerie had gone through. It was bad enough that those bastards had stolen her away from her life under the pretense of being her family. Impregnating her against her will while systematically destroying her reputation in this community was a whole new level of evil.
If things went according to their plan, all the regular non-Rosmerta people in this town would turn a blind eye to Amerie’s eventual disappearance. None of them would be particularly concerned about it, given her reputation, and her name would eventually become a punchline around dinner tables. People would remember her as ‘that crazy drug fiend who threatened to shoot up the school one time’. They’d say ‘Oh, it was such a shame that she vanished, but we all know what happens to girls like that in the end’. Then they’d change the subject and go back to their normal, boring lives without even considering the sordid things that could be happening in their town’s slimy underbelly.
