I'd found out I was pregnant just yesterday morning. Figured I'd make peace with it and tell Paul that evening.
By the afternoon, a dull ache had settled low in my belly. I called Paul, but he never picked up.
It wasn't until Eleanor sent me a photo that I realized where he'd been. He'd thrown a party for her.
Paul caught the shift in my focus, and a flicker of guilt crossed his face.
He'd conveniently forgotten about Eleanor puncturing the condoms.
Eleanor saw him about to step toward me and quickly looped her arm through his. "Paul, I heard that after a miscarriage, the body doesn't always... expel everything cleanly. And if I hadn't insisted on dragging you to that party, your wife wouldn't have ended up like this. It's all my fault."
She drifted to the side of my bed, her gaze dropping to my stomach. A wave of dread washed over me.
"Why don't I help press the residue out for her? Consider it my apology."
Between the weakness draining my body and my scattered attention, I didn't react fast enough. She got her hands on me.
The pain in my abdomen exploded through every nerve. Blood soaked through the sheets in a widening stain.
Eleanor's eyes were bright with excitement. That look. It was the same look the monster from eight years ago had worn.
She couldn't contain herself. "Paul, look! I really did press it out for her. See? I told you it wasn't clean."
Her hands bore down harder. Paul stood rooted to the spot, making no move whatsoever to pull her off me.
In my panic, my fingers found a glass IV bottle on the rolling supply cart beside the bed. I swung it at her head.
Silence. Finally.
Paul snapped back to reality and rushed forward to catch Eleanor as she crumpled.
His eyes brimmed with concern for her. When they turned to me, all I saw was disgust and contempt. "Jessica, if anything happens to Ellie, I swear you'll pay for it."
I lay on the bed and watched him carry Eleanor out. All I felt was a savage rush of satisfaction.
The blood beneath me seemed to be gushing now. I used every last shred of strength to press the call button at the head of the bed.
The sound of frantic footsteps in the corridor flooded me with relief, and the world went black.
So tired. I want Mom and Dad. I just want to be their carefree little princess again.
A doctor's voice wound through the darkness: "The patient has no will to survive. Increase the dosage. Find whoever matters most to her and bring them in. See if that gets a response."
The person who matters most? They were all gone.
The man I once believed I'd spend my life with had died in my heart just minutes ago.
I sank into a long, long dream. Paul wasn't in it. Only the three of us: Mom, Dad, and me, happy together.
Then, in a blink, my parents were ripped away mid-stride while we were shopping. Strangers seized them and dragged them off.
They brought me to where my parents were being held and forced me to choose one of them.
The ringleader looked like he'd swallowed something rotten. His eyes were wild, manic, brimming with a sick thrill.
"No... please, no. What do you want? Money? I have money. I'll go get it for you, as much as you want. Just let my parents go. Please."
I dropped to my knees, begging, pleading for their lives.
One of the men dragged over a crate of cash and dumped it over my head.
"Money? I've got plenty of money. What I want is their lives. You know how many of my brothers died because of them?"
"If it weren't for your precious parents, I wouldn't have spent years running and hiding like a rat."
He grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of my skull and wrenched my head up, forcing me to look at Mom and Dad. He leveled a gun at each of them. "Choose. Or they both die."
"No..."
When I refused, he put a bullet through my father's leg.
