Psycho (The Line Walkers #2)

8. Chapter 8 – Olivia

Chapter 8 – Olivia

I leaned against the door and checked the peephole, and sure enough, there was a box sitting on the mat. I fought the urge to smile, but failed.

Was Maddox flirting with me?

Was that how feral bears flirted? Foraging and bringing their crushes gifts like cozy blankets and food?

I mean, if I thought about it long enough, that did kind of sound like something a bear would do to flirt with a girl, but what did I know? I was a pregnant almost thirty-year-old with no baby daddy in sight, thank god , being held hostage in a luxury tower of sorts by my feral gate keeper.

My life was a weird fucking fairy tale, I didn’t have time to contemplate animal rituals.

I opened the door and picked up the box, before staring down the hallway to Maddox’s closed door like one day, maybe he’d be waiting out there for me to get his gift. But he wasn’t, so I went back inside.

My phone rang, and I rolled my eyes as I set the box down and went into the bedroom to get it.

“Yes, there was a gift. No, I have not opened it yet. And good morning to you, too.” I stated in place of a greeting.

Every morning, Peyton called to see what Maddox gave me. Even though she planned to visit me in my opulent prison later that day, she still called first thing to find out what had been delivered.

Yesterday, I ignored her call while Maddox was visiting and when I called her back later, I avoided telling her about the cocoa butter lotion. I just couldn’t stomach the idea of telling her I’d fucked up again, and ended up pregnant on top of the whole mess I was already in.

“Well, open it up!” She prodded, eager to see what today’s gift was. It was kind of nice finding commonality in something so mundane and normal with Peyton for the first time in forever.

I seriously doubted it was a pair of shoes, considering I hadn’t put shoes on in weeks thanks to my confinement, but anything was possible. “Okay,” I grinned, flipping the top up, “It’s a—” I screamed bloody murder and slammed the lid down back on top of it.

“What?” Peyton screeched through the phone. “Liv! What is it?”

“Uh,” I stammered and tried to form a sentence to describe what was in the box waiting for me. “It’s uh—” I swallowed and instantly regretted it as nausea bubbled up in my throat. “Fuck.”

“LIV!” Peyton’s scream through the phone followed me as I ran to the toilet and threw up my orange juice. “Are you puking?”

Dane’s voice came through the speaker as I retched again, “What are you screaming about Puppet?”

“Liv screamed! She opened a box from Maddox and then screamed and now she’s puking.”

“Oh!” His sick voice cheered through the line as I rested my forehead on my arm. “She got the fingers.”

“The what?” Peyton gasped.

“Stop talking.” I groaned, “Or I’m going to puke again.”

Dane chuckled, “I told him not to actually hand deliver you the proof.” His sick laugh sounded again, “Hand deliver—get it?”

“He gave her body parts ?” Peyton cried and then gagged, “I think I’m going to puke.”

“Hang up!” I yelled and retched again. The last thing we needed was an audible puking war to keep us both going.

“Olivia!” Maddox bellowed from the front door, and I groaned, as a cold sweat broke out over my skin.

“Go away!” I yelled and then retched again.

“Damnit.” He appeared at the doorway and moved behind me, kneeling at my back and pulling my hair out of the spray as I heaved again. “I’m sorry, Storm.”

“Fingers!” I gasped, “You gave me fingers!”

“Would you have preferred the entire skull?”

Gag. At least this time, there was nothing left to join it.

“Shh,” He ran his hand over my back as I pathetically laid my head back down. “I’m sorry.”

I flushed the toilet, desperate not to let him see the mess, and then slowly lifted my head. “It’s okay.” I sighed, “I did say I wanted the head. I just didn’t think you would actually do it.”

He chuckled softly and then grabbed a washcloth from the stand next to the sink and ran cold water over it. “Here.”

I wiped my mouth and then flipped it over and cooled my face with it before finally looking over my shoulder at the man. “Morning sickness is a bitch.”

He put his hands under my arms and helped me stand up before leading us out of the bathroom. “Couch or bed?”

“Pickles.” I replied, and he scoffed.

“Excuse me?”

“Pickles are the only thing I want right now. But I’m all out.”

“I gave you a giant jar of them a few days ago.” He led me to the couch, and I curled up under my favorite blanket. At least this time, I had been prepared for guests and was fully clothed. Though the way he had looked at me last time in my thin nightshirt made me feel warm and fuzzy all over.

“I ate all of them that day. And it’s not as if I can just go to the store.”

“Why can’t you?” He shook his head.

“Because I’m a prisoner!”

“Jesus, woman.” He rubbed his hand over his beard and sighed, “You have to vocalize your needs to me if you want me to figure them out. I’m way out of my pay grade right now. But you have to tell me if you want or need something so I can make it happen.”

“I’m sorry.” I pouted, feeling stupid for needing something I should be able to provide for myself.

“Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait,” I called when he walked to the front door, afraid he was about to go to the store all for a jar of pickles. “You don’t have to—”

The door shut in response, and I sagged into the couch. Crap. My eyes scanned the room and landed on the red shoe box still on my counter and I covered my nose with my blanket and sank further into it. The fingers were still on my kitchen counter.

“Here.” Maddox came back in, with two giant jars of pickles in his hands, and he paused when he saw me hiding. “What?”

I pointed with just my nose at the counter. “Fingers.”

“Oh, yeah.” He set the jars down and then carried the box out to the hallway and set it on the floor before coming back in. “Sorry.”

He picked up one jar and a fork from the drawer and came back to the living room. He sat down on the couch next to me and I hated how fucking normal it felt to share a piece of furniture with the man after everything else that happened. Yet there we were, chilling like he hadn’t killed a man for me and gave me his fingers.

“Wait.” I stammered as he popped open the jar and stabbed a fork into a pickle and then held it out to me.

“Are you going to puke again?” He recoiled comically, and I glared at him.

“No. The body the digits were once affixed to—” I droned on, trying not to say any words that might trigger the nausea again.

“Uh huh—” He tilted his head, waiting for more.

“Is it still warm?”

He sat back up fully and grinned and his perfect white teeth momentarily blinded me before he sarcastically replied, “Stone cold.”

“You killed him?”

“Deader than a doornail.”

“Which one was it? Or who, I mean?” I took the offered pickle and took a bite of it, no longer able to resist the snack so easily presented to me.

“Terrance Gaves.” He watched me closely as I chewed, mulling that over in my head.

Terrance Gaves was sick and demented in the head, every time he visited a woman from the Velvet Cage, she left with some sort of wound, visible or not it didn’t matter.

“Good.” I chewed and looked back up at him. “He was a sick fuck.”

His eyebrows rose slightly, and he grinned again, “So you’re saying I should have played with him longer—”

“Shut up.” I barked, pausing to see if the nausea would come or not from his flippant words, but there was none, so I took another bite. “No descriptive words. Or I’ll puke in your lap.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He took the fork and speared another pickle and handed it to me. “So, pickles, huh?”

“I fucking hate them, actually.” I deadpanned even as I groaned from my next bite. “But I can’t stop.”

“Whatever the baby wants, right?” He asked, and his words felt like a physical shift into a conversation I didn’t want to have.

“You didn’t tell Dane or P, did you?”

“No.” He watched me closely, “But can you tell me why you didn’t?”

I picked at a stray string on the blanket as I contemplated how to answer that correctly. Then I decided just to speak it into existence. “Because I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. So, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to tell them if I don’t.”

He watched me silently for a long time, like he didn’t know what to say exactly. Then he asked a question I had hoped he’d spare me. “Who’s the father?”

I took a deep breath and instinctively placed my hand on my still non-existent bump and whispered the answer. “Damon.”

“Did you—,” He paused and turned to face me on the couch with one leg bent between us. “Did he—?”

“Rape me?” I filled in the missing words for him, and he nodded. “No.” I sighed again, “But it wasn’t consensual either. Sex was part of the blackmail.” I shrugged like it didn’t kill me to expose myself so openly, “But my birth control didn’t work and now I’m here.”

“And you’re thinking of abortion? Or adoption?”

“I can’t carry a baby to term and give it away.” I admitted. “I’m not that brave.”

“I think carrying a baby to term period is brave, Olivia.”

“I don’t think I can do that either.” A tear fell over my lashes, landing on the blanket covering my growing little baby, as I whispered.

He slid his hand under the blanket and into the pocket of my hoodie where mine rested against my stomach, lacing our fingers together. I blinked away the tears and looked up at him, and damn if it didn’t feel like my entire world hung on whatever he was about to say.

I needed someone to have something to say that would help me.

“Whatever you decide, I’ll help you through every step of the way. You’re not alone in this, Storm. You don’t have to hide it from everyone.”

My voice broke, “I feel like such a fool.”

“I know.” He tilted his head and squeezed my fingers, “But imagine how strong you could feel if you owned the entire thing and made it all turn out however you wanted it to.”

“Strong.” I chuckled humorlessly. “I can’t remember the last time I felt strong.”

“Give it time.” He gave me a one-sided grin again, “Just wait and see how strong you come out of all of this in the end.”