Chapter 12
It was only a week or so after I had lied to the Steelblades and the HNL that Gabriel started telling me to take a pregnancy test.
I was able to head him off, convince him nothing would show yet.
But.
I knew I couldn’t delay it much longer.
He watched me like a hawk, like a jealous, possessive bird of prey.
I knew he was watching for signs. Nausea, morning sickness. It was way too early for that.
But how long could I deny what I feared?
Gabriel told me to pick out any ring I wanted and he’d buy it for me.
This wasn’t how men were supposed to act.
Especially not 22-year-old men.
Especially not 22-year-old superstar athletes.
They were supposed to be into sleeping around, ghosting, giving you half-ass sex.
Not gripping you by the roots of your hair and demanding you shop for baby cribs online.
I ignored the twinge in my breasts, with their heavy, swollen feeling. That must be because my period was coming soon.
And there was no way to stop it!
No way to prevent what was coming.
I had never really thought about having kids.
When I was in my graduate program a professor had warned me not to ever have kids or I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a professional.
So I had never ever considered they were a possibility.
But now. . .
I didn’t want to think about it. I refused to think about the possibility that this fucking unhinged lunatic had gotten me pregnant.
Every day he practiced--went to the Steelblades rink or trained outside at Ashgrove manor or downstairs in the most modern room in the whole mansion—a fully-equipped gym with massive, shiny new machinery, all to bulk him up even further, as if he needed any more ability to bully and control me.
And I was required to be at every practice.
I sat impatiently in the gym a few days before the season opener, trying to ignore Gabriel and do some research, but it was impossible.
He still hadn’t given me my laptop back, so I was forced to go old school and take notes with a pen and notebook.
“You’d learn more about psychopaths by studying me,” Gabriel said, planting his legs on either side of my chair and looming over me.
His heavy cock brushed by my chest and I wanted to scoot away, but I was afraid he’d take it out and force me to choke on it in front of everyone.
“Then what could I do to break your fixation on me?”
“Nothing,” he smirked, his lips on my throat, nipping the soft skin with increasingly hard bites until I let out of a soft yelp of distress.
“I could get so much more work done with my laptop,” I said, trying to force down the heat that blazed between my legs.
“You don’t need that. All you need is me.”
Pretty impressive that Gabriel was able to force all these other guys to go without cellphones for weeks on end. Even the new athletic trainers sent by the Steelblades.
The lure of celebrity superstardom must be pretty powerful.
Unless. . . he hadn’t.
What if. . .one guy still had a phone. . .
After all, they still seemed to be informed about the latest local news. Theories had started to swirl around the killings, and people had even started to speculate the same thing.
Serial killer
I tried to unobtrusively scan the room, see whose sweatpants had a telltale bulge.
But I felt a hard hand connect with my cheek, just enough for a little pop of pain, before Gabriel’s fingers bit down on my chin.
“Who do you think you’re looking at?” he snarled. “Look at me.”
“Psycho! I’m not looking at anyone. You’re just a jealous lunatic!”
“That’s right, mama. Because you’re not allowed to have anyone else. Look at anyone else.”
I bent down to my work again, my cheeks burning, only risking little glances past the top of my page as he moved to the bench press again.
One of the new trainers did have a promising bulge in his pockets.
Not like, the kind of package Gabriel wielded like a goddamn weapon in my face, but one that looked like a cellphone.
Everything I needed was in my backpack ready to go. I just had to find some way to escape.
If Gabriel saw me with my hand down any other man’s shorts, he was going to punish me so fucking hard.
Breathing in shallow, panicky pants, I brushed by the trainer as Gabriel set the heavy weights down with a massive clang.
If he turned at the wrong time. . .
If this guy felt it. . .
But he didn’t, and I quickly dipped my fingers into his shorts, my hands closing with relief on the slick phone, then slipping it behind my back.
The first thing I did was slide it to silent so it wouldn’t ring at an inconvenient time.
Whew. Step one down.
Sliding the phone up my sleeve, I headed toward the bathroom.
“Where are you going?” Gabriel asked.
“To take a piss,” I sniffed.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Take one of these tests while you’re in there.”
He pulled me inside, then dumped an athletic bag on the sink.
With trepidation, I opened it to find the entire thing stuffed with dozens of pregnancy tests.
“Why do you even want a baby?” I asked desperately.
“Because when you get pregnant, you’ll be tied to me forever. And I want that fucking womb, Lark. It’s mine to fill.”
I shook my head.
“Baby girl, you are going to piss on this test or I’m going to make you.”
He held out a test and I slapped it from his hand.
“I’m not taking that!”
The next thing I knew, he had yanked my long hair with one hand and carried me over to the toilet, pulling up my skirt with the other hand, his fingers ripping impatiently at my belt buckle.
“Piss. Now.”
“I—can’t,” I whimpered.
“I know a pregnant mama like you needs to piss. Don’t bullshit me, Lark.”
He pressed on my stomach, fingers digging in right over my bladder.
And damn it, I did need to pee.
I wriggled in those hard arms, thrashing this way, and that, desperate to avoid the truth.
“You’re going to ruin my panties,” I cried, but he only ripped them off with a loud tear.
I bucked harder against him, but only smashed up against the thick rod of his cock.
God, the pressure on my belly was really making me have to pee even harder. . .
“Let it out,” Gabriel hissed in my ear. “Show me and let me see how well I’ve filled you.”
I squeezed my thighs together desperately as I felt a few drops leak out, but Gabriel knocked a knee into the back of my legs, forcing them to spread open.
His hands kneaded my lower belly harder, in a circular motion, pressing against my full bladder and I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer.
“Gabriel, please!” I whined, but he only bit down on my ear.
“Now.”
The shameful stream flowed out of me, soaking the test and Gabriel grunted in satisfaction.
“What a beautiful piss you have.”
I jerked away from him, hastily pulling down my skirt.
“Positive,” Gabriel said, “fucking hell, baby girl. We’re going to be parents.”
There was a confusing flicker of emotions in my belly and Gabriel pulled me toward him by my chin, kissing me with hard, urgent lips.
“Buy whatever you want,” he said, slipping a shiny credit card into my hand. “Get twenty fucking strollers. Get the high-end shit.”
He thankfully left me alone for the briefest of moments to open the door and announce I was pregnant to the entire gym, and I didn’t waste any time.
My hands shaking, I hastily ordered an Uber for Ashgrove Manor, adding instructions that the driver message when he was at the entrance, just to make sure Gabriel didn’t see the car.
I was not going to stay here to be repeatedly impregnated by this psychopath.
As I shoved the phone in the waistband of my skirt I checked the time.
The Uber was 20 minutes away.
When I came out of the bathroom, all Gabriel’s friends and the athletic trainers were congratulating him.
“First of many,” he said.
“I’m feeling a little nauseated with the stank in here,” I choked out. “I need some fresh air.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes, but he nodded slowly.
“Stay where I can see you.”
The first step done, I thought as I stepped onto the rocky cobblestones outside. But that was the easy part.
The next step was tricky. If for some reason, the Uber driver didn’t stop at the entrance, Gabriel would be able to get out of these French doors easily and grab me.
9 minutes away.
I needed a way to somehow block or barricade the door.
But what?
Digging around in my backpack, my fingers closed on the keys for my car that was at the bottom of the lake, and I slid them in the crack.
There. That would jam the door.
2 minutes away.
Almost time!
I craned my head, waiting for the first glimpse of the car.
Oh, shit.
Despite my instructions, the Uber driver was heading down the winding pathway towards Ashgrove Manor!
At this rate, he’d easily be seen by Gabriel, trapped beside the old graveyard, and unable to easily escape before this man tore his car apart.
Fuck
I had only a split second to make a decision, and I dropped my backpack and broke for it.
Better to be without my laptop and research equipment than trapped at Ashgrove Manor with this psychopathic freak.
I sprinted as hard as I could toward the main road, my arms and legs pumping with frantic energy.
Distantly, I heard a thump but didn’t look back.
Let Gabriel be as pissed as he wanted.
As long as I got away.
Leaves flew by my feet and the muddy ground of Ashgrove Manor sucked at my sneakers, almost like the ground itself didn’t want me to leave.
Stop being ridiculous, I told myself sternly.
I had this. Even though I was in a skirt, I was athletic, fit.
I had a massive head start.
There was another cracking sound and the back of my head was tingling. I couldn’t stop myself from risking a look back.
I twisted around quickly, just as there was an ear-splitting shatter. The locked French doors exploded outward in a spray of glass and Gabriel stepped through the frame.
Fuck!
I whirled my head around again.
There were two paths to the driveway where the Uber was now idling.
One headed around the pond. It was a clear path, but longer.
The other. . .was over that high bridge.
The one right over all the sharp, jagged rocks looming out of the stagnant waters.