Chapter 59
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“You have to give him to me.”
I glanced up and nodded, but I could already feel the tears dripping onto my cheek. I quickly swiped them away.
I didn’t think it would be this hard. I hated the little monster that had been kicking my insides for the last nine months, and I was glad when it was finally ripped out of me a few minutes ago.
I wanted it gone. I was relieved as soon as the midwife announced it was a boy.
I was relieved because I knew I wouldn’t be forced to raise it.
I wouldn’t be forced to look it in the eyes and pretend I didn’t despise it almost as much as I despised its father.
Sometimes more because I couldn’t escape something that was inside me. I couldn’t ignore it.
It was always there… Moving, kicking, pawing at me.
Or it was until suddenly it wasn’t. And I felt oddly empty. My hand drifted to the sagging flesh of my stomach. The bump hadn’t disappeared entirely but it wasn’t as hard and the pressure was gone the moment Nina pulled him out of me.
I lifted my hand off my stomach and brushed a finger over one of his cheeks. It was so soft. Like rabbit fur. That didn’t make him any less of a monster. Not all monsters had scales. In fact, most of them didn’t.
Mr. Prescott was probably a very good-looking man in his youth, and I had no doubt he was as much of a monster then as he was in his old age.
He was probably worse when he was younger, because he had years to perfect his mask.
Years to blend in and hide the darkness in his soul.
Years to fool the people around him. People like me when I first got here.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
I shook my head and peered back down at the tiny creature in my arms. I guess I just didn’t expect the way it would stare up at me with eyes so like the ones I saw in the mirror every day.
I thought all babies had blue eyes. Not this one.
He had dark hair and darker skin too—even if it appeared a little purple.
Nina said that was normal. That he would be okay, and I pretended I didn’t care.
But right now, we both knew I was lying.
It would have been easier if he looked like his father, I think. If he had the same light features and skin. But he didn’t. He looked like my dad… He looked like me…
“Now,” Nina added a little more forcefully, and I passed him over. He didn’t cry. Just glanced in my direction, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. I was a blob to his newborn eyes.
Nina cleaned him off and wrapped him up in one of the blankets Mr. Prescott had sent down.
He had a whole stack of them piled high in an upstairs closet for whenever he had another bastard he wanted to hide.
He wasn’t the type of monster to force an abortion.
He was the type to force a birth. Almost like he got off on watching our stomachs grow over the months, over seeing what he did to us in physical form.
Until the kids were born and he lost interest.
The girls would disappear. The babies and sometimes the mothers.
Not this time. This was his first son since Tate.
There was nothing I could do but hand the kid over now.
Whether I wanted to keep him or not. I didn’t.
But if I did, Mr. Prescott would bury me in the courts…
if we even made it that far. There were much worse things he could do, and he had the connections to do them.
Which was why all our focus was on the girls.
On helping who we could with small, subtle moves.
I had nothing but the other women, and they had me too.
This was exactly what Nina told me would happen. What we agreed to. I had done all I could do on the inside. And now that Maria was gone, I had to get out.
“He’s coming.” Nina nodded towards the sound of footsteps stomping down the hall. We recognized his gait. It wasn’t hard when it was a thing of your nightmares. “Go on before he sees you,” she urged.
I staggered over to the bed, climbed on top, spread my legs, and closed my eyes. Nina had already doused the sheets with a bunch of pig’s blood she’d collected from the kitchen over the last couple of weeks.
A few seconds later, Mr. Prescott came barreling through the door. I could feel the heat of his glare on me. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
Nina sniffled, drawing his attention away from me and towards her. I could feel that too.
“Had to cut her to get the babe out,” Nina whispered. “It’s a boy.”
Mr. Prescott made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, his eyes on me again. “Very good. Bring him upstairs.”
“Yes, sir,” Nina replied.
Mr. Prescott didn’t say anything else. Just squeaked his shoes against the floor as he turned around.
“And the girl?” Nina called after him.
“She’s no good to me now, now is she?” he barked back. “Get rid of her.”
“Yes, sir.” Nina clicked the door closed, and I took my first breath since he entered the room.
I was finally free from the cage I created for myself.
No… I shook my head as I pushed up on the bed and peered over at Nina. I wasn’t to blame. None of us who chose to stay behind were to blame. He was.
Tate Prescott and his sons. And now that I was dead to them, I would make sure all of them paid.