29. Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Serena
J osephine keeps giving me angry glares, and Antonio seems to be losing his mind. Hunger pains gnaw at my insides until I feel nauseous. If I wasn't pregnant, I could hold out, but this baby wants food, and he wants it now.
"Josephine, can I please have a snack?"
She glances up from whatever she's doing in the kitchen and looks at me as if I'm repulsive. "Did you give Antonio a snack when you left him lying in a puddle of his own blood?
"I'm so sorry about that. I swear, I will make it up to you both if you just let me go."
"Do you think I'm fucking stupid, bitch? You will run right back to your thug husband or your psychotic brothers, and they'll have me strung up in some warehouse somewhere being tortured by sundown.”
"That's what's going to happen regardless, Josephine. If you kill me and my baby, do you really think there will be anywhere in this world that you will be able to hide from Emilio or my brothers?"
Josephine stops what she's doing and flies at me, punching me in the head. "Shut the fuck up. You don't get to tell me what to do. We’ve gone too far to stop now."
As her fists come down on my head, I try to curl into myself to protect my face, but with my hands tied to the chair, I have little protection. With each blow to the head, I throb and ache. At this point, with the hits to my face and my arm that I'm sure is broken, my body is on fire. I'm just thankful there haven’t been any blows to my stomach yet.
Once Josephine's raging stops and she walks away, I try to catch my breath. My heart is pounding and everything hurts. I never realized how unstable both Antonio and Josephine are, and now I'm not sure if I can stay alive until Emilio finds me.
After a while, Antonio turns to Josephine. "If we want to keep the baby healthy, she needs to eat."
They want to keep the baby healthy? For what? I’m grateful but it doesn’t make sense.
Then, turning to me he says, "We are going to untie you but don't try anything stupid."
I give him a slight nod because everything is throbbing too badly to speak. After Antonio unties me, he leads me over to the kitchen table where Josephine is laying out dinner.
"Sit down and eat," she instructs as if she didn't just almost beat me into a coma.
The table is set as if they are having a dinner party. I have a fork and a spoon. No knife, but that's okay. I can work with a fork. I slip it up under my shirt sleeve, hoping they don't notice the one on the table is missing. Knowing Antonio has a gun and a knife, I have to plan my attack at the right time. I can fight Josephine off easier than I can a man, but Antonio isn't a small guy. My broken arm throbs, and the pain reminds me I have to fight them off one-handed.
My heart pounds like a drum as my thoughts are interrupted by Josephine talking, and what she says sends terror through my veins.
"Eat up. I want a healthy baby."
My body trembles. "What do you mean, you want a healthy baby ? This is my baby, Josephine. Mine and Emilio's."
"He won't remember you, so it will be fine."
She speaks like this is normal everyday conversation and I am supposed to just accept that she's talking about taking my baby as her own. Fuck this!
"I don't understand."
"We will take your son and raise him as our own. Don't worry, he'll be loved and well taken care of."
My whole body tenses up so much that I freeze. I know there's a look of pure terror on my face, but I'm trying to hold it together because these people are obviously mentally unstable, and I don't know what they might do to me.
As I try to calm myself, Josephine sits a bowl of soup and a plate salad in front of me. After what she’s just said to me, the gesture is utterly fucked up. One positive thing is that she won't hurt the baby because she wants it as her own.
"I'm too early to have this baby, Josephine. Twenty-seven weeks is unsafe for him to be born." I know trying to reason with a crazy woman isn't the smartest thing to do, but I really want to know what their plan is.
"Don't worry. I plan to keep you here, and if your husband comes, we have a plan to kill him. You can always be shipped to Mexico until you have the baby."
"What happens to me after the baby is born?"
Antonio is sitting at the table eating his soup as if nothing odd is going on. It's almost as if we’re having a normal dinner with friends. It's so weird.
"You'll be lying in your own blood, just as you left me, and I hope Emilio is here to watch it happen," Antonio says nonchalantly.
Trying to suck in air that feels just out of reach, I gasp. There's a knot in my stomach and an acrid taste of fear fills my mouth. My appetite has disappeared. Instead, fear and terror swim through my veins.
A loud smack comes from Josephine hitting the table. "Eat! The baby needs nutrients to be healthy."
Antonio stands. "I'm going to go chop some wood for the heater. I'll be back in a bit."
He leaves, and it's just me and Josephine. "I feel like I'm going to throw up. I need the bathroom."
"Don't try anything stupid. We are miles away from everything, and it's cold here at night."
Giving her a nod, we walk towards the restroom. She allows me to close the door, but I know she's standing guard outside it. I really feel nauseous. Stomach acid burns my throat as I look around for anything I can use.
There's a knock at the door. "What's taking so long?"
"Just a minute," I call out, trying to buy myself some time.
Quietly, I position myself in the space where when the door opens, I’ll be behind her when she walks in.
Josephine calls, "I'm coming in. You are taking too long."
The bathroom opens, and she walks through, looking towards the toilet and facing away from me. I shove her back hard and she stumbles, falling over into the tub. Her head makes a thumping sound as it hits the hard porcelain surface.
One down, one to go.