Chapter 23
Isabelle sat on the floor watching her daughter.
She had lost track of time, and if it wasn’t for the men bringing them food, she wouldn’t even have known whether it was day or night.
What she did know was that they had been there for quite a while.
It had to have been three, maybe four months.
Days and nights had started bleeding together, and nothing mattered anymore.
Any hope that she had left had disappeared, and the only reason she was trying to be strong was to keep Sarah going.
If it wasn’t for her daughter, Isabelle would have found some way to end her life. Such thoughts had never before crossed her mind, but they were in hell. Their bodies were broken, and their spirits were gone.
The men mostly brought the food at the same times every day: one meal in the morning, one at noon, and one in the evening. She knew she should be grateful that they weren’t allowing them to die of hunger, but starving would have been preferred to the alternative.
After Quincy had assaulted Sarah for the first time, he started coming by more often.
He never did it in front of Isabelle. He always took Sarah to his room.
He had never touched Isabelle again, and none of the other men had tried to touch Sarah.
For that small mercy, Isabelle was grateful.
There were a lot of men, and during their time there, more had joined.
They all shared Isabelle, showing up at her and Sarah’s room whenever they wanted to and doing unspeakable things to her.
Isabelle hated every single one of them with a passion.
She wished painful deaths upon them, but the men remained healthy and alive.
The only thing that had changed was Sarah’s condition.
During the last couple of weeks, she had started feeling ill, especially in the mornings.
She had vomited on more than one occasion, and what confirmed Isabelle’s suspicions that her daughter was with child was the fact that she had missed her last monthly period.
“Please, no, Ma,” Sarah cried. “I can’t be.”
Isabelle pulled Sarah into her arms and hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry that any of this happened to you.”
Sarah pulled out of her arms and wiped her face. It didn’t help because she couldn’t stop crying. “He’s a monster. I can’t have a monster’s baby.”
“The baby is innocent in all of this,” Isabelle replied, hoping to give Sarah some comfort. “Quincy might be evil, but the baby isn’t. There are many horrible people out there who have amazing children.”
Sarah shook her head. “It’s not fair. I don’t want this.”
“I know,” Isabelle whispered, tears running down her face, too. “I wish I could take it all away so that it never happened, but I can’t, and we have no choice but to try to get through this.”
Sarah nodded in understanding. “I don’t blame the baby. It’s not their fault.” She placed her hand on her belly. “But I still don’t want to have it.”
Isabelle wasn’t sure what to say or do. She understood exactly why Sarah was saying the things she was saying, and if she were in Sarah’s shoes, she might have felt the same way.
Isabelle hated Quincy for what he had done.
She didn’t want her eighteen-year-old daughter to be with child, especially not from an evil, horrible man.
Unfortunately, they had absolutely no say in what happened next.
The only thing they could do was try to stay alive long enough to somehow find a way out of their situation.
“I think we should tell Quincy,” Isabelle said.
Sarah’s eyes grew big, and she started shaking her head. “No. What if he gets angry and hurts us?”
That was a possibility. There was no way to know how Quincy would react, but Isabelle was hoping that he would treat Sarah better, not worse.
“He is going to find out regardless.” Isabelle wiped the tears from her face. “This isn’t something that we can hide from him.”
“He’s going to be angry,” Sarah stated, her voice cracking as she spoke.
“Maybe,” Isabelle agreed. “Or maybe he’ll treat you better.”
“You really think so?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, but I think it is better to tell him than to wait and let him figure it out by himself.
I think that’ll make him angrier than the fact that you are with child.
” Isabelle was simply going with her gut.
There was no way for her to really know.
Quincy didn’t speak much to her at all, and she only knew what she knew about him because of what Sarah had told her.
Sometimes, when he came to get Sarah, he would simply take her away for a few minutes to do what he needed to do.
Other times, they stayed away for much longer, and Sarah had told Isabelle that Quincy enjoyed lying in bed and talking to her.
Isabelle hated the fact that Quincy was using her daughter, but it seemed to her like he had formed some sort of attachment to Sarah, and she was hoping that that attachment would help keep her daughter alive.
“Do you think that he’d want the baby?” Sarah asked, confusion washing over her face.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Isabelle shrugged. “What I do know is that it is safer to try to stay on Quincy’s good side. It is better if he thinks he can trust you.”
Sarah let out a long, deep breath as she tried to compose herself. “That makes sense.”
“So do you agree that we tell him?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah, but I think I should tell him, not you.”
“You want to tell him when you are alone with him?”
“I don’t want to, but I think I have to. If we want him to trust me, he needs to think that I’m sharing it with him willingly and that it is something special between the two of us.”
Isabelle was surprised by the way Sarah was thinking of it.
Now that she had calmed down a little, she was thinking more strategically.
A baby wasn’t something to be used like a bargaining chip, but if this baby could help keep Sarah safe, then Isabelle did not see the harm in it.
Isabelle knew that Sarah would not intentionally let any harm come to the baby, and Isabelle would do her best to take care of the baby as well.
Together, the two of them would try to ensure the baby’s safety.
Sarah, being with child, was devastating, but considering the circumstances, they had no choice but to make the best of the situation.
“We’ll get through this,” Isabelle assured her. “You are stronger than you think.”
Sarah smiled weakly. She had always been a sensitive girl.
Everything that had happened was weighing heavily on her.
Despite that fact, Isabelle believed that her daughter could make it through this alive.
Isabelle would willingly give her own life to save her daughter if she ever got the chance to get her out of there.
“I’m not ready to be a mother.”
Isabelle laughed at that. “Nobody ever is.”
Sarah sat back, leaning against the wall. “What do you mean?”
“Even women who think they are ready to be a mother aren’t. Nobody and nothing can prepare you for taking care of a baby. It is the most beautiful experience in the whole world, but at the same time, it is incredibly challenging and scary.”
“You’ve never told me that before,” Sarah stated. “You always said it was magical.”
“It is,” Isabelle replied. “But it is difficult too. No two babies are the same. Your baby is going to have his or her own unique personality just like you.”
Isabelle could still remember the first time she got pregnant.
She had been so happy, and her husband had been overjoyed.
She never regretted having children. She loved Sarah and Rider with all of her heart.
They were the best things she and her husband ever did.
Loving them did not mean that it was easy to raise them.
Having children took a toll on a woman’s body and her mind.
People like to say that a woman who is with child is shining, but in reality, a lot of the time, they are suffering.
First, there is nausea and vomiting. Then her stomach becomes so big that she can barely move around.
On top of that, she suffers from cravings and swollen feet. Being with child was definitely not a walk in the park, but it was well worth it in the end. Isabelle’s children had given her some of the best days of her life, and she would treasure those memories forever.