Chapter 27
Twinkle, twinkle, little star…
Someone was singing.
Twinkle, wake up, little star…
The voice wavered, piercing the heavy fog between sleep and waking.
Wake up, wake up…
But something wasn’t right. The louder the song rang in my head, dragging me toward consciousness, the more its version changed… it sounded so wrong, so perverse.
Twinkle, little bitch…
There was pain. I tried to move, with no success.
My arms felt trapped and heavy.
Cruel discomfort.
Wake up, wake up, little bitch…
I opened my eyes, then widened them at the sight of Norah’s face right in front of mine. I screamed. And was silenced by a hard slap that snapped my face to the side. The taste of blood filled my mouth and my cheek burned as my eyes filled with tears.
Norah sprang to her feet and stepped back, hatred in her eyes.
“Bitch, why did you scream?”
I turned my head, part of my hair stuck to my face.
I dragged up my last broken memory… I was at Pietra’s wedding, and then…
then I… had taken Lucca to the bathroom.
He had run toward the rows of grapevines—he loved getting dirty in the soil—I had gone after him and…
I remembered the bad feeling I couldn’t put into words and the darkness…
and now, I was here, in front of Norah, at her mercy.
“Norah, what do you think you’re doing? Let me go.”
She ignored me, staring as if I had said something insane, then moved away toward the back, slipping into the dark shadows of wherever we were.
Maybe she only wanted to talk?
Oh, Dio.
My eyes, unused to the darkness, darted around without making out much, then went back to Norah’s silhouette seated beside what looked like a very old table. Silent. Too damn calm.
Yeah, a nightmare. I’m going to wake up. At some point Thor will call me, then I’ll feel his arms around me while he tells me, “It’s all right, it was only a bad dream…”
The pain in my body, my arms and legs tingling and numb, and my dry throat were too real for this to be a dream.
Norah had kidnapped me.
Terror took hold of me.
My pulse sped even more in my chest.
I tested my wrists, but they were tied up high with ropes.
It hurt, so I stopped trying to get out of them.
It was useless anyway. That made my fear grow.
I was lying on my side on a stinking, very thin mattress, my head resting on a pillow that smelled of mildew.
My stomach turned. I breathed deep. Get ahold of yourself.
I drew in another breath, gathering strength, and struggled to sit up, and while I was in that useless struggle, I heard Norah’s low laugh, mocking me.
Humiliation and another whole heap of rage filled me. I stopped trying.
My face still stung from the slap.
Breathe… That’s it… Breathe.
I couldn’t lose my temper now.
“Why am I here? What did you do to Lucca?” I asked, full of fear.
“I didn’t do anything to my boy.”
“Your boy?”
Norah picked up… a knife and an orange and began peeling it.
“You kidnapped me. Why did you do this?”
“I’m only taking back what’s mine.”
I was too shocked to speak. It didn’t make sense.
“He’s so handsome,” she said, not looking at me. “I saw him at the park many times.”
“You were watching us?”
She looked at me, offended, as if she wanted to punch me.
“Of course! What mother wouldn’t look after her baby?
I had to make sure you were taking good care of him.
For someone so selfish, you were actually good to him.
And only because of that will I be good to you.
Otherwise, we’d be having a different kind of conversation.
” She gave me a look that chilled my spine, then ate a sliver of fruit.
“I always knew Thor and I would have beautiful babies. This one,” she pointed at my belly, “is a surprise.”
“These babies are mine, Norah. I’m the mother,” I growled in a fit of rage.
“They’re my man’s babies, therefore they’re mine.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Oh, Dio mio, she was completely insane.
Thor had been right to be suspicious, to keep his guard up. We had underestimated her. Norah had been closer than we believed she could be, and now…
My eyes overflowed.
At last, I managed to sit up in a somewhat awkward way. I looked at her, trying to find some trace of the sensible woman she had once been. I wet my dehydrated lips.
“Norah, Thor will be worried.”
“I can get him out of the way first.”
At my horror, she let out a dark laugh.
“What?”
“You’re tough, aren’t you?” She peeled off another sliver of fruit and shoved it into her mouth. “You are. You really are. Bad weeds don’t die easily. You’re proof of that.”
“Thor is looking for you.”
“He’s always looking for me,” she said maliciously.
“Why didn’t you show up before? Why only now?”
Norah leaned forward, mocking. “And who said I didn’t? We almost ran into each other once, but you always manage to escape.”
I tried to push through the horror I felt and reason through her words.
“…angry. He needed time to calm down,” she was saying.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I finished my reasoning, horrified. “The car that almost ran me over. It wasn’t by chance. It was you trying to run me over.”
“I was driving by and you were in the way. Besides, sidewalks exist for a reason. Don’t blame me when you don’t know your place,” she said, amused.
“You’re crazy!”
“When it comes to defending what’s mine, you can bet your life I am.”
Norah wasn’t joking about anything.
I swallowed my panic, breathing deep, working through the emotions threatening to derail me. But I couldn’t lose control when Norah had none.
“You have to let me go,” I said after a moment, wanting to sound reasonable. “What you’re doing is a crime. You can’t keep me here against my will.”
“Not only can I, I will.”
“And then what, Norah?” I shouted angrily and laughed. “Thor is going to forgive you and the two of you are going to live happily ever after after you betrayed him so many times the way you did?”
“He’ll understand my reasons. Away from your spell, Thor will come to his senses and forgive me and thank me for fighting for our love. We’re going to live the life we were destined to have,” her eyes burned with hatred, “the life you stole from me.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” I murmured softly, unable to think of any other word.
“I’m not leaving here without my baby.”
She stared at the knife, and I almost stopped breathing.
“No. Norah, she’s not ready to be born yet.”
“Lucca was born premature and he’s doing very well.”
“You did that to me, you lunatic,” I accused, regretting it immediately.
Norah jumped up and began pacing like an enraged tiger.
“I didn’t do anything, you little slut, you did! You forced me to take drastic action. I told you to stay away, but you didn’t. You stayed and humiliated me.” She stopped pacing. “And if you keep being so disrespectful, calling me crazy, I’m going to cut out your tongue.”
Norah marched over to me, crouched in front of me, and shoved a bottle in my face. I pressed myself against the wall, refusing. I was dying of thirst. But I didn’t want to drink and be drugged, and have her hurt me when I couldn’t defend myself… As if I could now!
“If you don’t drink, you’ll go all day without anything.”
Hesitant, I opened my mouth and took small sips, choking a few times, praying there was no drug in it. She didn’t give me much and pulled the bottle away from my mouth.
“I’m sorry, Norah,” I cried.
Norah raised her head very slowly and stared at me with a look that turned the blood in my veins to ice. “No, you’re not. But you will be.”
She looked as though she wanted to spit on me. Instead, she got up and left.
I looked around, trying to take in as much as I could. But I couldn’t see much. It was dark and I had no sense of time. Maybe she hadn’t taken me far and it had only gotten dark. Dio mio! I thought of my boy, alone.
Lucca must be terrified.
Norah guaranteed she had left him there.
If she was telling the truth, Thor would be with our son now, and he would already know Norah had made her move. Thor would come for me, maybe he was already on his way. He would save me. I only had to hold on and be strong until he found us.
Let it be soon, please, my love!
I turned my attention to the room, dimly lit by the lone flickering candle at the far end. Afraid I would find creatures in here. I must have dozed off at some point because when I was awake again, my bladder was about to burst, and it was light inside the cabin.
I called for Norah, but I was met with silence, except for the birds I could hear, the noise of crickets and small animals.
It comforted and terrified me at the same time.
We had to be in the middle of nowhere. I looked around, now able to see the space better.
It was ruined. Two small windows, a little door beside what I thought was the bathroom.
In front of me was a table falling apart, and in front of it, a twin bed pushed against the wall.
To the right was the door to the shack. It was closed.
I remained in a half-sitting, half-lying position.
I didn’t know what was worse—the painful discomfort, the paralyzing fear of being trapped with that crazy woman, or the uncertainty of how all this would end.
I tried to be strong, tried not to cry, tried to grab hold of my strength, but that whole situation stole my control. I cried until I sobbed, begging for a miracle.
Norah came back when night fell and looked at me with disgust. I boiled with rage, humiliation burning in my face. She had taken so long that I hadn’t been able to hold my pee. The foul smell of that pillow and mattress had made me vomit, too.
“How disgusting!”
“Please, Norah, untie me. Let me clean myself at least.”
She raised the bag in her hand, smiling.
“I brought food!”
Her abrupt mood swings scared the fuck out of me and irritated me just as much.
I didn’t want to beg her, but the pain in my arms and the revulsion of being filthy with my pee and vomit took me beyond begging.