There's a door there, I remember.
A door that leads to the garage.
Maybe I can hide.
Maybe I can get to a vehicle.
Maybe I can?—
But I'm pregnant. Twenty-one weeks pregnant.
My center of gravity is off, my body not as fast as it used to be.
My lungs burn after just a few steps.
I hear the footsteps getting closer, hear men shouting to each other, coordinating, hunting.
I turn a corner and run straight into a wall of muscle.
Hands grab me. Rough. Brutal.
I try to scream, but a cloth covers my mouth and nose before I can make a sound.
I smell something sweet, chemical, wrong—chloroform, maybe, or something worse.
I try to fight, try to claw at the hands holding me, but my limbs are getting heavy, my vision going blurry at the edges.
The world tilts sideways, then starts to fade.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is a face I know.
A face I've seen in my nightmares, in my memories, in all the dark places I've tried to forget.
Virgil.
And he's smiling.
I wake up in the back of a moving vehicle.
My hands are bound behind my back, zip ties cutting into my wrists.
There's a blindfold over my eyes and tape over my mouth.
Every bump in the road sends pain shooting through my shoulders, my hips, my belly.
The baby.
Panic claws at my chest.
I try to move, try to feel for movement in my stomach, but with my hands bound, I can't reach.
Can't tell if the baby's okay.
Can't tell if whatever drug they used hurt my child.
Please.
Pleaselet the baby be okay.
