“Because we will be busy with entertainment while we wait on the next person we are about to torture.”
“Entertainment?”
“Yeah, we hired some dancers who we will murder after they are done. We have to keep the family safe, you know.”
They laughed like death was a joke.
“Whatever, fuckin Ahbal.”
He spoke in their native language and walked away from the door.
I tried to disappear inside myself, and I stared at the floor. Focused on breathing. Praying they wouldn’t touch me again.
I was working on keeping myself calm when my entire body locked up at once, and one long, sharp cramp ripped through my stomach. Before I could even process it, warmth spread between my legs. Slow at first, then more and more came.
I gasped so loud that both of them snapped their heads toward me.
I shouldn’t have made a sound, but I did.
A dark puddle spread underneath my body, soaking into the concrete.
“Is that her fuckin water breaking? Eww, what the fuck.”
Tears slid down my face, silent and nonstop, because if my baby wasn’t in distress yet, she was about to be. And now I didn’t know if I was going to survive long enough to protect her. I don’t even know if she survives for an hour outside of my womb.
“Man, what the fuck are we supposed to do with her now? We don’t know how to deliver no fuckin baby.”
“And? This bitch needs to deliver her own fuckin baby.”
“How is she going to do that, Abraham?”
“How do you think the cave bitches used to do it? They didn’t have any doctors or help, and they had kids. She better stand up and have the baby like a goat or some shit. And once she does, that’ll be even better. We’ll have two people to kill on film.”
“Yeah, you're right. Come on, let’s go. I’m getting sick looking at that shit on the floor.”
They started towards the door.
“Yell once you are done, P. Hopefully, your baby daddy is here to see the birth and death of his daughter.”
They walked out and slammed the door, leaving me in the dark now in fuckin labor. I started grabbing for anything I could reach, desperate to hold myself up, hoping that if I could stand and pace, it would calm me down a little.
Pacing had always worked for me back in the day when my mama used to make me mad about staying home and keeping Princeton instead of letting me go to parties, or when I first heard about her diagnosis and paced my bedroom floor so long, I almost wore a track into the carpet. Pacing helped me before weed, before sex, before everything else in a crisis.
For what felt like the first hour, everything was okay. I didn’t feel bad, but I didn’t feel good either. I was just uncomfortable, very fuckin uncomfortable because I’d never given birth before, so the whole process confused me. I’d heard about contractions, but the pain people screamed about on TV didn’t match what I was feeling right now, because it wasn’t really pain. It was more like a nagging cramp deep in my lower abdomen.
From what sounded like a few rooms down, all I could hear was laughing, music, and fun like there wasn’t a pregnant woman being tortured in the same building. This shit made me realize that the so-called thugs I’d seen in Castle Hill weren’t really thugs, or the gangsters I’d watched on TV. These men here were the real deal because they had no souls, no emotion, and no care for anyone but themselves.Who the hell had Crew pissed off like this was my biggest question.
I don’t know how much more time went by before the pain levels started to change, and sharper, deeper pains startedcutting through my stomach, stealing my breath. I winced and grabbed at whatever spots hurt at the time, clutching myself because I had nothing else but clumps of my ripped-out hair to grab.
When the pressure really started to hit, I began to scream, cry, and claw at whatever I could reach. I slid my back down the wall and tried to prop my legs on something that felt like a bucket, doing anything that might bring me some relief.
I sat on the floor, breathing as hard as my body wanted to, and that's when the door suddenly flew open, shedding light over the room.
“Get up, hurry up. Come on, let’s go.”
The man rushed in and bent down, grabbing me up off the floor.
“What, what’s going on? Where are we going?” I asked, panicking.
