“Shut up, Remy.” He barely even glances my way.
“Fine.” I shuffle away from him. Backwards. I don’t know where it will lead me, but I’m not going back inside the bedroom, andGeorge is between me and the exit. “Go ahead and send your ransom request.”
He raises dark eyes to me. “You’re not the one with the leverage here.”
I shrug. “I’m not leverage. Cash is engaged to be married to someone else. He’ll probably be grateful to you for solving his problem before it got out of hand.”
His mouth twitches. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” I face him squarely when what I really want to do is knock that smug smile from his face and flee. “You’re the one with the leverage, remember? I have nothing to lose by letting you demand money from them.”
I watch his thought process click behind his eyes in tiny increments.
I’m not prepared for what happens next. His fist connects with the left side of my jaw. Pain flares inside my skull, drowning out the hammering. Stars float in front of my eyes. I can’t see. Can’t think. I feel him dragging my limp body across the floor by my arms, but I can’t even persuade my heels to dig into the carpet and try to stop him.
The carpet becomes cold floor tiles.
George is breathing heavily.
Then he drops me, and my head hits the floor. He climbs over me and exits the room, closing the door behind him and leaving me in darkness.
I hear a click as a key turns in a lock.
I don’t move, afraid that he’ll hear me and come back. My head feels as though it is on fire. I can’t feel my teeth with my tongue. But everything is overshadowed by the driving ultrasound image in my head of the babies inside my womb. The tiny flickering heartbeats. The limbs like mobile squiggles on the grainy picture. Bodies squashed together for company and comfort.
Staying in this room isn’t an option.
When the Murrays refuse to pay whatever ransom sum he demands, he’ll be angry, and I’ll no longer be the leverage he was hoping for in this insane scam.
I roll onto my stomach, slowly, disoriented by the darkness and the pain in my head. Up onto my knees. I retch onto the floor and bile burns the back of my throat. I reverse-crawl away from the puddle on the floor. My brain feels like it’s expanding and contracting with the added pressure of being sick, so I focus on the cold tiles beneath my knees.
If I’m right, my toes will hit the door at some point. It’s locked, but there should be a light switch nearby.
Sure enough, I feel something solid behind me and stop still. Turning around, I lean against it for support and drag myself upright, banging my chest on the handle as I go.
The door.
I feel my way across the wall as if it’s telling a story in Braille, waiting to touch the slim ridge of a socket. But it’s smooth. Frantic, desperate for light before George comes back, I keep going, following the wall until my knee collides with another, more flexible than the first. I drag my fingers across it, stare until it blurs into something I can understand.
A shower cubicle.
This is a bathroom.
The light switch will be outside for practical purposes.
And I don’t have my cell phone because this dress has no room for pockets.
My breathing is growing ragged. My jaw is throbbing. But I hear my mom’s voice in my head:You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.
I’m stronger than George gives me credit for anyway. Stronger than he’ll ever be because I have everything to live for.
I will get out of here.
I will not be here when he comes back with his gooey face and his heavy fist and his revelation that he never found me attractive.
He has no idea that he set me free when he told me this. Everything was a lie and won’t waste another moment of my life remembering.
Past the shower cubicle and my hands flounder in midair. “Keep going, Remy,” I whisper to myself. “It’s him or you.”
