“I’ll take care of the twins.” The spawns of Satan who were screaming bloody murder in their cribs.
My head throbbed, and my eyelids were more sandpaper than flesh as they slid over my eyes.
“Shhh, Aunt Madi’s here.” I didn’t really think they were evil, but as they tried to wake the dead, it was hard to remember how much I loved them.
Rose was closer, so I picked her up first, rocking her as she sucked on my finger. If I could get them to stop crying, it’d be a lot easier to feed them.
“I’ll grab Richard,” Jamie whispered behind me.
“Is Em okay?”
“She will be. I put her to bed and shut the door to dim the noise,” he said, picking up his son. “Is it always like this?”
“No, it’ll get better.”
“The sooner the better.”
“I’ll go start the formula.”
Emily wanted to breastfeed, but couldn’t until the antibiotics were out of her system. A reality that wasn’t helping her state of mind.
Cradling a now quiet Rose in one arm, I opened the fridge.
Fuck!We were out of distilled water.
I’d have to run to the twenty-four-hour grocery store on the edge of town.
“Jamie, can you take Rose? We’re out of water.”
“Damn it. I thought we had enough to last until morning.” Jamie, looking as tired as I felt, shifted his son to one arm so he could hold his daughter in the other.
“I’ll be right back.”
I shoved my phone into the side pocket of my leggings and shimmied my feet into my work shoes.Thank God no one will see me.
My messy bun sat high on my head, and baby spit-up decorated my faded Navy T-shirt.
At the store, I parked O.P., hopped out and clicked the lock button as I jogged to the entrance, barely pausing long enough for the automatic door to open.
Exhausted beyond comprehension and singularly focused on stocking up on distilled water, I didn’t notice anyone or anything around me.
I tapped my phone to the card reader to pay for the water and then jogged across the parking lot, cursing the broken wheel that made it hard to push the rickety grocery cart.
“Sorry.” I apologized in advance for not returning the cart, but I was a woman on a mission.
I’d just unlocked the doors when the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
In the next instant, something hard connected with my head, and white-hot pain blasted through my skull.
I should’ve called Matt, was my last thought before the world faded to black.
The first thing I noticed as I regained consciousness was my pounding head. The second was that I was sitting up and my arms were tied behind me.
What the hell is going on?
My sleep-deprived brain couldn’t make sense of the dark room or the ropes around my wrists and ankles.
Pale moonlight coming through dirty windows provided the only light in the large, empty room. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the low light, trying to get my bearings.
