Page 13 of Resurgent

No. That doesn’t make sense. It’s not possible. I would have felt it. I would have known something so…so monumental was growing inside of me.

"I can't be. I'm on birth control, I haven't missed a period, and I haven't had sex in several weeks," I argue.

But neither he nor Sasha says anything.

Matt's arms tighten around me like he’s trying to hold me together before I shatter, and Sasha presses both hands over her mouth.

That silence is worse than anything they could say.

A new kind of terror sinks into my chest, and then, my mind starts racing backward.

The nausea I blamed on anxiety. The bone-deep exhaustion I thought was a case of the breakup blues. The headaches I seemed to be getting far too often. There was more than enough going on to cause those symptoms, but pregnant?

Oh Gods.

"How far along am I?" I mumble, equally afraid and needing to know.

Matt pulls me tighter as Sasha covers her soaked and swollen face, like that'll hide the sobs now ripping from her.

"It's…gone," he chokes out.

The air leaves my lungs in a broken exhale as my hand drifts to my stomach before I can stop it.

There was a life there.

Tiny. Fragile. Unplanned. Unsafe.

I let out a hollow noise that doesn’t sound like it belongs to me. A laugh or a sob, I'm not even sure. I wasn’t ready. I would have panicked. I would have paced holes into the floor, whispered every worst-case scenario into the dark. I would have told Matt with shaking hands, knowing he'd tell me everything would be okay and how loved my baby already was.

A part of me.

A part of Aiden.

Even if he chose not to be involved.

My throat closes so hard I have to fight for breath.

It shouldn't matter this much. It was so early, and I didn't even know.

But it was a heartbeat that I'll never get to hear.

Small fingers that would have wrapped around mine.

A laugh that might have sounded like his.

It was innocent.

And it died inside me while I lay in cold dirt and pine needles; or maybe sprawled across the stone cave floor.

The memories slam into me again—countless hits and kicks, the cracking of bones, and the copper taste of blood. Being held down. Cut. Stabbed. Punched.

But this time, I'm not thinking about the pain, I'm remembering every time I chose to protect my head over my stomach. Every chance I could have had to protect my baby. Folding in on myself, both hands wrap over my abdomen like I can somehow hold what’s already been taken from me.

“Your body endured so much trauma,” Sasha says, softly rubbing my arm. “And at that stage…it doesn’t take much.”

Doesn’t take much.

Just their cruelty. Their depravity. Their disgusting desires.