Is it possible to fall in love with someone just because they fuck you a lot? Because if it is, then I’m totally fucked.

No pun intended.

These past few weeks it feels like that’s all Andrew and I have done. We take care of Abigail, get her off to school, then start fucking.

On the kitchen counter. In the backseat of the car.

Up against the wall in the garage.

We’ve even snuck in a few quickies in the houses we’ve been looking at.

You’d think by now we’d start to get tired of each other, that we’d get our fill. But this lust, this craving I have for Andrew only seems to be getting worse. The sickness inside of me is spreading.

It’s no longer a simple matter of just giving into the attraction growing between us.

It’s turning into a real need.

I need to have him inside me. I need to feel his skin against my skin. To feel his teeth sinking into my neck, marking me.

On a daily basis.

There’s a safety in being his. There’s a rightness to it.

And it’s terrifying.

I can’t rely on him, I can’t… To do so would be giving up, and I’m not ready to give up yet. There’s still a chance that Abigail and I can get away from all this madness. From these men who rule the world with their money and viciousness.

There’s still a chance I’m not pregnant.

“What are you doing?” I ask Lily.

She’s scrunching up her face and squinting her eyes at me.

I walked into her room a moment ago but I know she’s been expecting me. We planned this days ago.

“I’m trying to tell if you’re pregnant.”

“You look like you’re constipated and trying to take a shit,” I tell her.

She tips her head back and laughs. And nearly tumbles off her bed. I quickly grab her, tugging her back up, and she instantly sobers.

“Why were you looking at me like that?” I ask once she’s got her balance back.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she says, “I was trying to open my third eye.”

“Huh?” I frown at her, still not getting it.

She sighs and leans away. “This old Japanese guy once told me you could tell a lot about someone if you looked closely enough.”

“Okay,” I nod my head, not sure what else to say. It sounds utterly ridiculous.

She smiles sheepishly at me. “Yeah, now that I think about it, it seems really silly… It was probably just a lucky guess.”

“What was?”

“Oh, nothing,” she waves her hand in the air, dismissively.

Sensing she wants to drop the matter, I ask, “Well?”

She drops her hand and blinks at me. “Well, what?”

Fuck. She must have forgot it. With everything going on, it must have slipped her mind…

“Oh!” She exclaims and her face lights up. “I got it.”

She scoots off the end of the bed and then dashes to her closet. A moment later she’s rushing back over to me, waving a small rectangular box in the air.

Seeing the box, I experience a moment of relief that she didn’t forget. Then that relief morphs into sheer, paralyzing terror.

This is it. The moment of truth.

What if I am?

What if I’m not?

Taking in the look on my face, Lily’s steps slow and she seems to hesitate.

“Are you sure?” she asks, holding the box back.

I know if I decide to back out, she’d totally understand. That’s why I like hanging out with her so much. There are no hard questions and there’s no judgment.

I take a deep, fortifying breath and say, “I’m sure.”

Lily passes the box over to me.

I grip it tightly in my hand, nearly crushing it, as we walk over to the bathroom.

“You know,” she says, swinging open the bathroom door for me. “Whatever happens, I’m here for you.”

I offer her a faint smile and nod my head. I march inside like I’m marching to my death. “Thank you.”

She smiles back at me and closes the door for me.

I look down at the box in my hand.

Now it’s just the pregnancy test and me.

Please… Please, if there’s anyone up there, don’t let me pregnant, I begin to pray.

It’s been six weeks since they grabbed me. It feels like it’s been a lifetime but it’s only been six short weeks.

Weeks that were filled with unprotected sex.

I haven’t had my period. I’m actually four weeks late. But there’s still a chance it’s because of all the stress I’ve been through. This has happened before. I skipped my period once when I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make rent.

Please, please, please.

I repeat after peeing on the end of the stick.

I’d give anything…

One line darkens.

I’ll be a good girl…

Then two.

Fuck.

I grab up the little cardboard box. My eyes scroll over the instructions.

One line—negative.

Two lines—positive.

I jump up and yank the door open.

Lily jumps back and I thrust the little stick at her.

“I think it’s broken.”

She glances down at the stick but doesn’t take it. Looking back up at me, her smile is sympathetic. “It’s very rare to get a false positive.”

That is not what I wanted to hear.

I stare at her and her smile wavers. “How long has it been since your last period?”

Amazingly, I have to think about it. Maybe because I was purposely not thinking about it.

“It was two weeks before I was grabbed…”

It’s been eight weeks! Eight fucking weeks since the last time I had my period.

“Shit,” I whisper and feel a crushing weight settling on my chest.

Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? I can’t spend the rest of my life with him. I don’t want to be permanently chained to him.

He doesn’t love me. It’s something darker. Something deeper.

More primal.

A need to control and possess.

That’s destroying me in the process.

I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I want, what I need.

“What am I going to do?”

Lily stares at me helplessly.

I thought… No, I hoped that if I just willed it hard enough, I wouldn’t conceive. That my will was stronger than his.

I should have known better. Even in this, he’s stronger than me.

There’s only one thing I can do.

“Lily, you have to help me,” I plead.

She smiles at me but her eyes are instantly wary. “Of course. What do you need?”

“You need to help me get away.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” She frowns. “I know you’re in shock, but you should really think about this…”

I laugh at her, balancing on the razor edge of hysteria. “All I’ve done is think about this. Are you going to help me or not?”

Lily shifts and sighs, her brow furrowing as she thinks it over. She glances towards the door as if she expects someone to come through it at any moment. Then she walks up to me, grabs me by the arm and leads me back into the bathroom.

“I’m probably the only person who can help you,” she whispers while shutting the door behind us.

I nod my head at her, instantly relieved that she’s not going to try to talk me out of it.

“Where do you want to go?” she asks.

“Anywhere away from here,” I automatically answer.

She nods her head. “Okay. But where? You need a specific destination.”

I think for a moment. I could go to my aunt… but Andrew already mentioned that’s the first place he would look for me.

I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t know. Anywhere…”

“Do you have any relatives?” Lily asks, her sympathy growing by the second. “Anyone who will hide you?”

“I don’t have any other relatives. My grandparents passed before I was born, and my parents passed in a car accident when I was eighteen months old,” I explain. “I’d have to start somewhere new. Somewhere completely by myself.”

My aunt raised me but she only did it out of necessity. I don’t think she resented me but she wasn’t anything like a mother to me.

I’ve never had a real family.

And now that I think about it, neither will my children. Abigail’s father completely abandoned her when she was a baby. To him she was just a teenage mistake.

And this baby…

Their father will probably never stop hunting me. We’ll always be running.

Because he wants them… Because he wants me.

Oh god.

He wants us. For the first time I’m actually wanted.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lily asks hesitantly.

I shake my head, my composure cracking. “No.”

I’m not sure. I have no clue what I want anymore…

“Oh honey,” Lily sighs, stepping up to me and giving me a hug.

The comfort is the last big crack in my wall. The tears come and the shudders start.

I cry because of all the things I can’t change. I cry because of all the things I can.

I cry because Andrew is better at taking care of us and protecting us than I ever was.

I cry even harder because last night, before bed, Abigail called him daddy when he tucked her in.

And god help me, I think I’m in love with him, and I think I want to stay with him…