Lucy

 

“All right, take the hood off and free her wrists,” my father said from the front of the SUV as we came to a stop.

 

When the hood came off, I was staring at his cold, smiling face in the passenger seat up front. When my hands were untied, I leaned forward to look out the front windshield.

 

“What are we doing here?” I asked my father, even though I knew exactly why were at the clinic.

 

“You’re not going to have that baby,” he said.

 

“Without my consent, no doctor is going to perform the operation. And besides, I’m too far along,” I argued.

 

“Oh, naïve, sheltered little Lucy,” my father said condescendingly, “you underestimate the power of money. With enough money, any doctor will perform the operation when they are told, with or without your consent.”

 

I stared at the squat little building in front of us in horror. “You’re telling me you’ve got a doctor in there who’s already agreed to it?” I said.

 

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Lucy.” He sounded so pleased with himself. He puffed his chest out and smiled at me with all his smug self-satisfaction.

 

“You really think you’ve got it all figured out, huh?” I said, trying to engage him to buy some time. I knew it wasn’t going to be too long before Blade showed up. Unfortunately, he probably knew that, too, which meant he was probably in a hurry to get me inside.

 

He ignored me and turned to his driver. “Hey, she knows where we are now. You can drive around back,” he said.

 

My heart started to race again. All this stress could not have been good for the baby. I knew what it meant that we were moving around to the back of the building. No one was even going to know I was there other than the doctor and anyone who helped in the procedure. I was going to be in and out as quickly and quietly as possible, with as few witnesses as possible.

 

“You know, you always taught me that guys like Blade were thugs, and you’re turning out to be the real thug here,” I cried to my father.

 

“When you operate at my level, dear, thug isn’t the word. I’m not even a criminal anymore. They call people like me businessmen. I’m able to pull off what normally takes motorcycle gangs, well-organized street gangs, or the mafia. But because I know how to make business arrangements work in my favor, I only rely on a few employees to watch my back while I make things happen. No one is permanently tied to me,” he explained with sadistic delight in his voice.

 

“We’re here,” the driver said, pulling up to the back of the building and parking almost right next to the door.

 

The door swung open, and a man stood there in green scrubs with a mask over his mouth and nose. I figured he must have been the doctor who was going to perform the procedure.

 

“All right, let’s get her inside,” my father said to his men. Then, he turned to me and added, “If you run, I may lose more than a grandchild today. I told you not to get involved with those street thug bikers.” He shook his head as if he had already been practicing how he was going to look to the cops.

 

“I can’t believe you,” I said flatly. “You are no longer my father.”

 

“Thank you, Lucy. You just made this so much easier.” He turned and climbed out of the car as the driver opened my door and snatched me out by my hair with gloved hands.

 

“Be careful. We don’t want to hurt the baby yet,” he cautioned his men as they handled me and forced me into the building. He nodded at the doctor as he walked in ahead of us.

 

The doctor closed the door behind us after the men got me inside. They led me to a room at his direction. We were in the back of the office, and it was quiet other than us. I realized I hadn’t seen any cars up front.

 

“What, did you close the office early?” I snapped at the doctor behind me.

 

“After today, child, I could retire if I wanted to,” he said in a muffled voice from behind the face mask.

 

I wanted to tell him he probably should have retired if he was considering doing something illegal, but at the same time, I didn’t want to talk to the man who was about to take my baby from me. There was nothing I could have said with more weight than money, I knew. Besides, it was hard to focus with hands on me, pushing me, making me walk.

 

“Ready?” one of the men asked the other.

 

One grabbed my ankles while the other grabbed me under my arms. I tried to fight and protest but they had a good grip on me. They picked me up and put me on the operating table.

 

“Secure her so she can’t hurt herself,” the doctor said.

 

“How often do you do this?” I asked him.

 

“Every day,” he answered with a touch of humor in his voice.

 

“No, jackass, I mean this, performing backroom abortions against the mother’s will.”

 

All he did was wink. My heart sank. These men were the real criminals.

 

I looked around for Bryan. I hate that he had become that, that he had become someone who was no longer my father. He stood by the door and just watched as they forced me down on the table and put my wrists and ankles in restraints.

 

“Are you just going to stand there and watch?” I asked him.

 

“Unless it gets too nasty. Then, I’ll probably step outside,” he said nonchalantly, as if the girl on the table in front of him wasn’t even his daughter. He’d abandoned me. I didn’t know when, but he’d abandoned me.

 

I blinked back my tears and looked up at the ceiling. I stopped fighting. There was no use in it. If I kept fighting I was going to hurt my son. I closed my eyes as tears ran down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I said aloud, choking on my words.

 

“Now you apologize,” he said.

 

“I don’t think she’s talking to you,” the doctor said.

 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen. You were supposed to be born. You were supposed to grow up and be happy. You even had a man waiting for you, who had promised to be your dad. And he would have been a great dad. I’m so sorry,” I told my unborn child. Tears were streaming down the sides of my face, and I lost my voice. I cleared my throat and stopped talking. I couldn’t say anything else.

 

“Can you do something to make her shut up?” Bryan asked the doctor.

 

“I could,” he answered, “but I think she’s done.” There was a hint of sorrow in his voice, as if I’d touched him.

 

He took a breath and looked around the room. He put a gentle hand on my arm and gave me a light squeeze, letting me know he understood, or at least sympathized. He can’t sympathized too much, I thought. He’s still about to kill my unborn child.

 

“Okay, before we get started, I’ve got to run some tests to make sure we’re okay to move forward,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I have to ask everyone to step out into the hallway.”

 

I heard a gun cock and looked over to see Bryan holding a gun up at the doctor.

 

“We’ll stand out in the hallway, but you better not try anything stupid, doc. We’ll be watching you.”

 

“I’ll leave the door open. I just need to check on the baby and make sure our patient is healthy enough to withstand the procedure,” he said, holding his hands up passively.

 

Bryan looked at the two men with him. He jerked his head toward the door to send them outside before he lowered his gun and backed away. The doctor waited until the three of them were out of the room before moving toward his equipment. He grabbed a monitor and pulled it over next to me.

 

“Okay, bear with me here. We’re going to take a look at the baby for a moment just to get a look at what we’re dealing with,” he said. “You don’t have to see anything. I know it’s a tender situation right now, so I don’t have to do anything to make it worse.”

 

“If you’re going to do this, I don’t want to know anything,” I told him, my voice still racked with my sobbing. It was still hard to talk.

 

“I’ll make this as comfortable as possible,” he assured me.

 

He performed an ultrasound to get an image of the baby. As much as I wanted to look at the monitor to see what he was seeing, I didn’t want to traumatize myself even more.

 

“Wow,” he said, sounding almost troubled.

 

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

 

“Yes.” He sighed. “A little too okay. If you will, excuse me, please.”

 

My nerves were shot to hell, but I could still feel the surge of nervous energy as he got up and walked away from me, leaving the room. He pulled the door mostly closed behind him. There was a seriousness in his stride, and as I watched, I almost felt relieved. I got the distinct feeling he was trying to get out of the procedure.

 

I strained my ears to listen to the voices outside the door. I caught snippets of their voices as they talked. I wasn’t sure of exactly what I was hearing, but there were a few phrases that seemed to jump out at me.

 

“…too far along.”

 

“I’m paying you…”

 

“…thought you said… earlier…”

 

“Get back in there.”

 

I heard Bryan’s voice get louder, and the gun cocked again.

 

“I’m sorry, but I’m a professional, Mr. Smithfield. I can’t,” the doctor protested.

 

“Then why did you agree to this anyway?” Bryan was hissing and growling at him at the same time.

 

“I didn’t realize how far along your daughter was. I’m sorry, but my moral convictions won’t let me do this, not in good conscience,” I heard the doctor continue protesting.

 

“So did you agree to it to mislead me?” Bryan asked.

 

He pushed the doctor back into the room with his gun pressed into his chest.

 

“I’ve paid for your services, and you’re going to provide them, whether you agree with what I want you to do or not. You’ve already agreed to the money, and my moral convictions tell me that you better deliver the services you promised me.” He pushed the doctor against the operating table while he was ordering him back into the room.

 

“Okay, okay. I’ll do the procedure,” the doctor agreed.

 

“Good. Now stop wasting time,” Bryan said. He pushed the doctor one more time. I imagined he used the gun to shove him back, but I didn’t know for sure, as he was standing on the other side of the doctor and I couldn’t see him.

 

When the doctor gathered himself and turned around, I saw Bryan standing against the wall next to the door. The other two men stood on the other side of it. They were all inside the room now instead of standing out of it in the hallway.

 

The doctor shot me a knowing look as he gathered the ultrasound equipment and pushed it back against the wall. He wasn’t finished trying to help me. He still had something else up his sleeve.

 

He came back and stood by side for just a moment. He was wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. At the same time, he loosened the strap on my wrist enough that I could get my hand out of it.

 

“Gentlemen, I have some equipment that we need to get from the other room,” he told Bryan and his two associates after he finished acting like he was taking my blood pressure.

 

He walked out, and Bryan’s two associates followed. Bryan stood and looked at me nervously before backing out of the room to follow them.

 

I was alone.

 

It was time to go.