by Hart, Stella
“No, not once it’s started. All that can be done is aftercare to prevent infection and monitoring to make sure the blood loss isn’t too heavy. It’s mostly just a matter of waiting for all the tissue to pass, barring any complications.”
“Fuck!” I glanced over at Tatum. She was writhing on the bed, blood soaking through the white sheets below her.
“It might be something else, though,” Paulson said in a soothing tone. “I’m driving as fast as I can. You should give her some painkillers to ease the cramps.”
“Okay. Which ones?” I asked as I stepped over to a huge cabinet filled with packets and bottles of different medications.
He guided me through the process of finding the right pills and dosage for Tatum’s situation. I filled up a glass of water and gave them to her, stroking her hair as she swallowed them. “This should help a bit,” I said softly as she winced in pain again.
“Thank you.” Her voice was a broken whisper.
“There must be something else I can do,” I muttered to Paulson, who was still on the phone with me.
“There are medications which can make the tissue pass faster, but if she’s bleeding as much as you say, I don’t think they’d be appropriate in this case.”
I covered my face with one hand, trying to hide my expression from Tatum. “So that’s it? It’s just… gone?”
“I’m sorry, Elias.”
The next fifteen minutes crawled by at a snail’s pace. The bleeding seemed to have subsided for now, but cramps were still wracking Tatum’s body, making her cry out every few minutes. Her fingers clutched at the sheets around her like twisted claws and her eyes were clouded with misery.
“It’s gonna be okay, Doll,” I murmured, squeezing her hand. “You’re gonna be okay.”
She didn’t reply.
“Elias, I think I’m here. There’s some sort of electronic gate with a sign. Does that sound right?” came Paulson’s voice from the other end of the phone.
“Yeah. That’s it.” I stooped down to Tatum’s level on the bed and squeezed one of her hands. “I have to go up and get the doctor. I don’t wanna leave you but he can’t get past the gate by himself.”
Her chest rose and fell in a series of heavy breaths. “Okay. Go and get him,” she whispered.
“I’ll go as fast as I can.”
I made a brief stop in the control room on my way to the main elevator, just to make sure Paulson hadn’t brought anyone else with him. I didn’t think he would—I was sure he was on my side—but I needed to double-check anyway, just in case Tatum was right about him playing me.
I squinted at the camera feeds. It was just him, waiting by his car at the gate on the property boundary. No one else in sight. Breathing a quick sigh of relief, I dashed out of the room and headed for the elevator. It seemed to move as sluggishly as cold molasses, but I knew it wasn’t actually running any slower than usual. I was just in a state of panic where time seemed to warp around me.
Once I’d finally brought Paulson back to the shelter with me, I led him down to the medical wing and watched as he attended to my girl. He was calm and soothing, a stark contrast to my white-knuckled agitation, and Tatum seemed to breathe easier as he worked around her, fiddling with an ultrasound machine and whatever the hell else he was getting up to.
“What’s happening?” I asked impatiently. I knew he needed time to work, but I needed to know if Tatum would be okay. If the baby would be okay.
“The bleeding is under control, and Tatum is going to be just fine after she’s had some time to rest and recover,” he replied, eyeing me over his shoulder. He turned back to face her and patted her hand, then beckoned to me. “I need you to sit down, Elias.”
My shoulders drooped, arms hanging slack at my sides. “We lost the baby, didn’t we?” I said, my voice flat and distant as I collapsed into a chair by Tatum’s bedside. Her face was pale and placid, unlike a few minutes ago when she was screaming and crying, red creeping up her neckline, inflaming her cheeks and forehead.
“This isn’t a miscarriage,” the doctor said, shaking his head.
My brows shot up. A spark of hope flared in my chest. “So it’s okay?”
He rubbed his jawline. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this,” he began in halting tones. “But there was never a baby.”
His words punched me in the gut so hard they made it almost impossible to breathe. I saw my confusion mirrored in Tatum’s gaze. “What?”
Paulson pointed at the ultrasound screen. “See that?” he said. “It’s called a corpus luteum cyst.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a type of ovarian cyst. When an egg is released from a follicle, the follicle becomes something that’s known as a corpus luteum. It produces hormones in preparation for conception. Usually it breaks down when conception doesn’t occur, but sometimes it turns into a cyst and fills with blood and other fluids,” he explained. “They’re mostly harmless, but sometimes they can get too big and rupture. That’s why all the pain and bleeding occurred.” He tilted his head slightly to the side and patted Tatum’s hand again. “I know it doesn’t feel this way, but you’re actually quite lucky. Sometimes severe internal bleeding or ovarian torsion can occur, but that hasn’t happened to you.”
Tatum shook her head. “I don’t understand. They told me I was pregnant!”
Paulson nodded. “These cysts can secrete HCG, which leads to false positives on pregnancy tests. If the Lodge doctors had bothered doing more than a blood test, they would’ve realized you weren’t actually pregnant.”
I stared at him, my eyes wide. I felt empty, cheated, robbed of something which belonged to me. But why? Tatum was never pregnant. How could I grieve for something we never really had?
“So all this time… there was really no baby?” Tatum’s face was even whiter now.
“I’m afraid so,” Paulson said in a grave tone. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you like this. I know how hard it can be for people to hear.”
“But what about the nausea? The cramps?” Tatum shook her head. “That’s why they tested me for pregnancy in the first place. The nausea, I mean. I had it badly for a couple of weeks.”
“You may have had some sort of bug at the time. Or it may have been a symptom of the cyst as it developed and grew larger over the weeks. Like I said, ovarian cysts are filled with hormones. Progesterone, estrogen, and so on. Too much of that in your system can throw you off balance and make you feel strange. The cyst would’ve caused the cramps before today, too. But that’s all it was. Just a cyst.”
“Just a cyst,” Tatum repeated softly. She shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”
I caught her eye. Something skimmed over her face, swift and shadowy. Fear.
“Could Tatum and I have a few minutes alone?” I asked curtly. The doctor nodded and left the room.
I waited for the door to close, and then I reached out and touched a hand to Tatum’s face, tilting her chin up so she was forced to look right at me. “I know what you’re thinking right now, but before you go down that road, let me tell you: I didn’t just help you escape and bring you here because I thought you were pregnant with my kid. Baby or no baby, I was always gonna get you the fuck out of that place. I love you for you, not just because I felt like I was being forced to.”
She nodded and gave me the faintest of smiles. “I know. I wasn’t thinking that at all.”
“But you seemed afraid,” I said, brows drawing together. “When you looked at me.”
She shook her head. “I was just thinking about how close I came to being murdered over being pregnant, when I was never even pregnant to begin with,” she murmured.
“I see.” I leaned over and pressed my lips to her forehead. “You don’t have to worry about that ever again. You know that, right?” I muttered against her warm skin.
I drew back. Tatum nodded. “I do. I just feel so…” She stopped midsentence and sighed. “I really thought we were having a baby, and n
ow…”
She trailed off again, too choked with emotion to continue. I nodded. “I know. It was never there. But it was still real to us. That’s what matters.”
“So it’s not weird that I’m sad?” she asked, her eyes wide and watery.
“No. I feel the same,” I said gruffly. I stroked her cheek as a tear spilled down it. I hated seeing her like this, so pale and miserable. “Let’s try and look at it another way, Doll.”
“How?”
“We both know we want to have a baby with each other one day. Now we can choose when and where it happens. We can wait until we’re not on the run. Wait until my father and the rest of those scumbags are rotting in fucking prison. We can do it the right way. Like you said earlier, if we were in a different situation, without all this…” I swept my hand around me. “We’d be happy. Excited. Doing it all on our own terms.”
She nodded slowly. “Our choice.”
“Exactly. Not forced on you like this was in the first place.”
“Thank you for saying that,” she murmured, another tear slipping down her cheek. “It helps.”
“Good.” I leaned forward again, pressing the tip of my nose to hers. “It’ll happen, baby girl. We’ll have our own family, and we’ll be happy.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I can’t wait.”
I pulled back again, casting my gaze over her weary face. “You should probably get some rest.”
She nodded and took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering half-shut. “Could you thank Dr. Paulson for me?” she asked. “I was wrong about him.”
“It’s fine. I’ll go and get you some fresh clothes too,” I said, motioning toward her blood-soaked jeans. “I think these are beyond repair. I’ll just throw them out.”
Tatum nodded and yawned. Then she sat up straight all of a sudden, wincing at the movement. Her eyes were wide open. “Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?” I asked, trying to get her to lie down again.
“The clothes. Don’t throw them out.”
“Why?” I glanced at her with a perplexed expression. Perhaps she wanted to keep them around as a reminder of what we felt we’d lost today. The baby that never was. That didn’t seem healthy to me, though. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to keep looking at them. It’ll just make you feel morb—”
She cut me off in a hurried voice, one hand in the air. “It’s not that. Remember we were talking earlier about finding a way back into the Lodge to get that stash of stuff from your dad?”
I frowned. That wasn’t what I expected to hear at all. “Yeah.”
Tatum swallowed hard and went on. Her voice was shaky, but her eyes flashed with determination. “I think I might have a real idea now.”
16
Tatum
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Elias frowned as he looked down at me.
I nodded and pasted on a brave smile. “Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“We can wait a few more days. Dr. Paulson said you need time to recover.”
I shook my head. “It’s been three days already, and I feel okay now. No more cramps, and the spotting has mostly stopped. Honestly, I think he’s just really enjoying the shelter and wants to stay longer.”
“Maybe, yeah.” He smiled and held a cell phone out to me. “Here you go. I’ll be right outside.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“I’ll let you know how it goes,” I said.
He left the room, and I drew a deep breath and dialed the number for the student newspaper I used to work for when I was still at college. A clipped male voice answered on the third ring. “Roden Daily News.”
“Hi, may I speak to Greer?” I asked, trying to mask the edginess in my voice.
“Sorry, she’s not here at the moment.”
My heart sank. I swallowed hard, trying not to let the minor setback deter me. “Oh, I thought she was always there on Tuesday mornings. Do you know when she’ll be in?”
“She is working today, but she went out to grab coffee for everyone. You could try her cell.”
Shit. I couldn’t do that. For all I knew, my old friends’ cell phones were being monitored by Crown and Dagger in case I tried calling them for help. General phone lines like this were the only ones I could trust right now.
I sighed. “I’ll just call back later.”
“All right. Oh, wait, she just walked in. Give me a second.”
My heart lifted again. There was a clicking sound, and Greer’s voice came on the line a moment later. “Hello?”
Just one little word, but my chest ached at the sound of her chirpy voice anyway. I missed her so much. I closed my eyes, trying to pretend I was sitting across from her at the little newspaper office like nothing ever happened.
“Hi. It’s me.” My voice came out in an emotional croak.
“Sorry, who is this?”
I cleared my throat and tried again. “It’s Tatum.”
“Tatum,” she repeated, her voice suddenly cold. I could see her in my mind’s eye. Shoulders tensing up, gaze turning frosty. “What do you want?”
“Please don’t hang up,” I said hurriedly. “I know you’re mad at me, but it’s really important.”
“Yes, it must be, if you’re lowering yourself to a phone call with a dumb trashy bimbo like me.”
“I never said any of those things about you. Please, Greer, you have to—”
“I don’t have to do anything you say,” she snapped.
I rubbed my forehead and let out a sigh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I really need you to listen. I need your help.”
She snorted. “You ghosted us all six months ago and trash-talked us to your parents so much that they wouldn’t even give us contact details for you. Now you want my help?” She exhaled deeply and went on before I could get a word in. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be ghosted by someone you thought was a friend? You might think it’s no big deal, but it freakin’ sucks. Willa actually cried when your parents told us you left and didn’t want anything to do with us, and you know how rarely she loses her composure. And Mellie… did you know she was so upset about the whole thing that she dropped out? She thought you were her best friend, so when you decided you were so far above—”
It was my turn to cut her off. “That’s not true. Mellie didn’t leave Roden because of me.”
“How would you know? You’ve been too busy living it up in Europe with all your cool new intellectual friends to bother keeping up to date on our lives, haven’t you?”
I gritted my teeth. “No. You were and still are one of my best friends. Everything my parents told you was a lie. I mean, for god’s sake, you’re on a full scholarship to the best college in the country. It doesn’t even make sense that I’d call you brainless and boring behind your back.”
“No shit. Still hurts, though.”
“Look, if our friendship ever meant anything to you, then please give me five minutes to explain. That’s all I’m asking for.”
There was a long silence on the other end. “Fine. Five minutes,” Greer finally said. “As soon as I’ve finished my coffee, I’m hanging up.”
I launched into a condensed version of my experiences over the last six months. The way Tobias King bought me from my parents. The way I was taken. The things that were done to me. The things Crown and Dagger did to other women too. Kidnapping, rape, torture, forced pregnancy, murder.
I waited for Greer’s response with bated breath and a racing heart. She was silent again, for even longer this time. Finally, she let out a snort of laughter. “I get it. I’m on loudspeaker, and this is a prank. Your new friends are listening in, waiting for the dumb, crazy conspiracy lover to fall for your shit so they can upload it to YouTube and laugh about it. Nice, Tatum. Real nice.”
My throat felt scratchy all of a sudden, and my eyes began to water. “Please believe me. It’s not a prank. I never went to Europe. My parents sold me and they lied to you about everything.”
“Then call the police,” she said. “Oh, wait, you can’t, because you’re full of shit.”
“I’m not. But I can’t call them. It’s not safe. They’re in the society’s pocket.”
“Sure.”
“Please!” I begged. “Just tell me what I can say to make you believe me.”
“How about nothing?”
“I need you, Greer,” I said, my voice cracking. Tears leaked out of my eyes, wetting my cheeks in hot rivulets.
She seemed to register my emotional state, because her voice softened slightly. “What’s really going on? You don’t need to make up some big story to get my attention. Just tell me. You get dumped or something?”
“I didn’t make anything up,” I said. I sniffed back a fresh set of tears. “It’s all true. Remember when we were talking about all the missing women around New Marwick? You said yourself that it was weird. You were right. It’s because a lot of high-level Crown and Dagger members live around there. They see girls they want and they either buy them or straight-up take them, depending on their families.”
Greer’s tone was weary now. “Right.”
“I’m not the only one they took this year. Remember Priyanka Rahman? They took her too.”
“For god’s sake, at least try to make your stupid little story believable,” Greer replied. “Everyone knows she dropped out and went back to New Zealand.”
“No. The Dean lied when he said that. The truth is Pri’s family sold her to the society. She’s been there the whole time, in the same place they kept me.”
Greer snorted derisively. “Wow, so Dean Davenport is magically in on this huge conspiracy too?”
I ignored her sarcasm. “Yes. He’s one of the highest-level Crown and Dagger guys. Mellie knows that, and she’s helping him. She was only ever friends with me to keep an eye on me while they waited for the right time to kidnap me, and she dropped out to work at the Lodge as soon as they did.”
“Cool story. Intrigue, horror, betrayal. You gonna sell the rights to Hollywood?”
“Greer, please. This is real, and I need you. You’re the only one who can help me,” I said. “You were right all along. All those conspiracy theories you used to love talking about… they’re all true. There really is a bunch of shady shit happening in the elite levels of society. Don’t you want a chance to expose it to the world? Don’t you want to help all these women?”