by Bella Jewel
I found out not too long ago at a checkup. I had been having problems, and after a range of tests, they told me my chances of having kids were basically none. They gave me options, ideas, but because of the life I had lived, I wasn’t able. An experience when I was younger made sure of that, an experience I can’t even think about, let alone process.
The worst night of my life.
The day I was forever changed.
“The people who live here have no idea who Bryant is,” Alarick says, returning to the truck with the other guys following him. “They purchased the house only a month ago when it was put up for sale. They said the bank was selling it. They did, however, tell us that a girl matching Cova’s description was here last night, asking for Bryant. So, we’re on the right path. Now, we’ve got to work out where she would have gone. Any idea, Merleigh?”
I swallow and nod. “I know where she is.”
“Then let’s go and find her,” Briella says.
“It’s not that easy,” I say. “Firstly, we can’t take kids there. Secondly ... it’s, ah, an eye opener.”
“Care to tell us what you’re talking about?”
There was a club Bryant used to own. Outside of the house, it was the only place he’d take us regularly. We’d sit in his office as he’d conduct business, and we’d watch and learn as he ran that place with an iron fist. The people he owned it with, I imagine would still be there, and Cova knows those people. They know her. If she’s looking for answers, they’re the ones who will give it to her.
“It’s a sex club,” I say, quietly. Not wanting the boys to hear. “Bryant owned it. It’s not a trashy club, like you’re thinking. It’s more ... elite. Expensive rooms, expensive girls, you pay for the very best and you get it. We spent a lot of time there.”
Bohdi’s eyes swing to mine, and a flicker of something crosses them.
“You ever have to work there?” Alarick asks, his voice rough.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not that I can think of, but a group of bikers rushing in might raise some concern. If I were you, I’d probably change.”
Alarick’s jaw ticks, but he nods sharply. “Then let’s go and check into our rooms. I’m certain it doesn’t open until later tonight anyway, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I nod.
“Oh good, I could use a nap and a shower,” Isla says, hooking her arm through Bohdi’s and leaning her head on his shoulder. “What about you, babe?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off me.
I turn before I can hear his answer.
I can’t hear his answer.
Hell, I can’t be here a second longer.
I just can’t.
“WE COULD BE SOMEWHERE else, Cova. Somewhere away from here,” I say to the only other person in this world I can talk to right now.
Now that we’re in this dungeon. This prison. This place where there is no escape. I don’t want to go back to the streets, to the horrors I left behind there, but I’m not sure I want to be here forever either. As his slave. If we do what he asks, then he’s good to us, but if we don’t ...
Maybe there is life beyond these walls.
Maybe ...
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” Cova says, sweeping the corners of the room with a brand new, expensive broom that she got, because she asked for it.
He likes her.
If I had asked for it, he would have beaten me.
He would have made me work.
He would have withheld food, or worse, drugs.
“We could go together, get a job, and ...”
“And what?” she asks, looking up. “You think we can work, afford drugs and food and a roof over our heads on our own? We have no experience. We have nothing to give employers. We’ll end up back on the streets. Stop acting like we have other options, Merleigh. We don’t.”
I grit my teeth, forcing my words back.
I know she’s right, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to hear it.
I’m only young, being here forever is ... terrifying.
Cova glares at me, and then continues to work, her feet shuffling across the floor as she sweeps.
I get back to work, my mind way too clear today. He hasn’t given us anything for a few days, and because of that, I’m feeling flighty and desperate. I’m agitated and my head hurts. Is he holding back on purpose? Cova seems fine. Has he taken anything from her? Or is it just me?
“There you two are.”
I glance over to see Bryant standing in the doorway, suit on, cigar in hand. His eyes go right to Cova, like they always do.
“How much longer until we’re done here?” Cova asks. “It’s hot, and Merleigh is too busy talking to help.”
My eyes widen, so do hers when she realizes what she’s said. She didn’t mean to call me out, it just came out, but now she understands that her words are going to cause serious punishment for me.
“I mean, we’re both talking,” she says quickly, but it’s too late.
“Don’t worry, I’ve heard the entire conversation,” Bryant says, his voice low and steady. “Merleigh, come with me please.”
I stare frantically at Cova, and she looks scared for me.
“Don’t be angry at her, Bryant. Please. We were just having a conversation.”
“About leaving me,” he growls. “About taking what I own. I won’t have conversations like that under my roof. Merleigh, come here.”
I stand, feet firmly planted on the ground. Not because I’m defiant, but because I’m too terrified to move.
“Now,” Bryant orders.
“I didn’t mean it,” I say softly. “I just ... I was just thinking out loud and ...”
“You have one second to be in front of me or you’ll suffer.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, but clearly I don’t move fast enough because he steps forward, curling his fingers into my hair and jerking me toward him. Then, as if I weigh nothing, he turns and drags me behind him by my hair. I screech and claw at him, but I can’t reach anything solid enough to make him stop. He drags me down the halls, the burning in my scalp far too much for me to handle.
My screaming only gets louder.
“Hey.”
I jerk from my position by the pool, legs dangling in the water, and see Bohdi sitting down beside me. I didn’t even hear him approach, I was so lost in a memory, so tangled up in the anguish I feel when I’m anywhere near my old life.
“He heard me tell Cova I wanted to leave one day and she accidentally said something about me not working,” I say, without prompting from Bohdi. The words just flow out. “I thought maybe there was something out there for us, that if we went together, we might just have a chance. He lost it, he dragged me down the hall by my hair and put me in the basement. He didn’t feed me for a week, I only got small rations of water and he withheld all my drugs. I was heavily addicted to drugs, so I laid there crying and screaming, sweating and vomiting. Then, I had nothing left so I just slept. All day and night I slept. He wanted me to be reminded what life without him would be like. I never did consider leaving again.”
“That motherfucker,” Bohdi growls, his voice low. “If he wasn’t dead, I’d have his throat.”
“Well, he is dead.”
“Is that why you and Cova ain’t close?”
“Because she told on me?”
He nods.
“That and many other things. Cova and I have a strained relationship. There were times, times when he was so angry he’d actually hurt her, that she’d come to me and we’d hang onto each other to get through. But mostly, she played her part as his little pet and that earned her the freedom she had. Cova never wanted him to hurt me, she really didn’t, but she also wasn’t going to give up the preference she got by defending me.”
“You think she regrets that?”
“I’d like to think she does,” I exhale. “But she’s here, isn’t she? Looking for him. Wanting tha
t life back. So I doubt it.”
“You’re a thousand times the person she is, Merleigh.”
I don’t say anything to that, I just stare into the crystal blue water. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s not. I don’t know. I just know I had my own back after that day, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
“There you are.”
I exhale at the sound of Isla’s voice coming up from behind us. Bohdi turns, I don’t. I keep staring at the water, wishing, for just one second, she’d go away. I get it, she’s his wife and she probably has a lot of wounds from their past together, but I also know she’s making her presence very well-known and isn’t willing to let him spend a single moment alone with me.
“I’ll be in soon, Isla. I’m talking with Merleigh.”
“I need you now, though.”
“I said—” he turns and glares at her “—I’ll be in in a minute.”
I can’t see her face, but boy do I know there is a glare there that would be so intense, it would probably make me stand and walk away.
“Fine.”
She disappears, and I dare to ask the question that bothers me so very deeply. “What’s going on with you two?”
“No idea,” he murmurs.
That’s it? That’s the best he can give me?
“No idea isn’t really an answer.”
“It might not be an answer, Merleigh, but it’s the truth. It’s all I have to give you right now. I know you want more, fuck, I wish I could give you more but that’s all I have to give right now. I don’t know. I honestly don’t fuckin’ know.”
He stands, and guilt slams into my chest, so I quickly stand, too.
“Want to go for a walk with me?”
He stares at me, those eyes racing with emotion. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Come on, I know somewhere really cool.”
We walk out of the motel complex and through the town, neither of us saying anything. Only when we are through it, past all the people and at a little lake, does Bohdi speak. “You know your way around well.”
“I was here for a long time, and we often went places with him, so long as we were seen and not heard. This place I found before I met him, though. This was somewhere I used to come when I was on the streets. This big tree—” I point to the massive tree in the middle of the green grass “—used to shelter me from the rain so incredibly well.”
“It’s fucked you had to live like that.”
“Well, not all of us have good families.”
“Yeah.”
He follows me down a dirt track that goes around the entire lake. People walk here all the time, but I had my own direction. I walk off the beaten path and toward a small stream that flows off the lake and into a pretty little area that not many people know about. It’s probably just overflow from the lake, but I never minded. I always liked it.
We reach it, and it is exactly the same as it was the last time I was here. I stop and just spend a moment taking it in, glancing around and enjoying every single breath of fresh air that fills my lungs.
“You find this place?” Bohdi asks me.
“Yeah,” I say, finding an old fallen tree and sitting on it. “I used to sleep here a lot. I liked the way the water trickled. It was relaxing.”
He sits down beside me, stretching his legs out. His shoulder is touching mine and the overwhelming emotions I’m feeling are hard to contain. I want to curl into him, kiss him, let him become part of me. I’ve never had a person who has willingly made love to me in my life. My boyfriend when I was younger was forceful and cruel, and then I was sold and that was also forceful and cruel. Nobody, not a single person, has ever ravished my body or cherished it.
I know Bohdi could.
I know he would.
But I also know he can’t.
That kills me.
“Hate the life you were handed, Merleigh.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” I say, with a small laugh.
He glances at me. “Strong you are.”
I hold his gaze. “Tell me more about your family, Bohdi.”
“I don’t have much to tell. My dad left us for another woman, my mom found drugs, overdosed, and died. I married Isla, and here I am.”
“There is always more to it than that.”
“That’s all there is.”
He looks straight ahead again.
He doesn’t want to talk about it, I get that.
“Are you happy to have Taj back?”
“Yeah,” he answers. “He’s a good kid. They both are.”
“Do you think Isla is going to let you remain a part of their lives?”
“I think she will if she gets her own way. If she doesn’t ... I don’t know.”
“And her own way is you and her together?” I say softly.
“Yeah.”
“Is that an option?”
He exhales. “I don’t know, Merleigh. I don’t know.”
I fall silent, my heart slams against my ribcage with a force I can barely breathe through. He’s being honest, he’s always honest, but it doesn’t mean that his honesty doesn’t hurt like hell.
I want to say so many things, but I don’t.
“I’m sorry this is hurtin’ you,” he says, looking to me. “I never meant for any of this to hurt you.”
I nod, it’s all I have to give.
He reaches out, taking my face in his hands and holding it steady until I look at him. Only then does he murmur, “Everything I’ve shared with you, is real. One hundred percent real. I hope you know that.”
I need him. God, right now, in this moment, I need him so badly.
I want him more than he’ll ever know.
These are emotions I’m not used to dealing with.
They’re unfamiliar and overwhelming.
So much so, that I lean forward without thought.
Because if I thought about it, I wouldn’t do it.
But I do.
I lean forward and kiss him.
His lips are warm and soft, his face scratchy against my skin. He smells incredible and for a blissful moment, I allow myself to take that in. Every single inch of it.
But he groans with an exhale and pulls back.
My heart slams immediately through my gut, and I feel the whole world coming down around me.
“Don’t look at me like that, Merleigh. It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you. Fuck, I do. It’s that I’ve done so many bad things in my life, that right now I’m goin’ to try and do right.”
He’s choosing her.
That’s exactly what that means.
I stand and turn, rushing down the path with his voice trailing behind me as he calls out.
Tears burst forth and roll down my cheeks.
I thought living the life I experienced in my past hurt.
But this, this is so much worse.
Heartbreak is agonizing.
10
THEN - BOHDI
“I’m losing the baby,” Isla says, clutching her stomach, blood running down her legs.
She looks at me with frantic eyes, terrified.
I rush forward, dropping my work bag and keys, going straight to her. She’s halfway through, we’ve been married two weeks, and now she’s losing the baby. A baby we were told was healthy, going well, and everything was fine with. A little girl. We only found out last week.
“Calm down, I’ll call the ambulance,” I say, clutching her and reaching for my phone. “Maybe it’s something else.”
She cries out and doubles over as pain clearly takes her body in its claws. She’s screaming and my heart is racing. I dial 9-1-1. Within ten minutes, paramedics are on scene, loading her into the ambulance, and I’m in the back, my mind spinning, heart racing, not entirely sure what the fuck is going on.
When I left for work this morning, she was fine.
Now ... this nightmare.
We arrive at the hospital, and she’s immediately rushed in while I’m
sent to wait. Wait, like I’m not her fucking husband and that’s not my damned baby. Wait. They just want me to fucking wait. Wait for what? To see if she’s okay? If my daughter is okay?
I feel sick to my stomach.
Hours pass with no word.
Until finally a doctor comes out. His face tells me that he has bad news, and my mind immediately goes to Isla.
“Is she okay?” I ask, holding my breath.
“She’s okay, but the baby ...”
“What’s wrong with the baby?” I yell, losing it without meaning to.
“The baby is gone, Bohdi. I’m very sorry. There were severe complications and we had to rush her in for surgery. The baby didn’t make it. I’m so incredibly sorry.”
What?
What?
The world spins around me as I stare at the doctor, his voice trailing in and out as my vision blurs.
Gone.
My baby is gone.
How?
Why?
Why would this happen to me?
Is it because I’m a fucking murderer?
Is it because I don’t deserve happiness?
“You can go and see her, she’s awake.”
I follow him down the hall in a daze—I don’t know what to do think. When I enter the room, Isla is lying back with her eyes closed, tears rolling down her cheeks. In that moment, I realize that I do love my wife. Maybe not the soul crushing love that you hear about, but love all the same. She’s hurting, and my instinct is to protect her.
I move closer and, when I reach her, I take her hand.
Her eyes open, and the second she sees me, an agonized sob leaves her throat. “She’s gone, Bohdi.”
“I know, baby.”
I lean down, carefully wrapping my arms around her and closing my eyes as a tear rolls down my cheek.
“She’s gone,” she sobs. “Gone.”
I clench my eyes shut tighter.
Pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt fills my chest, overtaking my every emotion.
My baby is gone.
My daughter is gone.
She’s gone.
And I’m not getting her back.
ONE MONTH LATER
“You have to get out of bed, Isla,” I say to my wife, my voice careful.