Darkness Before Dawn

by Contreras, Claire

"Like shit. How do you think I feel?" I reply weakly.

  "I'm going to take you to the doctor in the morning," he says in a concerned tone.

  I cough out a laugh. "You really think Alex or Benny are going to let you take me out of this place?

  "Don't worry about them. You're going to die if you stay in here without a doctor. You've had a fever for four days now."

  "They'd be happy to let me die," I reply tiredly.

  "They need you alive, Blake. Trust me."

  "Trust you," I whisper, mostly to myself.

  "Yes, trust me. I haven't done you wrong, have I?" he asks, his hazel eyes narrowing at me angrily.

  I shake my head slowly.

  "Besides, you know better than to say anything or try to run. He's already warned you before. If you say anything to anybody, Cole's dead. If you try to run, we'll add Aubry to that," he says flatly.

  A whimper escapes me. "You're a heartless son of a bitch," I say hoarsely.

  "You have no idea," he replies. "So don't fuck with me. I like you and I don't agree with what they're doing, but if I have to pick between my life and one of theirs, it sure as fuck isn't going to be mine. Understood?"

  I nod yes with tears in my eyes and remind myself that even the nicest people can't be trusted.

  He groans. "Damn it, chick. Just be good and nothing will happen. I brought you something for your fever, drink it and go back to sleep. I'll come get you in the morning."

  I do as I'm told and watch him leave the room. Leaving me in the darkness, nursing my ailments with my tears—again.

  I go to sleep thinking of Cole. Wishing it was his arms around me, instead of my own.

  I wake up sometime after Dean left, my stuffy nose not letting me go back to sleep. After a while of just staying in bed, I get up and dress before lying back down to wait for Dean. I look up when I hear the door unlock and find Benny staring at me angrily. My instinct is to push myself back, toward the wall. He's pushed me around, and I still have a couple of bruises on my arms from the last time he was here.

  "Dean's taking you to the doctor today, girl. Don't you for a second think this is your chance to escape. Try something, your famous boyfriend gets hit first. Got it?" he says in his icy voice, gruff from his smoke-filled lungs.

  "Got it," I whisper.

  "I can't hear you. Speak up, girl," he spits.

  "Got it," I say loudly. I stiffen when he stalks over to me. He grabs me by the throat and squeezes, cutting my breathing as he pushes my head roughly into the wall.

  "Don't fucking talk to me like that," he spits.

  "BENNY!" Dean screams as he rushes toward us and tears him away from me.

  Benny looks over to Dean and hacks out a maniacal laugh. "You keep playing knight in fucking shining armor for her, don't you?"

  Dean's eyes narrow. "I'd rather keep her safe while you figure out what the fuck you're going to tell Jamie when he finds out."

  "I call the shots 'round here. Fuck Jamie! He didn't do shit when her pops did this to me, did he?" Benny screams as he points to his face.

  I clasp my mouth with both hands. It's not that I care that my father did that to this monster, sad excuse for a man. My father is a stranger to me anyway, but the thought of him being anything like these people doesn't sit well with me. I clutch on to my stomach and try not to lose my breakfast.

  "She had nothing to do with that," Dean responds as Benny walks away.

  "She had everything to do with that!" Benny shouts over his shoulder not turning back around.

  Dean looks at me with guilt in his eyes, and for the hundredth time since I've been here, I can't figure out why he's chosen this life for himself. He crouches down directly in front of me.

  "You okay?" he asks, searching my face. I nod rapidly, my heart still drumming loudly in my chest as he helps me up.

  I follow Dean out of the room in the basement and up the stairs. When we make it to the top step, I squint at the brightly lit house. We round the corner and end up in a living room where the walls are white and the decor is opulent. Not what I expected. I hear loud male voices and instinctively plaster myself to Dean's back, clutching on to his shirt. I feel his body stiffen under my hold, and he turns around, placing me by his side. His hazel eyes are looking at me, wildly confused.

  "I'm scared," I whisper, because I am. I'm scared out of my mind.

  His eyes soften. "Don't be scared. I got you."

  I nod, but his words don't soothe me. Nothing about this place makes me feel safe, not even him.

  He leads me toward the back door, the opposite direction of the voices, and outside. He holds my hand tight in his, and I know it's not to make me feel safe, but to make sure I don't run.

  "Blake, remember what I told you. You run, Cole's dead. You wouldn't want that, now would you?" Dean asks in a soft voice that contradicts the severity of his threat. He says he wouldn't kill for anybody, and I wonder how much truth is in that. It doesn't matter, the threat is there and I have no desire to find out whether or not they'd do it. I can't afford to mess around, for all I know these are the people who killed Maggie. That thought alone churns my stomach.

  "No, I wouldn't," I whisper. "I won't run, I promise."

  "Good."

  I take a deep breath and let the fresh air fill my lungs. I've smelled the nasty smell in the room for so long, I'd forgotten what breathing clean air is like. When the sun hits my face, I begin to weep quietly. When Dean opens the door of the pick up truck we're riding in, I wipe the tears from my eyes. He gives me a sad look and slumps his shoulders.

  "I'm sorry, chick. Really. This is just the way it has to be," he says as I climb in.

  I don't believe that he's sorry. If he had the chance, I think he'd do it all the same. He followed me around for who knows how long. He told me I had a price on my head. He knew about my fucked up past, saw my lovely life, and he still tore me from all of it. I try to huff in response, but instead I fall into a full-out cough attack. As he pulls out of the immense driveway and into the neighborhood, I look for anything that may look familiar. Most of the houses are huge and far apart from each other. It's very much a white picket fence community. I'm being held hostage in the middle of a safe, high class neighborhood. The irony.

  We drive about twenty minutes, listening to Nickelback, of all things. Might as well kill me now. We pull up to a cottage-looking house and he tells me to wait so he can open the door for me. I let out a frustrated breath, which makes him laugh. I don't understand why we stopped here to begin with. He drags me to the front of the house and knocks on the door three times. An older gentleman with a white beard in a doctor's coat greets us. This can't be the doctor he brought me to. I'm sweating a fever that I've had for almost a week, I've been coughing up a lung, vomiting, and he brings me to see this old man at his house?

  I narrow my eyes at Dean and stomp inside. The old man looks at me over his glasses and extends his hand out to greet me.

  "I'm Dr. Kellogg. Dean tells me you've had a fever for a couple of days and haven't been feeling well?" he asks patiently.

  "That's right," I reply with a cough. I extend my hand. "I'm Blake." I look around, quickly averting my eyes from his curious look. The house is cozy; I can tell he has a wife to look after him.

  "Blake," he repeats with a smile as he shakes my hand, "let's go to my clinic."

  I follow him to the back of his house. Dean is behind me and has his hand on the small of my back. I turn around and glare at him before I slap his hand off. He chuckles softly and shakes his head.

  When we get to the room, Dr. Kellogg opens the door and ushers me in. "Now Blake," he says, handing me a robe, "I need you to undress and put this on."

  I reach out and clutch the robe to my chest. "Thank you." I raise an eyebrow at Dean. "I'm not undressing in front of you two," I say flatly.

  "Of course not. We'll step outside and give you privacy," Dr. Kellogg says.

  "She's not staying here alone," Dean counters.

  "D
ean, I'm not going anywhere. This room doesn't even have windows," I snap.

  "What if you try to kill yourself with one of his tools?" he asks as he waves his hand at some scalpels and other things on a table.

  "Are you serious?" I say, gritting my teeth. "You think what you guys are doing to me is worth me killing myself over?"

  Dean's eyes are blazing and his jaw is clenched. He takes a deep breath and runs his hands through his unruly brown hair. I know he's trying to rein in his temper while Dr. Kellogg is silent, just watching us.

  "Dean, step outside with me," the doctor says again, and this time, he goes.

  When I'm done putting on the robe, I sit on the exam table and wrap my arms in front of my chest in an attempt to warm up.

  Doctor Kellogg walks back in by himself and begins asking me questions as he listens to my chest.

  "When was your last period?" he asks as he presses down on my lower abdomen.

  "Umm..." I don't know how to answer that because I don't know how long I've been gone. I contemplate asking him what date it is, telling him what my situation is, but the sinking feeling in my stomach reminds me that Dean brought me here for a reason. I wonder how many women he's had to bring here. Dr. Kellogg stops examining me and looks at me expectedly.

  "I'm not pregnant, if that's why you're asking. I'm on birth control, or at least I was on birth control before..." I answer quietly. I was supposed to refill my prescription, but never got around to it, obviously.

  Cole and I were always careful, wearing condoms, pulling out, even though, a couple of times he didn't pull out, which pissed me off. Cole seemed to think it would be okay if I got pregnant, but told me it wouldn't happen anyway and alas, he was right.

  "Well, let's have you take a test anyway, just in case."

  "Sure," I say with a shrug as I take the little see-through cup from his hands and head to the bathroom.

  When I come back, I place it on the table and go back to the exam table.

  "Sore throat?" he asks and jots something down when I nod in agreement. Every time I try to swallow, it hurts.

  "Nausea?"

  "Hmmm...not really. Well, lately yes, but my throat hurts so much and anytime I try to eat anything it's just...yuck."

  He nods. "That's understandable, stick to soups and liquids until you start to feel better." He gets up and takes the urine sample and puts a stick in it, then takes it out and places it on the table.

  "You can get dressed while this gives us a result. I'll step out and give you some privacy," he says with a smile.

  I get dressed and sit back down until I hear him knock lightly again. He comes in, sits down beside me, and we continue to small talk about his wife, where I went to school, what I studied. He's telling me about a nephew of his who had gone to law school and dropped out as he gets up to look at the test. I breathe a sigh of relief at the look on his face, even though I knew I had nothing to worry about.

  He jots something down and looks up at me smiling. "The test is positive," he says softly, still smiling.

  My stomach drops. "What? Like positive I'm not pregnant? Or positive..." I ask numbly, expecting him to tell me this is some kind of sick joke.

  His smile falters and he gives me a confused look. "You're pregnant."

  I gape at him as my hands fly over my mouth. "I can't be pregnant," I say in a muffled voice. I'm stunned silent, watching him, waiting for him to tell me it's some type of sick joke they're playing on me. When I see his unchanging expression, I think of Cole and how happy he'd be if he were here with me. I start to sob quietly into my hands. Doctor Kellogg puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a sympathetic look.

  "I'll have to do an ultrasound. My machine is in the basement. Do you think you'll be okay to walk down there?" he asks softly.

  I nod my head as unwanted tears spill down my face. Oh my God. I'm really pregnant? I wipe my tears and walk out of the room clutching my robe closed. Dean is sitting right outside the door, but stands up quickly when he sees me.

  "Are you okay?"

  "No," I answer hoarsely. "I'm not okay, at all."

  "What's wrong with her?" he demands as he looks at the doctor.

  "I can't say, kid," Doctor Kellogg replies with a shake of his head.

  "Blake, what's wrong with you?" Dean asks as he holds my shoulders firmly.

  A sob escapes me as I look into his worried eyes, and I start to cry again. Dean pulls me in and holds me while I sob.

  "Oh my God. I can't. I can't," I say through my sobs. When I calm down, I take a deep breath and inhale his cigarette and cinnamon smell. "I'm pregnant," I whisper brokenly against his chest.

  I feel him stiffen. "What?" Shocked, he lifts my chin to look at him. "How can you be pregnant?"

  I push off his chest and give him a "how the fuck do you think?" look.

  "Is it Cole's?" he asks, his expression hardening.

  I refuse to comment and continue to walk toward Kellogg and follow him downstairs to his basement, leaving a shocked Dean behind. Kellogg explains to me that it has to be a vaginal ultrasound, and shows me a dildo with a condom over it.

  "You're kidding, right?" I ask, horrified as I look at the instrument.

  He laughs. "No, it'll be painless, trust me."

  I hear stomping footsteps coming downstairs and tense.

  "Dean! I don't want you here, this is uncomfortable enough," I yell.

  "I don't give a fuck. I wanna be here. You don't got nothing I haven't seen before, trust me," he yells back as he walks toward us.

  I let my head hit the cushion under me and exhale. Dean takes a seat next to me, and looks at me with an expression on his face that I don't understand. More guilt, I guess. Good.

  I gasp and bite down on my lip when I feel the dildo thing sliding inside me slowly.

  "Relax," the doctor tells me.

  I take a deep breath and try to do as I'm told. Dean grabs on to the hand closest to his and holds it in both of his. I can only stare at him as he stares back and suddenly this feels way too intimate. All my thoughts vanish when I hear ruffling on the monitor beside me and see a little peanut pop on the screen me.

  "There's your baby," the doctor says, pointing at it.

  "It's so...tiny," I muse, in awe despite myself, as tears well in my eyes again.

  Dr. Kellogg laughs. "You're still early in the pregnancy."

  When Dean squeezes my hand, I start to cry again.

  "I can't do this," I whimper as Dean soothes me by caressing my hair. I want to tell him to stop. Demand him to stop. But I can't. Instead, I lean into him and let him comfort me as I close my eyes and pretend it's Cole. But it's not, and it won't be, and I hate it. I hate that they've not only taken me from him, but also robbed us of this moment together. He should be the one sitting beside me watching our baby with me.

  On the ride back home, I'm still sniffling back tears and distantly staring at the houses we're driving by. The last thing I expected to hear today was that I was pregnant. What am I supposed to do now?

  "Alex used to go out with your mom," Dean says suddenly, snapping me out of my daydream.

  "What?" I ask, turning my head slowly to look at him.

  "That's what I heard. That's what I know. He hadn't seen her in a while before he went to your house that night...when you were little," he says, giving me a sad smile. "She wouldn't return his phone calls, and he showed up there. But I don't know what happened after that. Nobody will talk about it. I just know things went horribly wrong that night."

  "That's an understatement," I scoff.

  "Sorry, chick. You've been through a lot."

  I nod, contradicting my thoughts. A lot doesn't even begin to cover it.

  Cole and I went to get an ultrasound done today. We were able to see our baby boy moving around on the screen. I've never seen Cole so happy before, he keeps smiling and kissing my bump as he talks to the baby about baseball games he's going to take him to. The sparkle in his green eyes is so beautiful—it almost ma
kes me forget all of the heartache we've been through. This moment makes it all worth it. My heart melts when he runs his hand lightly down my arm and smiles at me, showing me that dimple that I love. Yes, this moment definitely makes it all worth it.

  "Blake, I brought you food," he says slowly, at a distance, breaking my gaze away from the beautiful smile before me. "Blake! Wake up."

  "No! No! No!" I shout as tears trickle down my face. It was just a dream? Just a dream.

  "Hey, it's okay, you're okay," Dean says quietly.

  I sit up quickly and glare at him. "I am not okay! I am not okay!" I shriek before taking deep breaths and wiping my face. "Don't tell me that. Ever. I'm not fucking okay. I need to get out of here!"

  "Blake," he says with a sigh as he looks at me sadly, "let's go upstairs so you can eat."

  "Right now?" I ask as I wipe the tears from my face.

  "Yes, right now." He takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his unruly hair. "I just don't know what the fuck Alex is thinking. He's fucking crazy. And Benny..." Dean says his name as if it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, which is precisely the way I feel about Benny.

  I get up and follow him upstairs. They've been letting me come upstairs every day now. I guess they figured out that I really wouldn't run. Not with the threats they hold over my head about Cole and Aubry. When we round the corner, I'm surprised to see a guy with short blond hair sitting on a stool around the kitchen island. His back is facing us and he turns in his seat when he hears us approach. Both of our eyes widen when we look at each other, and I force myself to look away quickly, biting the inside of my lip before my jaw hits the floor.

  "The fuck are you doing here, Con?" Dean asks from behind me.

  "Grace asked me to wait for her while she showers," he replies with a shrug, not taking his eyes off me.

  "Huh. When did you start dating?" Dean asks curiously, as I look between the two of them, wondering who the hell Grace is.

  "Not long ago," the guy replies vaguely before returning his attention to me. His eyes travel my body, but something about the way he does it doesn't make me feel uncomfortable. When he looks back into my eyes his forehead wrinkles together, and he shakes his head in disbelief.