Fall

by Katherine Rhodes

Unknown: I like that. I’m going with it.

  Wren: Are you watching us.

  Unknown: Uh, maybe? But only when I’ve just sent a message.

  Wren: Stay out of my bedroom.

  Unknown: Yeah, not a problem. [vomit emoji]

  I looked up at the guys. “Did Lucifer just use a vomit emoji in a text message?”

  They all nodded.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. “This is going to take me a really long time to get used to.”

  Paige

  “What the fuck is this?”

  I cringed, trying not to duck back from Alain’s anger.

  “Answer me, Paige!”

  I could barely see what he was thrusting in my face. It took me a moment to focus and read. “It’s…an appointment card with an obstetrician.”

  His hand slammed into the wall next to her. “Why the fuck are you going to a baby doctor, Paige? I told you no kids. Never kids! What is so hard about that?”

  “It’s for the—”

  “You just can’t seem to keep your lazy ass from getting pregnant, can you? We’ve been married for six years and you’re just merrily letting me knock you up!”

  “No, Alain, I swear. I’m—”

  “I’m not done! Shut up!”

  She snapped her jaw closed.

  “I am not having children! Ever. Not now, not ever. I let you play in that stupid little foster agency because I know it keeps you happy, and you can plainly see why I don’t want any of those brats around!”

  He paced away from me waving the card. I kept my mouth shut, but both eyes on him.

  “Seriously, woman. What do we have to do to keep you from getting pregnant? Tubal ligation? Hysterectomy? I’ll sign all the papers for the doctors that try to object to you being sterilized, and that will keep you from breeding.”

  Sterilized?

  “Alain, I’m not getting my tubes tied!”

  “Why the fuck not? It seems to be the only way to keep you from getting knocked up.”

  “Because I’m thirty-one and I don’t want them tied.”

  “Well thank God we have doctors who don’t care about what you want,” he growled, staring me down.

  “Alain! You can’t make me do that!”

  “You’re my wife and you’re going to do what I tell you to do. Set up an abortion, and set up a tubal ligation. I want to see all the paperwork from both.”

  “You can’t be serious about the tubal!”

  He punched through the wall next to my head. “What makes you think I’m kidding.”

  “Because it’s my body, Alain,” I whispered. “I have done everything I could to keep from getting pregnant. I swear to you. I don’t know why this happened.”

  He leaned in close to my ear. “It’s my body, baby. It’s mine. And you’ll do what I say.”

  I swallowed and swore you could feel my fear miles away. “Why don’t you get a vasectomy?”

  His hand wrapped slowly around my neck. “Are you asking me to diminish myself? Are you seriously, honestly asking me to get my balls snipped because you can’t fucking take responsibility for your ovaries?”

  I gasped in air as he tightened his grip more. “I tried, Alain…nothing is working…”

  “You’re fucking it up somehow.” His hand closed even more. “You are responsible for this, Paige. Fix it. Permanently.” He leaned in close. “Or I’ll find a doctor who will come here and do it for you.”

  Air was becoming precious. “The appoint…ment… is for… termination…”

  “First step only, baby. Solve it. Permanently.”

  He let me go just as the black started to creep in on the edges of my vision.

  “Please, Alain, please don’t ask this.”

  He smacked me hard across the cheek. “I’m not asking, you stupid ass! I’m telling you. I’m your husband and you’re going to do what I tell you to.”

  I stood stock still, the sting of his hand pulsing around my face, throbbing against the stitches that I hadn’t yet had removed. I said nothing. I barely breathed.

  He smacked me hard again. “What are you going to do?”

  “Alain…”

  He cuffed my right ear. “What are you going to do?”

  “Please, I’ll get the abortion.”

  His hand clapped against my other ear, and now I could barely hear for the ringing.

  “Schedule everything, or you’re going to be sleeping in the basement.”

  “Alain—”

  The heel of his hand smashed into the center of my forehead and rammed my skull back into the plasterboard. I heard it crack behind me, but I wasn’t sure if it was the wall or my skull.

  “Don’t question me,” he snapped.

  I couldn’t seem to stop myself though. I didn’t want to get a tubal ligation. I didn’t want to be sterilized. That was a step too far. I was still only thirty-one and I was still holding out hope that I could have a family.

  “Alain, won’t you please—”

  The right hook was low, and landed right in my stomach. I let out all of my air as my eyes filled with tears and I doubled over.

  “Non-negotiable!”

  Grabbing the top of my arm, he yanked me back up straight and pulled me away from the wall. I was desperate to catch my breath, so I didn’t see that we were heading to the basement door until we were there, and he opened it.

  Taking a handful of my hair, he wrenched me forward and held my head against the doorframe. He slammed the edge of the door into my head, four or five times. I lost track pretty quickly. I still didn’t have my air back when he swung the door open wide and threw me forward.

  My head smashed against the brick, wrenching me around, and slamming my back into the stairs. I had a lot of momentum, and my shoulder dislocated as my legs came up and over me to drag me down the rest of the stairs. My feet hit with a lurch, and my sprained ankle instantly re-sprained as I went up and back down hard on my ass.

  “Stay the fuck down there until tomorrow!” He slammed the door.

  I laid down on the cool cement. I knew the stitches were ripped open, and there was a warm, wet sensation on my cheek: blood. My shoulder liked the cool of the floor. I could feel it throbbing, and it was going to have to be relocated. The ankle was…who knew what that was. It was trash at this point.

  The angry footsteps above clattered and smashed around the floor. There were angry words, a few more angry shouts, and a few swear words. Alain meant them all for me, but I couldn’t hear them. Not with the floor between us and the ringing in my ears.

  My husband wanted me to be sterilized. He wanted to take away my ability to ever have a child. He didn’t want them, but it was my responsibility to stop it from happening.

  Why?

  If he didn’t want children, ever, why didn’t he just get a vasectomy? Why did this have to fall on me?

  But then again, if he never wanted to have children, why didn’t I just get sterilized? There was no point if I couldn’t have them. Just have done with any stupid dream I had of children.

  To take it away completely…I was still young.

  I was married to someone who didn’t want children.

  It was my fault I couldn’t keep from getting pregnant.

  I could never have what I wanted.

  My brain went blank. All of my thoughts drifted away. The floor above was quiet now, and I could hear Alain off in the bedroom, cursing softly. I listened, mind empty, as he got ready to go out for the night.

  Drinking? Probably. Drugs? Who knew. Women?

  Oh, yes. Women.

  He’d get at least one blow job out of the night that wasn’t from the little wife.

  While the little wife lay in a pile at the bottom of the basement stairs. Her dreams leaching into the cold, hard concrete below her.

  Blank. Obedient. Discarded.

  Why can’t you have what you want?

  That sounded suspiciously like Reid’s voice in my head, but I knew that was just my brain t
rying to fool me. I wasn’t ever going to have what I wanted. Alain was going to see to that.

  Leave the fucker.

  Interesting. Wren’s voice that time. But if I left him, where would I go? This was my home, we’d built this together.

  He paid for it, you maintain it. It’s a house, not a home.

  I couldn’t afford a house. And he worked, so it was only fair that I clean.

  But you don’t just clean, do you? You clean, you cook, you work, you allow him to use you. What does he do for this marriage?

  Ha. Lincoln. Of course, he’d invade my head. And I did give him all of that as his wife. Wasn’t that what a wife should do? Wasn’t that the way to earn his love?

  No. There was no question in Reid’s voice. The word was a shout. Love not freely given is not love at all. It is suppression, slavery, abuse, denigration. He will take away every piece of you. He started years ago, and he will have you as nothing more than a shell.

  Alain wanted me to make an appointment for a tubal ligation. My own sterilization.

  He had already taken the first pieces of me with the abortions. Now he was trying to take me apart in chunks.

  Reid’s soft, kind voice cut through. Soon, he’ll have you drawn and quartered.

  The door to the basement jerked open. “I want you to stay down there, you useless bitch. Stay down there until I tell you that you can come back up.”

  Alain slammed the door, and his steps trailed to the front of the house. I heard the front closet open and close. There was some shuffling, and a moment later, the front door opened and shut, and I could hear the snick of the lock.

  Leave. Wren.

  Go. Lincoln.

  Get out. Reid.

  There was a strange flutter in my stomach. Could I do this? Could I really just leave this man? Reid said he would help. I knew that Wren, for all our differences, would as well. The idea of escaping this…Hell…and that’s what it was, Hell, was freeing. The butterflies in my stomach...

  No.

  Those weren’t butterflies.

  Those were my baby.

  Holy shit. I was really pregnant. Through all the pain I was feeling, I stilled myself and let myself feel. Just little flutterings, barely there.

  Oh, God, I wanted this baby.

  Leave, please, Paige. Leave. You deserve it. Your baby deserves it. Get out. I will help you.

  I could see a bit of the stairs next to me. It was mostly dark, but the streetlight threw some light through the basement windows. My shoulder throbbed, and I was now convinced my ankle was broken. My back was also hurting, and my head and face felt like a truck had smashed into me.

  There was no way I could get to the hospital. But if I could get to the top of the stairs, I could call…someone.

  Reid.

  He would know not to call Alain.

  Moving was a lesson in pain. But I rolled myself to the stairs and got my good shoulder under me, and pushed with my good leg.

  The muscles in my back screamed in protest as I pushed myself up the first riser. I had to pause and catch my breath before I could repeat the move.

  I did, though, and made it up another stair, and another. And still another. I had no idea how long it took me to shove myself up the stairs to the landing at the door. I did know that I wanted to stop and just let the pain take me under.

  But no. The baby.

  I let myself rest for a moment. I was dizzy, and I was having trouble with my eyes. I wasn’t even sure what, but they didn’t feel like they were working together or even right. Once I didn’t feel like I was going to immediately pass out, I reached up and turned the knob.

  It creaked open. The best thing about the old house we lived in was that if you didn’t change the knobs, they only worked with skeleton keys that had long since disappeared. And I knew Alain—he never used the hook and eye I had put in to make sure that the door stayed closed.

  Using the good leg and arm, I pushed myself out the door, off the landing and into the main part of the house. My cell phone was on the coffee table where I had left it.

  Yelling distance.

  “Siri, call Doctor Sadowski.”

  “Calling Doctor Reid Sadowski.”

  Silence. Then, one ring. Two rings. Three rings.

  Four—

  “This is Sadowski.”

  “Reid…”

  “Paige? Hey. How are you.”

  “I need help…”

  There was a rustling and a clatter, a pause in the conversation, and then, “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. Alain…”

  “What’s your address? And is there any way you can get the front door unlocked?”

  No questions, no hesitation, no problem with coming here. I could feel tears burning in my eyes as I spit out my address. “I don’t know if I can get to the door, Reid…”

  “If you can, great, if not, I’ll get in. How long is Alain gone?”

  “Usually until midnight when he goes drinking.”

  “I’m ten minutes away, Paige. Are you going to be okay that long? Do you want me to call an ambulance? The police?”

  “No,” I gasped. “No. Just you. Just…”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The knock on the door didn’t seem like it took ten minutes, but I had probably passed out after Reid hung up.

  “Paige! Can you hear me?”

  “Reid…”

  There was some mumbling beyond that I couldn’t make out. I heard at least one other voice, maybe two. But it didn’t matter. I tried to push myself closer to the door. My leg was throbbing so bad I couldn’t see straight.

  A second later, there was a snap and pop, and the doorknob fell to the floor.

  Alain is going to kill me.

  I didn’t know if that was an overall statement or just about the front doorknob.

  Reid pushed into the living room and I saw someone follow him in.

  Lily. He’d called Lily Haden.

  God, I didn’t want her to see me like this.

  “Holy shit, Paige,” she breathed as Reid ran over and dropped down next to me. “What the hell happened?”

  “Stairs,” I whispered.

  “Do not move,” Reid snapped, as Lily pulled her radio off her belt and called for an ambulance.

  She didn’t stop there. She also put out a BOLO on Alain and asked for an ADA to meet her at Penn in University.

  “Lily get me anything you can find for first aid. I’ll do my best while we’re waiting for the bus. Then get what you think she’ll need immediately.”

  Lily nodded, and ran up the stairs.

  “God, Paige. He really did a number on you. You look like an extra in Rambo First Blood.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “Please, please, tell me you’re leaving this.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes. Get me out.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Absolutely.”

  Lily was back a moment later, dropping the first aid kit I had next to Reid, and kneeling down next to him.

  “I’m going to get your purse, and pack a quick bag for you. Basics. I can get a warrant to come back in if you need it, but I’m going to find your important papers and get you the fuck out of here.”

  I nodded, and instantly regretted the motion.

  “Verbal please,” Reid cautioned. “Your neck and head are a mess.”

  Lily stared at me with tears in her eyes. “Vanagloria, it didn’t have to be like this.”

  The name, Vanagloria, warmed me inside.

  I was going to be okay.

  My baby was going to be safe.

  I passed out.

  Wren

  “Where?”

  Lily grabbed my arm and pulled me to the elevators. “She’s in surgery for her foot. It’s pretty fucked up.”

  “Surgery—she’s pregnant!”

  “They know, but the way the foot was broken it was do it now with caution or have to remove the whole foot in three days from gangrene
.” Lily stared at me as the door closed. “You knew she was pregnant?”

  “She…kind of told us.” The sigh escaped me. “When we lost Ben, she came out of the hospital to go home. Fischer demanded a run down on her, and the nurse told us. She was talking about termination.”

  Lily shook her head. “She’s not terminating. She was begging me and Reid in the back of that ambulance to make sure her baby survived.”

  I slumped against the side. “Thank fuck.” I straightened back up as the doors open on the floor, and I followed Lily down the hall. “What about Alain?”

  “We have a BOLO out on him, but there’s nothing we can do until she’s out of surgery, and she wants to press charges. I just want eyes on him for now.”

  Pushing the door to the room open, I was just a little surprised when I found Reid standing there.

  He twitched his eyebrow up and shrugged. “She called me. I didn’t have time to really think about what to do other than get there and get her out. Lily seemed the logical choice to call.”

  “You don’t even have to explain, but…”

  He rubbed a hand down his face. “We had a moment a few days ago. She had some serious shit on her plate, and I offered her my card and my ear. I didn’t think that I’d walk in and have to do some serious first aid on a living body.”

  “She’s bad, Wren,” Lily said. “While they have her under they are going to fix her shoulder and do some neat stitching where her skin was peeled back by the bricks.”

  “Bricks?”

  “As far as we can tell, she smashed face first into the bricks in the stairwell,” Reid said. “I took a quick look while the EMTs were getting her on the stretcher.”

  “I sent a whole crime scene team back to check the mess,” Lily said. “I want every piece of evidence we can find on this shit bag.”

  Her phone beeped and she stepped out of the room.

  Reid sighed. “Wren, she’s a mess. She wants that baby so bad. I promised her that I would help her out of this. Do you think you can help me?”

  “I want to help,” I said. “Paige is…”

  Reid looked at the door and back to me. “Vanagloria. That’s what Lily said.”

  Nodding, I took a deep breath. “She is. The fourth Sin.”

  “Pride.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “God that makes so much sense. She was proud of her agency, but more she’s too proud to leave a marriage that should never have happened in the first place.”