I awoke with a start, my mouth stuffed with something soft, chalky. Cotton, a wad of stiff fabric. I reared up, screaming behind the gag, but I could rise only a few inches at the pelvis. My wrists and ankles were bound to the bed with thick strips of something rough and taut. Not a perverse sex game this time—a nightmare. My instinct was to thrash wildly. I couldn’t even do that; the restraints were too tight.
Through the clamor of my fear I became faintly aware of two things: I was in my bedroom, and I was bound. Whatever they had me in—a short-sleeved nightgown, it seemed, that stopped at my knees and left me shivering—was half drenched in sweat. The way my legs were spread to accommodate the restraints made me feel more vulnerable and exposed than I could remember feeling, ever. The light in the room was dim, but there were glimmers of sunlight behind the drawn drapes, and I could see the shadowy forms of five or six individuals peering down at me.
“She’s awake,” one of them shouted in the direction of the hallway. She tucked a NewLife doll close to her chest, crooning and swaying as if rocking it to sleep. There were heavy footsteps in the hallway, and a man burst into the room, flicking on the overhead light. Rob.
For a naive second I thought he would help me. Untie me and send me home, protect me from these women. I strained against my binds and growled into the gag, producing a muffled roar. I begged him with my eyes. But as he stared down at me, his betrayal—his violation—flooded back, and I knew it wasn’t he who would set me free. It wasn’t any of these people. These Andrea worshippers. Because I knew then that my cousin had never been on my side.
I lay still, frozen by the expression in Rob’s eyes, a curious blend of benevolence and pity. He turned from me, moving around the room with a confident ease, lighting candles that had begun to take shape in my periphery—more so now, with their flickering orange flames. When he was finished, he shut off the overhead light, illuminating the observers with a soft glow.
Two men entered the room.
One circulated with glasses of champagne and mocktails. Another positioned himself behind a seated woman, administering a back massage while she nursed her cooing doll.
Another arrived with stools, then returned again with stacks of blankets and began distributing them to the observers, who took them without bothering with thanks and arranged themselves comfortably around the bed in this room I’d thought of as my own, as a safe space. Rob exited, and for a while I was left alone with these people. They chatted quietly behind their champagne, allowed their eyes to rove over my body, making me wonder what they saw there.
My cousin would take what she wanted, no matter what the means.
I owed her, after all.
“Mothers.” I heard the melodic tinkle of her voice as she entered the room, and I turned my neck, straining to see her. The others stood, murmuring their welcomes as she made her way to the foot of the bed. She, in full view of the body I’d once known as mine. I, in full view of my betrayer. Her eyes raked over me, lingering with near reverence at my midsection.
Mothers, she’d said. I knew what this was. I knew with a cold terror that filled my body from the inside out.
“Mothers, let us rejoice. Our Bloody Mary has returned to her true purpose. Let us show her the joys of motherhood, which she has forsaken for so long, and welcome this wayward child into our fold.” She glided to the top of the bed and ran her fingertips over mine where they were bound to the bedpost. She lowered her voice so only I could hear.
“I asked you nicely for your eggs, Maeve. This could have been so easy. If only you’d said yes. We could have remained a family. You could have even been a part of the child’s life. But you were never good at understanding what it is to be a family, were you?” Her gaze went cold. “Maybe you just don’t deserve one.”
Then, at a louder pitch, she said, “Rob, sweetheart, will you bring the refreshments?” She didn’t bother looking at Rob when she addressed him, but he scurried from the room, an obedient lackey. Andrea began to wash her hands in a basin that had at some point been placed on my nightstand. The room filled with the fragrant odor of lavender.
“What exactly is a Bloody Mary?” the woman named India whispered to a petite blonde sitting next to her, who shushed her with a condescending look. The two were seated closest to my bedside, and if I shifted my eyes as hard as they’d go to the left, I could catch their conversation.
The blonde hesitated before answering, keeping one eye on Andrea. “It’s a term for a woman who aborts her child or—more generally—is hostile to the idea of motherhood,” she explained quietly.
India gazed at me with a look of pity. “How sad for her,” she commented. “She’s so lucky to have Andrea intervene.”
The blond woman glanced back at Andrea, then lowered her voice further, but not so low that I couldn’t make out her words. “As little girls, we’d play a game Andrea made up, pretending to be a traitor to the cause. The ultimate scare.”
“You were part of the community as a child?” India sounded reverential, even jealous.
“I was born into it,” the blond woman said then. She met my eyes with her own, and her look was defiant. “All three of us were.”
Everything slid into place. Susie. One of the smaller girls on the commune. Too little when everything fell apart for me to have recognized her as a grown woman. But it was clear in the slope of her nose and the dramatic arch of her full upper lip.
“That’s right,” Susie said, leaning forward in her stool so her face was mere inches from my own. “You’re still the rotten one.” Her voice was a hiss, and flecks of spittle connected with my face, where it was exposed above the gag.
Andrea moved back to the side of the bed, near enough that I could have touched her from where I lay, were I unbound. “That’s enough, Susie,” she said, laying a hand on Susie’s shoulder. Then, to no one in particular, she said, “Remove the gag.”
A man to her left, the one who had been circulating champagne, placed his tray on the bureau and lifted my head, struggling with the knot that secured my gag. When I was free, I let out a long scream, channeling all my rage into this noise that emitted from my throat, something animalistic and unencumbered. I screamed like that until my throat was sore and my vocal cords felt shredded from effort. The women winced, pressing their hands to the ears of their dolls in simultaneous gestures of maternal protectiveness. Andrea regarded me calmly, until I dissolved in choked sobs. Nothing I did would frighten or move her.
“We’re in the middle of the woods, Maeve,” she explained, as if to a child. “Who do you think will hear you?”
“Why are you doing this?” I choked out. Tears streamed down the sides of my face and wet my shoulders, mingling with my sweat.
“Well, because you made it so hard, of course.” Andrea reached out to stroke my cheek, but I gnashed my teeth at her fingers. “Oh, Maeve. Don’t make me restore the gag.” Andrea shook her head sadly. “Not when my greatest desire in all of this was for you to have a voice.”
Maybe if I kept asking questions, I could gather enough information to figure some way out. “It was you all along with the fanatical agenda. Not Emily,” I said, my throat raw.
“Well of course it was, silly. Emily is sweet and was a wonderful Mother. Or at least, that’s what she became, after I fixed her mess of a life. But she could never run the show. Just look at what she did to herself,” she added without emotion. “I am the one at the helm of the Mother Collective.” She said it simply, without any of the grandiosity of the rest of her statements. “I’ve been at the helm since we were children. Studying, waiting for my time to rise. Gathering our sisters like Susie—and more and more sisters across the globe—so the Mother Collective could be even more powerful than before. We never really went away, you see. I know you gave up on our Mothers when you found a new family,” she said with derision, “but I never did. That wasn’t a surprise to anyone, though. I was always the chosen one. I’m Mother Superior, Maeve. How could I turn my back on my legacy?”
The women in the room sank to their knees, bowing at Andrea’s feet.
“Please rise,” she said. “Resume your positions. Care for your children.”
At this they arose and sat once more on the stools that surrounded the bed. They cared for the dolls with renewed dedication.
“A sailor went to sea, sea, sea”
The lyrics to our old song floated over me, sending chills through my body. They continued singing the rhyme to their dolls until I couldn’t stand to listen. I met Andrea’s eyes and she smiled as if reading my mind.
“A sweet rhyme, isn’t it?” she asked. “Does it bring back memories?”
“What do you want from me?” I asked, growing desperate. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you? Of course not, Maeve. Not yet. You’ll be here for a while, of course—just about nine months, I’d say. That’s right.” She laughed, self-satisfied. “We’ve been keeping you at peak fertility with those smoothies you love so much. Those have been ripe with hormone supplements. And poor you, thinking you were self-medicating so heavily. I felt a little bad about that, I admit. We added a few extra Klonopin to your wine here and there—it was just so easy. Once Ryan died … By then you would have believed anything, in your grief.” Dread coursed through my body, but I was speechless. “You don’t blame us, do you? You’ve always needed a firm hand, even in childhood. A willful child. So directionless.” She shook her head ruefully.
“I haven’t decided what to do with you in the long run.” She paused. “But for now, you’re merely going to perform your duty as a woman. You’re not really a Bloody Mary. Not anymore.” She made a clucking noise with her tongue. “I would never have let that fate befall you. God, no. I love you. That’s why I’m doing this, Maeve, can’t you see? I know what’s best for you—I always have. You’ll use the gifts you’ve been given, just as all the other women in this room gratefully use their gifts.” At this, there were nods of assent. “We’ll take good care of you, Mae. We’ll make sure the child is born healthy and strong. We have doctors and midwives right in the Collective—you won’t even have to go to a hospital to give birth. Rob,” she called then. “You may return.”
Rob entered the room almost immediately, carrying a tray on which rested a large, trembling mass. Next to it lay a fork and knife.
“Mmm,” Andrea said, gazing at it hungrily. “Doesn’t that look good?”
I drew back, horrified. “No,” I whispered. “No. Andrea. What is this?”
“Call me Mother Superior,” she said, her voice cold. “And I can do whatever I want to do.” She bent low to the bed, until we could nearly kiss. “Don’t worry, Maeve. You’re safe for the time being. I would never do anything to hurt an unborn child. Do you hear me, Maeve? I am taking what I deserve to have. What you owe me.” Her hot breath filled my nostrils. And at this, Rob rested a hand on her back, as if to remind her of something. She straightened, composing herself.
“Andrea,” I said desperately, my heart pounding as she turned toward the tray and accepted it from Rob. “Do these women know you don’t have the gift?” There were gasps in the room, and Andrea froze long enough for me to know I was right. I hurried to finish, my words tumbling over themselves. “All these women think they’re saving me from the awful fate of not bearing children. But they don’t know Mother Superior is using me to steal a child and pass it off as her own.”
“Get the gag,” Andrea ordered Rob. “Gag her immediately.”
Rob reached for the cotton strip that had guarded my mouth. As Rob descended with the gag, I saw some of the Mothers exchange looks of confusion. I talked fast, frantic. “How can you lead the Mother Collective if you don’t have the power of womanhood? The one single power Mother Superior is supposed—”
And then the gag was in my mouth, thick and tight and more painful than before, biting into the flesh at the corners of my mouth. Without babies of her own, how could she continue to lead the cult? That’s what this was about. I wasn’t fulfilling my role as a woman, according to Andrea’s vision; I was producing Andrea’s very reason for being, the source of her power and wealth, in order that she might maintain her charade. And Rob, poor Rob. Surely he didn’t know what would become of him. He was alive only because she needed his seed, so the baby would look like them. Like Olivia. Andrea had needed me all along, far more than I’d needed her.
I watched as Andrea cut into the bloody slab on the tray, as she explained to the women that finally I would stop squandering—scoffing at—my womanhood.
How long ago had this started? They had killed Ryan, that was clear to me now. Killed him soon after I mentioned I planned to live there and not here. They had killed Tyler when he became a liability—at that, a deep pain pierced my heart. Had I not shown Andrea his texts, she might never have known he was a threat. In a way, I was responsible for both their deaths.
Andrea sliced into the raw, gelatinous mass on the tray, cutting it into a dozen or more small pieces.
How far back did it go? My job? Had she ruined that for me, too?
What about my parents? Had she killed my father, who had stopped breathing in the night?
The bitch destroyed my life.
And for that, she would pay. One way or another, she would pay.
Andrea performed the Feeding three times per day for three days. During the ritual, my gag was removed only for the time it took to swallow ragged chunks of the placenta she’d frozen after Olivia’s birth and thawed for me now, believing it would make us one. Believing it would somehow make the thing inside me more hers as it grew. More like her dead baby.
I tried to spit it out at first, but she stuffed it down my throat with her bare and bloodied hands, nearly choking me. After that, I swallowed the organ whole—and quickly—without chewing.
I learned to dissociate when Andrea approached with the platter, surgical gloves coating her hands. Without fanfare, she’d slice what remained of the placenta into ropy, browning chunks, the women from the retreat presiding in reverence. During these sessions, my gag—by now ripping into the corners of my mouth—would be removed so I could choke down the rotting meat of her womb. I was a mess of painful sores; if I could have smiled, it would have caused me excruciating pain.
Once, I heard a Mother whisper, “Poor thing. Such a lost soul. What else is there, other than having babies?” Another Mother clucked her tongue. “So true, Mother. Thank goodness Andrea saved her.” Then, fearfully, her friend said, “She’s one of the lucky ones, being guided to enlightenment.” It made me wonder what happened to the other, unenlightened ones. What they thought happened to them.
The women, I supposed, still believed the child was to be mine. Some might have questioned Andrea’s intentions. But others undoubtedly thought that when I saw it, I’d finally feel the love I was missing from my life and acknowledge the error of my ways. That Andrea was an evangelist. That in this way she’d save my soul. Andrea wouldn’t let the women close to me after that first night; they only came around for the ritual, undoubtedly spending the rest of their time in seminars designed to program their brains.
Rob tended to my physical needs—giving me sponge baths, changing my clothes, feeding me his nutrient-rich shakes. Andrea didn’t trust me with anyone else. Or rather, anyone else with me. And Rob, I couldn’t break. He had always been either silent or agreeable; now he was impenetrable. Worse, he knew her secrets. There wasn’t anything left to expose, not to him. One day he suggested they take me for a walk. I was losing feeling in my extremities by then, shitting and pissing into bedpans only, and I had begun to worry that they really intended to keep me bound like this until I gave birth. Surely, Andrea knew a baby couldn’t thrive this way.
“It’s too soon, darling,” she said. “We need to wait until she’s weakened a little. Just enough to be subdued. I know you’re as excited as I am,” she said, rewarding him with a kiss. “We’ll have our Olivia back; don’t worry.”
“What if it’s a boy?” I asked. My gag had been undone for breakfast, and it hadn’t yet been replaced.
Andrea looked at me, her smile void of any soul. “Then we’ll discard it and go again. We’re in no rush. We have Mother eyes everywhere, Maeve. I only wish you hadn’t been so … resistant. But then, you always were, weren’t you? Troublesome. Favoring that worthless little Boy. Putting your whole life on the line for him—even our relationship.
“You know they asked me to take you under my wing when we were little? That’s why we were ‘best friends.’” Those words, and her mocking delivery, seared me more than anything. “They were hoping I’d be a good influence,” she continued. “That I could train you to be more compliant. You were always so … strange. Coddling Boy as if he were one of our own. The Mothers knew that without my guidance you’d never be the right kind of woman, and they were correct.”
Our relationship, I knew then, had meant nothing to Andrea. I was a simple transaction, a means to her own fulfillment. It wasn’t clear how long she would have continued her sadistic game if the doorbell hadn’t rung.
“Police! Open up!” The voice was loud enough to carry through my window, open to neutralize the odors of a sedentary body. At first I thought it was a dream, as I faded in and out of awareness. Even though I was alone in the room when they arrived, the police announced themselves three times at the front door, pounding on it before their words seeped into my consciousness.
And then I screamed harder than ever before into my gag and cast my body about within its chains like a madwoman, hurling my torso against the bed and arching it again in a desperate attempt to move the frame against the floor, to make any kind of noise at all.
The door to my room burst open, and Rob shut it gently behind him. Then he walked over to the window and slid it closed.
“It’s no use,” he told me. “Stop it, Maeve! They can’t hear you all the way up here.”
I thrashed anyway. Rob would never again tell me what to do, or how to be, or have any jurisdiction over my body, if I could help it. Finally he leaped on me, pinning me to the mattress with both hands. He lowered his face until it was inches from mine and hissed, “Shut up, you fucking whore. I need to get you out of here, now. They’re searching the house.”
My heart lifted, practically soared out of my chest. They were searching the house. Was it about Tyler? Or had they somehow found something tracing back to the Mother Collective? Rob untied my right arm and immediately I flailed, trying to hit him—a stupid thing, in hindsight, because I needed him to untie at least two hands in order to free myself all the way. The other men—the lackeys—came in then, and my heart sank again.
I hardly had feeling in the arm he’d untied; it was limp and dead from days of being lashed to the bedpost behind me, with only short intervals for roaming the bedroom. Sharp, searing pain traveled from shoulder to wrist, and a blueish bruise extended halfway up my forearm. One of the men twisted my arm behind me as the other assisted Rob in untying my other wrist. Then they bound the two together while the third man worked on my legs. It took all of two minutes.
When they were done, Rob was breathing heavily and sweat dripped down his temples. I screamed again through my gag, an effort that came from my gut, forcing bile into the back of my throat. I tried to kick the men, but my legs had no life in them either. I could hardly move them at all.
The two lackeys grabbed me, securing my body tight between them so I had no option for wriggling to the ground and causing the kind of thump that might attract attention. They moved me out of the room and walked me rapidly through the hall. From there, I caught snippets of the conversation.
“Officers,” Andrea was saying, in a placating tone, “you can see I’m hosting a retreat on motherhood. This isn’t the time or place—”
“We have a warrant,” said a male voice. “We are authorized to conduct a thorough search.”
“This is bad for business,” Andrea said pleadingly. “Surely you can understand that. You can come back in another couple of days, when the guests have cleared out, and tear the place apart. I don’t care.”
“With respect, ma’am, the timing isn’t your decision.”
I didn’t catch more, because I was being shuttled rapidly down the hallway until we reached the hidden door that led to the passages in the wall, the ones where I’d lost my phone and fallen into a nest of spiders. The police would never find me there. The door was invisible if you didn’t know how to find it. And even if I hadn’t been gagged, it would have been impossible to hear me behind those walls.
They dumped me on the floor of the hidden corridor. Rob followed, closing the door behind him. Then he ripped off my gag, leaving me gasping and sucking in air mixed with blood from the sides of my mouth. I scooted as far away from him as I could get, pressing my shoulder blades painfully against the wall, my bound hands grazing the floor just behind my tailbone. The feeling was beginning to return to my legs, although I was certain that if I tried to stand, I’d stumble.
“It’s soundproofed,” he said. “They won’t hear you in here, no matter how loud you scream.”
“You fucking bastard,” I said, inching away from him. “You raped me that night, when Tyler was here. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?” I yelled the last part, just in case we were both wrong and there was a way someone could hear me.
I could make out just enough of Rob’s features in the dim of the passage to see he looked pleased with himself. “It worked out well, didn’t it?” His tone was smug, even contemptuous. “We’d have let him live if he hadn’t freaked out about the whole thing. Thought he was just being paid to seduce you. But to what end? So naive, that boy. So desperate to protect his loved ones. See, Maeve? Even he knew how important it is to build a family. If you hadn’t been such a kinky slut in the first place, it wouldn’t have worked. That part’s on you.”
“It’s over, Rob. Don’t you see? Now they know about the Mother Collective. Soon it will all be destroyed.”
Rob laughed and shook his head. “All they know is that your fingerprints are all over Tyler’s car,” he explained. “And they didn’t buy the lie about you being back in the city. They want a word. But we can’t let them do that. Not in your condition.”
Rob leaned forward so his musky breath overshadowed the damp and rot of the passage.
“Andrea already cleared out your room here and planted your phone in your apartment in the city. They’ll do a cursory search of your things. And then they’ll be gone. Eventually they’ll trace your phone. And they won’t ever find you, Maeve. Not even your cold, dead body after you deliver our child.”
I pressed myself back and then propelled my leg in front of me until it connected with Rob’s jaw, causing him to lurch backward. Something hard—his skull, I guessed—collided with the wall, and he slumped to the floor, groaning. I didn’t waste a second. I stumbled to my feet and ran haphazardly down the corridor. I heard Rob rising behind me. I heard him laugh, off-kilter.
“Where do you think you’re running to?” he asked, his voice slurred but mocking. “I’ll catch you eventually.”
I rounded a corner, my heart pounding. Rob must have hit his head hard; his speech was evidence enough of that. I had an advantage, but surely not for long. My legs were still aching and foreign, and I had no idea how long I could persist. I desperately searched my brain for anything I could remember. The passageways spanned the back length of the house, that much I knew. And there were three exits. But where were they? I could hardly see, let alone navigate, especially without my hands to guide me. The pungent smell of rot grew stronger as I made my way deeper into the exoskeleton of the house.
“I’m not even going to chase you, Maeve.” Rob’s voice was distant. “You hurt me, you know. That kick really hurt me. That’s no way to treat a lover.”
I connected with a solid mass. There shouldn’t have been a dead end there. What was this? I pressed my body against the object. Without hands, I couldn’t get a sense of it other than that it was covered in plastic. It appeared to be propped against the wall at a diagonal, like a slanted beam. I kicked around, identifying the amount of space beneath it—too tight for me to squeeze through.
I pushed into it, struggling to knock it over. But it was heavy and unwieldy; it hardly shifted an inch. I groaned in frustration. Behind me was Rob. The only way to escape was forward.
Then I heard something. The buzzing of a cell phone. Its attendant glow drew my eyes downward. The buzzing was coming from whatever was blocking my path. It was obscured by the heavy plastic that covered it. Even so, it highlighted a long, metal zipper. I reached for the tongue of the zipper with my teeth. As I pulled, the unmistakable smell of rot flooded my nasal passages, causing me to gag. I pressed on, clamping my teeth more securely around the zipper when they threated to tremble. Once, twice, the zipper slipped out of my mouth, and in those paralyzing seconds I could hear Rob, dragging now, and coughing away the stench but pulling ever closer. The phone kept buzzing, its light revealing more as I went: the woolen material of dress pants. A blue button-down shirt.
I kept going. I had to be sure. I needed to know it was him. I moved my teeth, and the zipper, and in turn my face, up the figure. Toward its torso, its chest, its neck, its—
But Micah’s body had no head. I found myself close enough to lick his putrid, decomposing stump. It was then that I screamed, until screams turned into chokes and gags.
Poor Micah. Micah, the reluctant father. Micah who loved death metal. Who was fond of his phone charger and other gadgets. Who cut the crusts off his own bread but left them on Henry’s and didn’t see the irony. Who fiddled with his pocketknife when he was nervous.
The phone stopped ringing. Went black.
His pocketknife.
I could hear Rob dragging himself closer. He seemed disoriented; his steps were irregular and plodding. Even so, without the use of my hands, I’d be helpless. Rob wouldn’t kill me, not when I was pregnant. But I couldn’t be held captive again and survive.
I turned my back to the body, fighting waves of nausea and tears and the encroaching feeling of claustrophobia that had begun to settle deep in my bones. I wiggled my fingers, trying desperately to restore feeling in them. They’d bound me tight enough to cut off circulation. I squatted, reaching along the body until I felt the lining in the wool of Micah’s pants, then groped around in his left pocket, praying it was there. I felt the phone, and beside it a cold metal object, and for a fleeting second felt something like hope. Then the knob on the top clicked under my thumb and I realized it was only a pen. The knife was in the other pocket, then, if it was there at all. I couldn’t reach the other pocket. Not without climbing on top of the dead man.
“Maeve, what are you doing?” Rob called, drawing out the syllables like they were a song or a game. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…”
He was mere feet away from me now. I climbed on top of the bag and laid my body against the corpse. Beyond it was solid wall, I knew now, from feeling with my feet. A dead end, after all. I’d made a wrong turn. The only way through was back, toward Rob. But the corpse had something I needed.
Micah’s dead body was rigid enough from rigor mortis to withstand my weight even as I lay against him, my back to his stomach. I reached my hand into his right pocket, feeling around desperately until my fingers found purchase.
The knife.
I pulled it out, flicked it open, and placed it behind me, trapping it against the wall. I rubbed the binds on my wrists frantically against it. I felt one cord break. And then the hallway darkened, Rob’s form obscuring any meager light.
“I found you,” he whispered.
With a grunt, I yanked my wrists apart, loosening the cut cord until it was slack. I shook it off; my arms were free. I wielded the knife with my right hand and reached back for Micah’s left pocket, for the phone. But I didn’t press my hand to the button that would illuminate it. Rob was so close I could hear him breathing. I lowered the knife to my side, along with Micah’s phone.
For a beat, we were silent.
“I can see you found Micah,” he said. “Or rather, I can smell it.” He coughed again, making a gagging sound. “I can’t kill you,” he lamented. “But oh, how I wish I could.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to kill Andrea? She’s the one who did this to you, who turned you into this. You could confess to all of it. Tell the police downstairs. Get immunity.”
“The police!” He laughed again. “No, Maeve. After all this time, you still don’t understand. We are the enlightened ones,” he said, casting spittle from his lips to mine. “This thing is bigger than you. Bigger than us, even. That pathetic commune you were born into?” He laughed again, then lost himself in a coughing fit that took precious seconds to subside—seconds in which the feeling returned to my arms and hands. “Mother Superior has made it a thousand times as big, a million times more profitable, infinitely more powerful. And that baby you carry inside you…” He took a step closer, and my hand twitched around the knife. “She’ll be the next Mother Superior. Just as Andrea was groomed from birth, so shall she be.”
I tried to take a step back. Rob was almost on top of me, and shudders of revulsion coursed through me.
“And if it’s a boy?”
“Why do you keep asking this?” His voice was harsh. “If it’s a boy, we’ll discard it. We’ll try again until we have a perfect replacement for Olivia.”
“Just like you discarded Micah,” I said, fighting to keep the emotion from my voice. Just as they would have discarded Boy, in the end.
“Yes.” Rob sounded amused. “Yes, like that. He did too much digging. Asking about your and Andrea’s childhood, sniffing around. Had mommy issues. On top of it, he was a bad partner to Emily. He didn’t care well enough for their first child, so she felt the burden of it. His lack of devotion was clearly what led to her rejection of their second. So yes, we discarded him. It was an easy decision.”
“And who’s going to discard you, Rob?” With that, I shone the flashlight bright in his face, bright enough to make him blink, startled, and to illuminate all I needed. I didn’t wait for him to respond.
“I am, you sick fuck.”
Then I took the pocketknife and slashed it hard across his neck from Adam’s apple to earlobe. Rob’s blood spurted out at me, hot and wet. His body collapsed in front of me with a thud. He twitched and gurgled.
I kept the phone directed on his eyes, which stared—panicked—until they were lost and then gone. It didn’t take long. Rob had never believed he’d be killed. As Andrea’s husband, he thought he’d be safeguarded by her status. But I knew better. I knew that the second she found the positive pregnancy test, his clock had begun ticking. No matter if it was a girl or a boy. As soon as I brought a girl into the world, Rob’s fate would have been sealed. It had been only a matter of time. And a matter of the hand that wielded the knife—hers or mine.
I hadn’t been about to let her have the satisfaction of killing my rapist.
I fumbled in Rob’s pocket for something—anything—of use. My fingers landed on a slender metal chain. I pulled it out, nearly fainting with relief at the sound of Rob’s car keys. I gripped all three precious items—keys, phone, and knife. I clicked on the phone’s home screen, desperately hoping for a lifeline, but it was locked.
I only knew the door we’d entered from, and I made my way back toward it, stepping carefully around the bodies. The narrowness of the corridors didn’t scare me anymore, I realized; I’d dealt with far more frightening things by now. Nor did the spiders that crawled from the rafters and moved comfortably down the foundational beams, impervious to my presence. I moved down that hall for what felt like eternity, using the home screen of the phone to illuminate my path. And then I was there. I held an ear against the door, listening. As if I could have heard anything. It was eerily silent, but that didn’t mean much.
I inched open the door a crack, allowing sound to seep back in. It was distant. The sounds of a struggle. I eased the door open and slid out. I could hear it more clearly now, and it was deafening, after the silence of the hidden passageways. There were screams—guttural and terrified—and thuds, and the voices of the Mothers coming from the lower level.
I crossed to the staircase near the room I’d taken when I first arrived. It was the only set of stairs that led directly to the foyer and out the door to the driveway, where Rob’s car was parked.
“Please,” I whispered. “Dear god, please.”
I crept down the stairs barefoot, as soundlessly as possible. The grunts and cries grew louder with each step. When I reached the landing, the bloodbath in front of me made me rear back, accidentally knocking into the banister and falling onto the wooden stairs. All the Mothers’ heads turned from their position across the room, where they had been mutilating the bodies of two policemen as Andrea looked on. Their fingers were slick with blood; they’d been tearing apart their victims with their bare hands.
Andrea saw me just a beat after they did, so transfixed was she with the scene before her. She was pristine in a white off-the-shoulder sweater and jeans as she observed, seemingly immune to the blood spurting through the air and coating the walls and furniture. Her eyes narrowed, and I leaped to my feet, darting to the right, toward the front door.
“Stop her,” she shouted at the Mothers. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. My heart was pounding, coursing energy through my still-weak legs in a desperate bid to keep them moving forward. But I heard their feet trampling the ground behind me—a whole horde of them—and it was as if I were living that night, twenty-five years ago, all over again. Running from a house I’d called home. Running from the only family I knew. The only thing missing was Boy in my arms.
I grabbed the doorknob and yanked it; it didn’t budge. I fumbled desperately with the lock, yanking it again, and finally threw the door open with such force that it hit one of the women—whichever Mother had been closest to capturing me—with a thud.
I ran down the driveway until I reached the car. I pressed the Unlock button four times and then slid into the crisp leather driver’s seat as they converged on me. I slammed the door on the fingers of another Mother. She screamed and yanked her hand back. It was hard to tell her blood from the blood in which she was already covered. I locked the car.
Now all I had to do was drive.