Page 133 of Reaper and Ruin

I clutched my arms around my belly, like that might save my baby from a bullet. On instinct, I stepped back, away from the gun.

The mechanical whirr was all I heard before I fell, my body hitting a cold, hard floor beneath. Pain registered for only the briefest of seconds, then my head met stone and the entire world went peacefully black.

“Vi! Violet!”

My head splintered, my brain rattling from side to side. I winced at the sound of my name, even though the person saying it was clearly trying to be quiet.

I blinked my eyes open groggily and did a double take at the woman kneeling over me.

A sob rose up my throat so quick I had no chance of holding it back.

Tears poured down my face, and I shook my head, even though it only made it hurt more. “No,” I moaned miserably. “No.”

“Violet!” Nyah whisper-shouted again, her voice hoarse.

I clutched her fingers. They were cold, but she squeezed me back tight.

Why did she feel so real? Was it me who was dead? Confusing thoughts fluttered around my brain, none of them sticking long enough to become clear in the fog. “You’re dead,” I whispered.

She brought her face closer to mine. So close I could smell her, though she didn’t smell like the Nyah I knew. The Nyah I’dknown had smelled of pretty, delicate perfumes that had always reminded me of fruit and summer.

This version of Nyah smelled like dirt and sweat and worse.

My nausea came back full force, and it seemed cruel that if I was dead, I was still suffering with morning sickness.

“Not dead,” she practically whispered. “Though I have wished I was, more than once.” Her voice caught on a sob, and she pulled my head onto her lap. “I’m so scared.”

I couldn’t keep up. I had no idea where we were or why she was shaking so bad. All I knew was I wanted to comfort her, and that I’d missed her, and if she wasn’t dead then maybe neither was I. I turned onto my side and hugged her around her middle, my face pressing into her belly.

And the tiny bump there.

I glanced up at her. “Nyah? Are you pregnant?”

A tear spilled down her cheek, and she covered her belly with her hand, hiccupping on a sob. She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know. I was…I missed two periods, so I did a test the morning I came here.” She wrapped her fingers around mine and squeezed them. “But I’m bleeding.”

“Oh God, Nyah.” I squeezed my eyes shut and clutched my stomach. “I’m pregnant too.”

She stared down at me, her bottom lip trembling as she stroked my damp hair back away from my face. “Oh, Vi. That’s wonderful.”

I struggled to sit up. It was only wonderful if we were alive.

I blinked in the darkness, trying to adjust my eyes, but the only slivers of light that came were from little splinters of sun piercing through the wooden floorboards above our heads.

I stared at them, completely unable to make sense of any of it. “Where are we?”

Nyah bit her lip and opened her mouth to answer, but the floor, the one over our heads, slid open.

Francine stared down at us.

All of it came rushing back. Francine bringing me here. The gun at my back. Falling…

I tried to stand, but pain kept me down. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Francine was at least ten feet above us, and even at almost six feet myself, I knew I would have never been able to pull myself up and out, even if she’d stood there and let me.

We were completely at her mercy.

“Why?” I whispered to her.

She squatted on the edge of the hole and cocked her head to one side. “Didn’t your mama ever teach you to keep your man happy?”