Page 113 of Reckoning

“No,” She gasps, covering her mouth.

So she does know then.

“I hunted them down.” I growl, as a memory flashes in my head, as I see the man who took her heart, cowering in his bed before I carved it back out his chest. “Every single person I could find who profited from her death, I hunted them down and I took her organs back.”

She gulps, her face turning queasy.

“I…” She shakes her head, burying her face like she has something to hide. “My father took me there,” She whispers.

“To the barn?” I ask confused. Why the fuck would he have done that?

She nods, clearly forcing herself to face me. “I, I was a child. If I’d known, if I’d realised…”

My body tenses as understanding dawns on me. She wasn’t just visiting it. She benefitted from it.

“What was wrong with you?” I snap, unable to keep the anger from my voice, despite the fact she wasn’t exactly old enough to be held accountable for her actions.

She takes in a long deep breath, pulling away entirely, shifting so that our bodies are no longer together, no longer touching. “I, I,”

Christ, I can see her shutting down, like she’s about to admit something terrible. Did she have some sort of illness? Something that meant she needed a new heart, or lung, or something? She doesn’t have any scars that would suggest it. Nothing beyond the awful ones across her belly. What the fuck was wrong with her?

“It’s called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome.” She sounds like a zombie, emotionless, disconnected as she speaks. “It’s a genetic thing, I, I was born without a womb.”

I try not to react. I guess that resolves the whole birth control issue but it still doesn’t make sense. “Why did he take you to the barn?”

She shudders, “He thought he could make me normal. He thought he could fix me. It was experimental, at least, it was at the time. Now it’s more mainstream…”

She’s got her arms wrapped around herself, wrapped around her stomach, as if she can still feel whatever pain they put her through.

“What did they do?” I ask.

I can see the tears pouring down her face, I can see the guilt and the remorse etched there. “They tried transplants. Womb transplants. Only, they all failed.”

They? So more than one woman suffered for this? It’s hard to define how I feel, on some level Sofia had no control over this and yet, women were cut up for her, cut up to try and fix her, as if her potential to procreate was worth more than their entire lives.

“How many?” I snap.

“Three times.”

Three? Three fucking women?

“Koen, I didn’t want it.” She gasps staring into my face, clearly seeing my reaction written there. “I didn’t even understand what it was. I was nine years of age. My father just kept saying it would make me normal, it would make me useful, worthwhile.”

She’s pleading, begging me as if I have any right to judge her.

I hold my arm out and she crawls back into my embrace, sobbing more.

“You are normal.” I growl. “Whether you can have children or not, it doesn’t bear any relevance on your worth as a person.”

She sniffs, wiping her face.

“My father would disagree with you there.” She whispers so quietly. “And after Roman got everyone out, I went back there. I had to see it for myself. I had to see what he’d done, what I’d been a part of. And I was also trying to convince myself that what we were doing was right. That what I was doing was necessary.”

My face hardens. “You mean with Otto?”

She gulps, nodding. “He, he attacked me, after a date, he pinned me down in his car and his chauffeur just sat there, watching, doing nothing.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you just stop?” I growl.