“Waiting for you to leave so I can get dressed,” I said immediately with ice in my words.
If it hadn’t been for Lincoln’s intervention, pregnant or not I would have launched myself at her.
She plopped the halo back on my head and grinned wickedly at me. “If you weren’t pregnant with my grandchild, I would have made sure you felt more than just my palm across your insolent face.”
“If I weren’t pregnant with my children, I would have kicked your ass,” I hissed back.
I could see the battle waging behind her eyes. She wanted to hit me again. I’m sure she had gotten used to people falling for her charms, but I was impervious to them. I knew what lied beneath that beautiful face. I knew the blackness of her heart.
She turned and left without a backward glance, and I sunk down to the floor. Dissolving to tears once more. My face hurt, and I had lost the brief connection I had with my life.
“Sweetheart?” Jace’s distinct voice sounded in my head.
“Jace?” I asked hesitantly between my tears. I didn’t know if I had finally lost my mind and succumbed to the madness.
I was gifted, and I had seen the most bizarre things the last six or seven months, but my mind still couldn’t wrap around the fact that I might actually be talking and seeing my family and friends.
“Yes,” relief was evident in his voice. “Can you tell us where you are?”
“I have no clue,” I said in frustration. “I’m in a house surrounded by nothing but snow and trees. I can’t see anything from my room. I was blindfolded when they brought me here, and I haven’t been allowed to leave the room.
I looked around the room, my prison. “There are bars on my windows, and there’s always a guard at my door. I have a halo on, so I can’t use my gifts. They were offering to let me have dinner with them tonight, but I may have pissed off Alison a bit too much. I kind of called her a selfish whore.”
He chuckled. “I know it’s hard, but you may have to pretend to play nice so you can give us more clues to your location, and then we can come to get you.”
“I’ll try to,” I said despondently. “I need to get out of here.”
Tears began to fall in earnest. I
wanted to be back home desperately, but I didn’t know if I could go back there knowing Gavin wasn’t there. He became so much more than my best friend. He had become like a brother to me.
“Are they treating you…okay?” he asked hesitantly.
“I’ll never own a bird,” I answered him. “Even if I’m fed and well taken care of, it’s still a cage.”
There was silence for a while, and I wondered if the door had been closed. I suspected Alex had figured out the whole ‘entry in the mind’ thing. I knew he had trouble closing the door between Harry and his own mind. Maybe he had figured out how to open and close them at will. If it were left open, I wouldn’t technically ever use my own gift, and I wouldn’t get zapped. I loved loopholes!
“Is it true?” he asked finally.
“What?” I asked between sobs.
“Are you pregnant with… twins?” he asked in awe.
“Yes,” I sobbed. “Bi-paternal twins. I’m a little over twelve weeks by their estimation. They already did a DNA test and we know one of them is yours or Jaxson’s, but I’m not sure who the other father is.”
I continued to sob on the bathroom floor wrapped up in my towel.
“I might be a daddy soon?” he asked with hope.
He never even indicated that he wanted children, so his excitement shocked me. I was still terrified by the notion of having not one child but two at my age. I just turned eighteen! Not to mention, I had other children to raise first. Even with Miranda back in the picture, I would forever feel like they were mine.
I laughed dryly. “Well, you have a fifty/ fifty chance. The others have a twenty percent chance.”
“I’ll take it,” he said with a laugh. “I love you, Blake Thomas.” he said with quiet desperation.
“I love you more,” I said with my own wet laugh.
“Alex is getting tired, but we’ll be back soon,” Jace said reluctantly.