An Inescapable Fate

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 The uncomfortable encounter at the Fitzpatrick mansion didn’t last long. Lillith stepped into that house full of fear and no answers, she walked out of it feeling the same way yet worse. It unnerved her how cold Evan was about their unfortunate deal. They were supposed to create a child, one he’d be tasked with raising. Didn’t he care at all?

Stubborn tears welled inside her eyes. She dreamt of a family to call her own and now she was forced to live a nightmare where she’d have to give up her child. A piece of her.

Like many times before, she stopped herself from thinking about those ugly details of a fate she couldn’t change. Instead she tried to hold her head up high and put on a brave face for her parents. They after all had no choice in the matter either.

When she returned home that late evening, they wanted to know how the meeting went. “Fine. I have to go back tomorrow.” She looked around their living room to avoid their sad eyes. The space wasn’t large or luxurious like the Fitzpatrick’s, but for her it was home and she loved it. “I have to get to bed for school tomorrow.” She turned and went upstairs to her room, leaving her parents and their worried expressions downstairs.

Alone in her room, she sighed and sank down onto her bed. Every thought she attempted to ignore slammed back to the forefront. She didn’t know if she could do this. She knew what was at stake, she didn’t want to disappoint her family but it was all too much. Could she survive it?

Still, she couldn’t shake the image of Evan smiling at her expense and how indifferent he had been. Knowing and seeing were two different things. There was no way after meeting him, after seeing with her own eyes what a monster he could be, she was going to be able to shut down and let him touch her intimately.

Moving on automatic, she gathered her pajamas and went to shower before bed. Afterward she laid in the dark terrified, worried about tomorrow, how she had no control to get out of it. The lack of choice was the biggest fear of all.

That following morning she met her parents in the kitchen for breakfast and tried to again ignore the look of sorrow and regret lacing their soulful brown eyes. “Do you need any help?” she asked her mother with a planted smile across her face.

Her mother returned the smile and some of the tension eased from her shoulders. “You can place these on the table.” She handed off a table full of eggs and another with seared ham.

They ate breakfast together as a family before everyone went their separate ways, Lillith off to school while her parents went to work. Both her mother and father worked full time to provide and yet it wasn’t enough. When she became pregnant Mr. Fitzpatrick would give them the cash settlement he promised but not a second before that.

For the first time in her whole life, she thought about skipping school so she wouldn’t have to see Evan, while knowing for sure he knew the deal his grandfather forced on her parents. Did he not see anything wrong with that? It wasn’t like everyday people went around making such contracts.

“Hey Lillith.” Margaret Sammson greeted, falling into step as she walked up the school pathway.

“Hi.” Lillith replied shyly, her thoughts were still somewhere else entirely. She and Margaret were school friends that shared lunch and sometimes spoke before class, not much else.    

“I heard Mr. Dell is going to spring a quiz on us today. Have you read the chapters to this week’s novel?” Margaret asked excitedly, she loved reading and everything pertaining to it.

As did Lillith. “No, but I had read this book over the summer and I remember it pretty well.” she rarely forgot much of anything with nearly perfect recall. It was a unique staple of her life that sometimes made it difficult to make friends.

The two girls continued to chat about the book and took guesses about which book Mr. Dell would pick next all through the school to their lockers were they had to part ways. Everything in the school was done alphabetically, including their lockers and seating in every class.

Ellison and Sammson weren’t near each other but Ellison and Fitzpatrick certainly were.

With Margaret, Lillith started to feel like herself again and enjoyed their discussion, now near Evan she felt herself shying back into the shell of fear created by the Fitzpatrick’s. Every other day she would run into him near the lockers or in class, she could ignore him because she swore he didn’t know anything about their family’s arraignment. There was no more hiding and apparently he had always known. Something he made crystal clear last night.

He stood three lockers away talking with one of his friends. Lillith kept her head down and put her backpack away, grabbing her books for class quickly.

She was shy and engrossed in her studies with hopes of going to an amazing college and making enough money for her parents to retire. Evan was a playboy and a social phenomenon. Lillith knew if she could control her thoughts and fears, she could get though this day because it wasn’t as if he was going to talk to her or acknowledge her in any way. They weren’t friends, they didn’t have to act like anything was different.

“Ms. Ellison?” a soft voice called out. It belonged to the same man who drove her to the Fitzpatrick estate yesterday.

“Yes?” her voice shook. She wondered; had she left something in the car and he was trying to return it? Could that be it…please?

“Your presence is requested again.” He didn’t seem to know anything; he was simply a man doing his job. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. He wasn’t the sick freak wanting to steal children away from their mother’s with the mighty dollar as his leverage.

Lillith’s shoulders dropped. “I know, they told me last night.” With no other choice, she followed the older man to the long black car he drove. It looked a lot like a limo except it was shorter, she absently thought. She got inside and unlike yesterday she wasn’t alone in the backseat. Her heart dropped at the sight of Evan.

“I did tell you we would meet today.” He said, as if reading the dread from her mind.

“I didn’t know it’d be so soon.” She fidgeted with her hands and kept her eyes down. In his presence she didn’t know how to ignore the heavy clouds of fear riding her lunges.

He slid closer on the seat. “You look nervous.” Yesterday he couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge her, now his eyes wouldn’t leave her.

Lillith tried to move away from him but she was already near the door, and short of jumping out the moving car there was nowhere to go. “I am.” She confessed. “I never….”

“You’ve never what?” for the shortest of seconds she glanced into his blue eyes. It was enough for him to understand her earlier statement. “Oh. Really?” Evan didn’t sound remotely surprised. A slight smile tugged at his lower lip, he stopped short of actually smiling and using her innocence for some immature joke. “You don’t have to be nervous.” he laid his warm hand over her knee. “I won’t hurt you.”

Lillith was forced to look up at his face as he leaned in so close she could smell the scent of his soap. “What are you doing?”

He smiled. “Nothing.” His hand moved further up her thigh.

She jerked back. “Stop.” Her eyes darted around in fear the driver might know what they were doing. There was a tinted window between them but it didn’t ease her fears.

“You need to get comfortable with me or this will be a disaster.”

She knew he was right. There was no other way for this to end. “Not here.”

“Don’t worry, Donald knows how to mind his business.” His fingers danced along the top of her thigh.

Lillith grabbed his hand and made him stop the assault he was causing on her senses. “I refuse to let anything happen in the car.” Lillith sat back unsure what happened next. Sure, they had been told what the end result should be, but never how to take that first step. She was supposed to have a child with this man and yet she couldn’t stand to have him touch her.

“Fine, I’ll wait. We’re several minutes from home anyway.”

Minutes. How was she going to get out of this predicament in minutes? Lillith started to sweat.