One Who Flees - A Modern Cinderella Story

Chapter 23 - My Personal Hell

Chapter 23 - My Personal Hell

For the first week of my recapture by Zane I was kept locked in a storage locker. I wasn't sure where it was. I expected it was so that he could avoid putting me back in the house where I was more likely to be found for as long as he could. He had stripped me of my dress at some point after he'd managed to bundle me out of the ball. When I first came around I was trussed up in the back of a van. I was gagged, and my hands and feet were bound so I couldn't move. I looked down at myself and began to cry when I saw the familiar poppy coloured bruises once again covering almost my entire body. It was dark when I was dragged, scraping the skin on one side of me raw, from the van into the metal storage container. I was thrown in and the door was locked. The only thing in there was a small dog bowl with water in it. I managed to use a wall to pull down my gag enough for me to be able to lap up a little water to quench my dry throat. It could be thought that it was at this point that I hit rock bottom but it wasn't. It was the following morning when I was forced by necessity to relieve myself that I truly hit rock bottom. Feeling the warmth cover my lower body I began to weep. I wept because I wasn't entirely disgusted, I was happy for the warmth. If this is happy, I thought, then I'd rather be sad. For the rest of that day I cried until I had no tears left.

The cold combined with no food and no hygiene meant that I very quickly got sick. After a couple of days I was almost constantly throwing up. And since I had been given no food at all and barely any water it was only acid which stung my nose. When I finally got so weak that I could no longer sit up Zane moved me to a motel room and invited a doctor friend of his to come look at me. He washed me a little and put a t shirt and shorts on me so I looked vaguely presentable. I barely noticed the doctor taking blood and checking me over. I don't know how long it was before he returned.

"What's wrong with her then?" Zane said sounding annoyed, when the doctor returned the following day. "It's just a bug right?" He didn't care. He just wanted me to suffer as long as possible and he wanted nothing but him to be the thing that killed me.

"No it's not a bug but she will be fine." The doctor said, looking nervously at me. Clearly Zane was threatening him, there was no other way he'd be here. "She's pregnant." My eyes widened and my tired arms wrapped protectively around my stomach. There was a baby growing inside of me. My baby. Mine and Ethan's baby. Something that was mine to take care of and that would love me unconditionally. It suddenly became a single point of hope in my desperate situation.

After Zane showed the doctor out he turned to me. I had hidden my face and my knees were pulled up to my chest. "So you were a little whore while you were playing in New York." He said menacingly.

"No." I croaked.

"Then how did you get pregnant, you little slut?" Two hard slaps stung my cheeks.

"I loved him." I managed to say. Every word taking a huge amount of effort. "I still love him and he loves me." His hand grasps my wrist dragging me from the bed and onto the floor. Then he started to kick me aiming for my stomach. I tried to roll away from him but there wasn't room and I didn't have the strength. I knew what he was doing and deep down I knew I couldn't stop him.

"Don't." I croaked as his feet made repeated contact with the area where the baby was growing in me.

"You can't have a baby." He yelled. "You're a little slut who got herself pregnant on purpose to get the guy to have to take care of you. You're just a selfish little bitch." With that he stamped his foot down hard on my stomach causing me to scream out in pain before blackness surrounded me once more.

Like last time I woke bound in the back of the van. The sharp cramping pains in my stomach reminded me what Zane had done. I could see a massive footprint shaped bruise on my stomach. It was clearly defined and was almost black in colour. Moving a little I could see the shorts I was wearing were drenched in blood. Seeing it I began to weep because I knew just what it meant. It meant that it was incredibly unlikely that there was a baby in me anymore and I suddenly felt so incredibly alone. More alone than I'd felt even when I was walking across the country. Zane had killed my baby. My baby never got a chance to live and my life was being snatched out from under my feet. And that realisation hurt more than anything else.