Sever - A Wattpad Featured Story

Jade - Chapter 11 - Now

The cracks around the shutter are brightening. I shiver—my arms wrapped round my knees—and hold onto a small glimmer of hope that the tyre tracks in the snow have formed a track to follow, like Hansel and Gretel's pebbles in the forest. Four days ago, I followed a path in search of a similar hope. It led to the altar of Radlett Town Hall's registry office, where Adrian and I officiated our lightening quick union in front of our anxious parents and my best friend, Judy, where my beaming smile could have lit up the universe.

In my ivory, slightly loose, wedding gown and uncomfortable silk shoes, I promised to love Adrian like no other. His oath to me was simple, too, but that shattered to dust when they breeched our stonewalled home. So much for his protection.

'Psst.'

Now I'm hearing things. The cold has made me delirious.

'Hello?' a voice says.

There is someone there. I move forward, but it hurts my legs to. Being in this position for so long as weakened me.

'Hello?' the voice says again.

'Where are you?' I say.

'The bricks. By the doorway.'

I scramble to the wall, searching with my hands until her voice chimes out and I can gauge her direction better. When I press my body to the ground, my stomach hurts, but there's a small crack in the mortar around a cement brick I can't ignore. I edge my nails into the grout until my fingers throb. Eventually, a small piece of block works loose.

Behind it, through a gap no bigger than my palms, is a girl, slightly older than me—perhaps eighteen or nineteen—with tear-trailed cheeks and a mass of thick red hair that crumples on the floor around her and fills the gap in the brickwork.

'Got a kid?' she says.

I twist onto my side. 'It's still cooking.'

'Thought so, that's why we're here.'

She doesn't need to say it; she's miles too young for the Clinic's age threshold.

'I'm Belinda, and I've got a girl. Amelia. A month old. I've not seen her. They didn't take her, but my Mam wasn't home and I don't know if she's okay,' she says. Tears trickle down her face.

'I'm Jade. It'll be okay, Belinda,' I say automatically, sliding my hand through the gap in the wall. It grazes against the rough block. She reaches out and grasps my fingers tight enough to feel her quivering. 'We'll get you back to her.'

Another false promise. Like all of Adrian's lies. When he asked me to marry him, he told me that with his family name, and his family money, and all the connections he has, I would be safe from the testing. He'd protect me. He'd protect the baby.

It becomes impossible to dwell on Adrian with Belinda's incessant rambling. And it's not a bad thing. He did everything he could, didn't he? I feel a surge of anger for him, when it wasn't really his fault. It was mine for being this way.

I shift onto my side as Belinda tells me about her home, her life before the surprise pregnancy, and I talk about my gunshot marriage to Adrian. It's all so new I hardly know my own address.

A key works the lock.

I jump up, pushing the breezeblock chippings back into place before the door can open into my ribcage. Instead a sharp metal rattle sounds, like kicks against racking and Belinda's screams curdle through the wall's crevices. My door is still locked. Through the wall, raised voices echo amidst the scuffling of feet.