Sever - A Wattpad Featured Story

Jade - Chapter 19 - Now

I dream of a salvation so real it frightens me. Even the taste in my mouth seems alive with the strawberries we'd shared together at sports day and the kisses we'd exchanged in his parents' cottage. The twist in my stomach is urgent, and for a fleeting moment I know exactly what to do.

Then I awaken to a blue-tinted reality that is both languid and raw, and the memory fizzles away, oppressed by the cold stench of the room and the weight of the tiny baby in my stomach who has caused so much pain.

I expected to lie awake all night in fear of Ridley and longing for Adrian to save me with a smile that could light up Piccadilly Circus. He would curl my body into his and whisper words that would make my heart set to explode. Instead, I dreamt of David Azure. Blue. A ghost from my past whom I believed I'd never see again.

****

'Mondeiu, mondeiu!' Pam says.

'Argh, that's cold.'

'You need to lie in the bath for a long time, Dave,' Dr Jenkins says, 'or you'll swell like Verruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.'

It's so cold I'm certain my heart will stop. Never did I think it would be possible to lie in an icy bath but feel like my body is on fire at the same time. Wet jeans and a thin white top stick to my body. Blooms of diluted red smudges my shirt. 

'This is what I was afraid of,' she continues. I see it then in her eyes. Remorse. She'd wanted to collect information on the birthing scheme but had she wanted to this much?

'We need to get out of here, now,' she continues.

'Ridley.' My eyes close momentarily, reliving the horror of the attack. 'He's out there in the entrance garage.'

Her eyes become moon like.

'If they find out what I did to Ridley, we're done for.' I say. 'They'll turn against us. I have no way of keeping the girls safe, of keeping us safe...'

'What. Did. You. Do?'

The colour drains from everything but Dr Jenkins' red painted fingernails when I tell her how Ridley launched upon me in the store garage. She understands better than anyone that if we help Jade we sabotage their entire operation and they will come after us. There is not the time nor the means to escape. And even then, they know me. At least half know I'm on probation. Ridley knows where I train. It would be all too easy to come for us.

'Whatever we do needs to look like an accident,' I say eventually.

'An escape?'

'It can't be connected to us.'

She goes quiet. A million ideas swamp my brain until it's as muddied as the bloodied water in which I bathe. Then, from the icy bath, where my skin has turned a pale blue and my ribs feel like they're suffocating my lungs, I sink under the water until the cold screams at my ears and drowns out my thoughts.

****

A banging noise resounds. It's not the first time I've heard it. Still, I ignore it; leafing through the drawers to see what I can find.

Why is it that women seek permission, psychiatric testing, evaluations, months of paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense to conceive, whilst I caught by accident? And more importantly, why does Blue care? Everything that once was certain in my life is suddenly unhinged, and Blue is at the epicentre of the tornado.

The knock sounds again, and the door opens. I straighten, scanning for an object to protect myself with. The ball point of a pen is the best I can see but I'm not quick enough to grab it.