Bang(97)

“So, what now? You think he loves you back?”

“Yes,” I breathe.

“You’re full of shit. You have no idea what you’re saying. You’re so wrapped up in this lie that you’re buying into this false reality. But it’s false, Elizabeth. It’s not real.”

“It is.”

“It isn’t. You are not Nina. Can’t you see that?”

“And what’s Elizabeth? Huh? I mean . . . who is she really? Is she me?” I question as the levies break and the tears fall down my cheeks. “Because she doesn’t feel like me. Because she was never supposed to be me!” My words now cries, pleading cries. “She only existed because of Bennett!”

“That’s right, Elizabeth!!” he barks furiously. “Bennett! Feel that f*cking hate! He’s the reason for all of this! Don’t lose sight of what he did to your life! To your father’s life!”

And my fury parallels his, except that fury is robed in a mass of sadness and desperation when I shriek, “I know! God, I know, but I can’t do it. I can’t destroy Declan like that.”

“Fuck Declan! He’s the pawn. He’s always been the pawn, and you, the queen.”

“But sometimes the queen falls.”

“Not you,” he says sternly as his hands grip my shoulders that tremor under my emotions. “I’m not gonna let you fall.”

“I already fell, Pike. I want out. I’ll finish this; I’ll divorce Bennett, and no one will ever have to know about this.”

His fingers tighten around my shoulders, painfully. “You don’t love him,” he whispers, and I hear every morsel of pain he’s trying to hide, but I can’t lie.

“I do love him,” I say under my breath, and as soon as he drops his head, he lifts it right back up. The look in his eyes turns to cold stone, and he takes a couple steps back, releasing his hands from me.

His sudden shift in demeanor rattles me as I watch him start to subtly shake his head before questioning, “Are you not telling me something?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the fact that your hand hasn’t left your stomach for the past few minutes,” he says, and when I look down, I see that I’ve got my hand right where he said it was—an unconscious act of protecting what’s inside—and suddenly, all the blood drains out of me, leaving me utterly terrified as I watch the viperous hate surface in his eyes.

You’ve heard of Newton’s first law of motion, right? The one that states that an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force? It’s a science that can’t be negated, and with the game in full speed, I’m about to learn the catastrophic consequences of that law.

“Pike,” I soothe, needing him to calm down.

“Tell me that I’m losing my mind right now. That I’m not thinking clearly. That I’m not—”

Holding my hand up in front of me, I try coaxing my words as I speak slowly, “Please, Pike. I need you to just—”

And then he loses it, exploding like a grenade, screaming in sulfur, “Tell me you are not f*cking pregnant!!”

“Pike!” I yell as he grabs my arms violently.

His face—raging red, spitting his words, “What the f*ck have you done?”

“Nothing! Let go of me,” I yell, panicked, jerking to break free of his hold on me.

“Tell me!”

“Yes!” I immediately shout back, and he releases his grip.

He turns away from me, raking his hands angrily through his hair, as I stand here, nervously awaiting his next move. He keeps his back to me when he continues to talk, “You’re f*cking pregnant. Jesus Christ. And it can’t be mine because you haven’t been f*cking me.”

I don’t correct him because he assumes that I’m not as far along as I actually am. This baby could very well be his.

He turns back, and the look in his eyes scares the living shit out of me. I don’t see Pike behind them, only a monstrous version of what could be my brother. And when he starts moving towards me—body tense—the shrill of horror stabs me.

“This is over right now. I’ve spent too many years for you to f*ck this up.”

“What do you mean?” I ask as I start backing away from him.

And then my world goes into a paradox of raging fast slow motion.

His arm rises with a tight fist.

My arms wrap around my stomach.

Fist barreling down.

My eyes squeezing shut and coiling away.

A collision of knuckles against jaw.

Blow after blow, he’s relentless as I fall lifelessly to the ground. The light begins to fade as my screams lull me into the blackness. My lungs cave with every fatal kick to my stomach, and there’s nothing I can do as I lie here defenseless to this monster above me. A beating fire of pain ruptures inside, paralyzing me to a corpse as I feel everything breaking inside of me. My screams turn breathless and everything vanishes as Pike grunts like a wild beast, hammering his booted foot over and over and over into the womb that carries the purest part of me.

Black ink bleeds over me as I drift into nothingness. I’m a hollow tomb. Looking up, I see a dark sky, flickering with diamonds. Thousands of them. There’s no more pain—there’s nothing in this solitude of pure, deathly silence as I lie here and stare into the endless black hole.