Page 15 of Chaos

I’m two weeks late, at least. I don’t really remember my last period clearly, but I remember thinking it would come soon when Yorke and I were in the ballroom the first time we had sex.

My lungs feel like they’re going to implode.

My vision flickers in and out of focus.

“Do you have any pain in your abdome—”

“Shut up,” I manage to sputter, remembering I’m supposed to hate her. “Just shut up.”

Charlotte Rose blinks at me, a hurt puzzle written in her big, soft eyes.“Shaddup sa baddun.”

“It is a baddun, baby,” Renata soothes. “But we can forgive Frankie her manners. She’s had a rough month and a big surprise.”

I stare down at my hands, my tangled hair, my stained shirt. My fingers are caked in dust and grime and dried blood. My stomach ripples with nausea. It’s not true. I’m not pregnant.

I’m not.

But what if I am

“Go get Yorke,” I bark, and my voice breaks so sharply I clamp my lips between my teeth. “Please, Renata. Please. I’ll beg if that’s what you want. Please, if you want to help me, go get him. Or give me a coat and some shoes and let me go. I can’t … I can’t have a baby in here.”

The thought of nine months followed by a terrifying delivery and a baby born in a claustrophobic cell has me pulling at my thin, ripped up clothes. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

“You’ll be out of here long before a baby comes. You just need to wait and trust me.”

“Trustyou?”

She’s already proven remarkably versatile at shifting plans and motivations on whims. She’s like a cat, always landing on her feet, or a politician with a hundred excuses. I don’t even blame her. I’d lie for Auden. I’d lie for Yorke. I’d even lie for this maybe baby growing inside me who I literally just met—if you can call it meeting to learn something’s growing within you. It isn’t a matter of blame. It’s a matter of believing she’ll do the thing she says she’ll do ... not for the right or the wrong reasons, just for any reason.

“I don’t trust you.” I cross my arms over my breasts and realize suddenly how sensitive they are. I hadn’t noticed, hadn’t paid attention, had bigger concerns, but they’re fuller than usual and sore.

Like five times sorer than right before a period.

How have I not noticed that?

The skin around her eyes tightens. “I’m trying. I give you my word. I will not hurt you or your children,” she says softly. “I’ll do my best by your family. Any of them. You just need to hang in a little longe—”

There’s a soft thud that could only be the slamming of a car door, making me think more sound gets through the brick walls of the cellar than I thought.

“We need to go.” She lifts her daughter into her arms. “When Yorke comes, make sure he kills Ben. And no matter what, don’t let him send off those birds.”

They disappear up the stairs.

And as I watch them go, it hits me that the stair board wasn’t my only weapon in this space.

Height can be a weapon—like a cliff.

Or a staircase.

A person can be injured very badly if they fall from high enough.

At least injured badly enough for me to have the opening I need.

4|Two facts about Thornewood

YORKE

THE STRANGER AT THE GATE, according to Venus, is a “Sixty-eesh old man named Duffy, who says he has word from a woman named Renata.”