Page 272 of Hate to Love You
“A glass of water.”
“Water? I can do that,” she says, shooting me a small smile.
She turns for the door, but then spins back around to look at me.
“I know you’re thinking of running,” she says, almost sympathetically. “But I’m warning you, don’t. If you try, you won’t get out of this room before they take you down.”
I roll my eyes.
“Couldn’t be worse than this,” I gesture around me.
“Yes, it could,” she says, her face paling in the fluorescent lights above us. “Because before they kill you, they’ll use you however they want.”
“Polina just said they can’t touch me.”
“The moment you run,” she sighs, rubbing her arm. “Polina’s word won’t mean shit.”
I stare at her, my mind trying to figure this woman out.
Leigh seems to be one of them, and yet, she acts like she’s afraid of them. She claims to want to help me, but yet she’s trying to convince me to just lie back and accept my fate.
And why does she want to “help” me at all?
Who is she and how did she get here?
I’m still asking myself this as she walks over to the door. A door that I happen to notice lacks a handle on the inside. She bangs her hand against the metal twice in quick succession, and I hear the lock disengage before it swings open.
A small muscular man steps into view, his hand gracing the gun on his hip as she steps into the hallway.
Perhaps Leigh was right.
Running isn’t an option.
The rusty metal door quickly slams shut behind her with a resounding bang, vibrating my bones.
As I look up at the cracked ceiling, my eyes begin to burn.
There is no other option.
Resting my hand on my stomach, I slowly slide down the wall, feeling the panic and defeat bubbling in my chest.
There’s nothing I can do.
There’s no way I can save us both.
If Polina gets her way, I’m going to be kept locked in here, in this miserable cell, until my baby is born. Then she will take my child from me, for use in her nefarious plans. She’ll use this baby as a weapon against Roman, one that will likely cost him his life.
And then, when she has everything that she wants, what will happen to my baby?
No. I will not allow that.
There’s only one way I can see us both getting out of here without suffering Polina’s fate, but it’s something I wish I didn’t have to do.
I wish that my child could live a safe and happy life with me…and Roman.
And even if I knew that there was a way for my child to go on, and live, safely, I would happily sacrifice myself to make that happen.
But there isn’t.