Page 90 of Twisted Cage

The baby in her arms lets out a wail that has Nikoletta shooting straight up, rubbing at her puffy eyes. “I’m here. I’m up.”

“I’m sorry,” Faith says as she takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t hear the phone.”

“It was a long night. I crashed.”

“Yeah, I figured. So, ummmm, I know you said we have to be careful, but what I didn’t get to tell you before is we’re out of milk in the freezer for Lexi. I thought I could get her back down, but she’s not having it.”

I tip my head so I can hear them better. Can’t Faith just… feed her?

Nikoletta glances at the time. “She misses me. It’s okay. I miss her too. I can take her. I’ll get her back to you before everyone wakes up.”

Heat infuses my entire body… My heart kicks in a hard thump, the beat growing heavy.

She can’t mean—she’s not—but even as my mind resists the idea, all of a sudden everything I’ve seen from her—the changes—it all makes sense.

“Okay, she’s all changed.”

Nikoletta smiles and takes the baby Dimitri danced with earlier in her arms before smiling up at Faith. “Thank you. Just—can you turn the lock for me before you pull it shut?”

“Of course. And you’re welcome.” Faith turns the lock on the knob and slips out the door, never once looking in my direction, giving me an inhibited view of Nikoletta.

Her fingers go to the first of the buttons, slipping it from the loop.

Every single inch of my skin buzzes with awareness as my brain tries to keep up with what I’m seeing.

She undoes another button, the curve of her breast coming into view.

She’s not about to do what I think she’s going to do? This isn’t—I—my lungs ache as I force myself to stay quiet.

Slipping the third button free, a megawatt smile lights up her sleepy face as she gazes down at the little girl fussing in her arms. “Shh, shh, shh, it’s okay, baby.”

A fourth button undone, she pulls back the shirt—my shirt—and brings the little girl to her breast where she quickly latches on, her tiny fist flexing in the air, grasping at Nikoletta’s finger.

She transforms before my eyes, the tear tracks fading away with the way she lights up as she feathers her thumb over the cheek of the baby in her arms.

My twisted world tips on its axis, my stomach pitching into a record-breaking free fall.

Her baby.

Nikoletta has a child.

“I know you miss me, baby girl… I miss you too. So much.” She drops a kiss on the little girl’s forehead and continues to stroke gently over her skin, murmuring to her as she continues to feed from Nikoletta’s breast.

Everything I thought I knew plummets into an abyss of confusion while everything I couldn’t understand becomes crystal fucking clear.

The fierce little killer we branded her as is actually so much more complicated than a moniker so trite.

She’s a mother.

A tormented ache throbs and swells inside me until my joints feel like they’ll explode from the force of it. Nikoletta, Faith, how many other women had Elijah forced at that commune? How many of those infants did he produce in his own personal fucking rape den?

The whole year I looked for her, tore through people and places, and the entire time, Elijah victimized her there, got her pregnant, forced her into having his child.

A bellow of pure anguish demands release from my lungs, but I force it down until my throat aches like the fiery flames of hell. Helpless rage tries to sweep me away with the unfairness of all of it, so I focus on Nikoletta, on how the tiny life in her arms lights up her world the way she lit up mine when they put her in my hands.

The way she still does now. Only today, it’s new, terrifying, and so far beyond what I ever expected that all I can think about is how to hold on to it.

How will I live with knowing another man made her a mother?

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