Page 36 of Save You

“God, that sounds weird,” I admit, though I’m not quite sure who to, “but I’m going to try to be the best one to you because I’m afraid, little girl, I’m all you have.”

My uncle clasps onto me as I break down into new tears and can no longer speak. My Beth is gone. We lost our battle, but I have her baby.

Our baby!

She will be my everything!

For her sake and for Beth’s!

Chapter 14

Beth, 24 hours earlier

Beep. Beep. Beep.

All I can hear is that incessant beeping that has been playing in my ear like some form of Chinese torture. It seems to tease me while I try to wake up and gather my senses, to move past the sluggish paralysis that’s plaguing my body and keeping me routed to this bed. Hours seem to pass by before I can move, and even then, it’s only to turn my neck, twitch my fingers, and part my dehydrated lips. I wander in and out of consciousness, dreaming of guzzling down bottles and bottles of water, but nothing touches my tongue. My mouth feels like the inside of a sandpit, and the need to quench my thirst becomes almost as torturous as the beeping. I try to call out but there’s no sound, just the continuous beeping of something that’s out of my reach. Eventually, what little energy I had dissipates and I resign myself to falling back into darkness.

The next time I become aware of being conscious, at least I think I am, I can open my eyes, but it’s all a mass of blurs with little color to distinguish between objects. The faint outline of bodies walking around in the distance has me trying to get up again, but my legs are numb, and my arms remain static by my sides. When I manage to turn my neck again, a close-up of a blurred woman comes into sight.

She’s sitting next to my bed, looking away from me at first, so I continue watching her, trying to get her attention. Suddenly, the sound of a muffled baby cry shakes me to the core and the woman gets up and walks out of sight. I remember my baby, my bump; is it still there?

Darkness.

“Beth?” a soft voice murmurs.

I can hear the word, but it sounds inhuman, not quite right. I think I turn my head toward it, but I can’t be sure. They talk to another blurred figure, and the sounds come to my ears in a mixture of loud and soft waves. I try to speak, but I only manage a soft groan, so quiet and so faint, I can’t be sure they even heard me. Again, I hear a baby crying, and the figures begin to dart around in front of me. I moan again in frustration as a cold darkness closes in on me, one I’m unable to outrun.

Someone is holding my hand; I can feel it. It’s faint but I can definitely feel someone’s warm hand on mine. There’s also something small but heavy on my chest, which is cold from being exposed to the air, but the small weight is warm. So, so warm.

“Beth? Are you with us, Beth?” It’s the woman again. She’s the one holding my hand. I know that voice, it’s someone who is a friend to me. I moan to try and answer her, and she must hear me because she stands in response.

“Come here, baby,” she whispers before removing the small, warm weight away from my chest, leaving me cold and empty. I want to tell the woman to put it back because it feels as though one of my limbs has been ripped away from me. Whatever it is, I know it is important to me, as important as my own life.

I must have fallen back under because now that I’m awake, I’m able to see objects and people more clearly. Lines and colors are more distinct, voices are more comprehensible, and the beeping that was once plaguing me is now less painful on my ears. I take the opportunity to look all around, trying to get my bearings in case blackness engulfs me again. I’m in a hospital, a fancy-looking one that is much quieter than the one I remember my grandmother being taken to. Even the visitors walking around in the other rooms look wealthier than your standard visitor wandering about in a public hospital.

I turn my head to try and find the woman with the kind voice, suddenly desperate to know where the small weight that was attached to my chest has gone. Something instinctual is telling me I need it and it needs me, that I am the only one who can protect it. But when I glance over to a wall of windows overlooking a blue, sunny sky, all I can see is the figure of a man. He’s got his back to me. He is is both tall and broad and is wearing an expensive, navy suit. Is it Xander?

“Xander?” I call out, but my voice crackles through dehydration and lack of use.

The man immediately turns, the sight of which causes me to break out into a cold sweat. Seeing his face makes me wish I hadn’t said anything at all. The beeping of the machine speeds up, telling me that it must be synced up with my own heartbeat. The man before me is Oliver Lawrence, and he looks like he’s about to throw me from the very window he’s currently standing in front of. I know what I want to do, but my body isn’t able to respond, so I end up freezing in fear with my eyes fixed firmly upon his cold ones.

“Beth,” he growls through clenched teeth, “don’t fucking move!”

I feel myself begin to tremble; he looks more terrifying than he has ever done before and I’m not sure what he’s going to do to me. Surprisingly, he walks purposefully over to the door and looks like he’s going to leave, but when I hear the click of it closing and his shoes tapping back toward the bed, I brace myself for whatever hell he’s about to unleash upon me.

As he draws nearer, I begin to shake my head in a panic, but he only grips my cheeks between his firm fingers to hold me still.

“Oh, Beth, we have been very bad, haven’t we?”

My focus on his angry eyes, now raging like the storm from when I had first visited him for Sunday lunch, almost makes me miss the sting of his hand whipping across my cheek. The pain of it causes my eyes to water. Coupled with the disbelief of now being in this situation, far away from the safety of the cabin with Xander, I suddenly fall into uncontrollable tears.

“Where is your precious Mr Fenton now? Where was he when you were dying having his bastard child?” He grips my cheeks again and leans in closer with a furious snarl across his lips. “Face it, darling, you were nothing but his whore!”

He releases my face with such force it causes my whole head to jolt to the left, leaving my neck aching through whiplash. His features then change, just as suddenly as he had slapped me across the face. An eerie smile takes over and his hand affectionately reaches for mine as he leans over to kiss one of my tears away. He reaches up to begin stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. It still feels like I’m hyperventilating, but now with my brow furrowed in complete fear and confusion. Where is he going with this?

Just as I’m about to scream, to try and fight him away from me, the door bursts open and a male doctor walks in. He’s a friendly looking man who is probably in his early fifties. He looks between Oliver and me, smiles, then confidently walks over to shake Oliver’s hand with a look of immense respect and awe. When he does this, I know not to trust him because he is clearly one of them; a Mayfield psychopath who believes in abducting young women and forcing them into marriage. But, more importantly, I need to know where my baby is and whether they are safe.

“Ah, Mr Lawrence,” he booms across the room in a rather impressive voice, “how is our patient? Awake, at least!” He bends down to look at my vitals on the screen before shining a blinding light in my eye. His brow rises as he grins widely, looking every bit as creepy as all the other men I’ve met in this organization, including my biological grandfather, Carl Steele. “You’re a very lucky girl, Miss Taylor, we almost lost you.”

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