Page 49 of Fought and Freed

She opened the door to find Torr excitedly bouncing on her toes.

Her friend’s enthusiasm dimmed, though, when she caught sight of Maddy’s expression. “What happened?”

Maddy grimaced. “Shit, do I look that bad?”

The corner of Torr’s mouth lifted. “You don’t look good. You have dark circles under your eyes.”

Maddy sighed. “Come on. I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

While Torr drove, Maddy told her everything that had happened since she saw her yesterday morning.

“That bitch!” Torr pounded her fist against the steering wheel. “Is it his?”

“That’s what she claims.” Maddy rested her head back against the seat. “He swears he always used a condom, and none broke.”

Torr peeked at her from the corner of her eye. “This is a bit far-fetched, but I read somewhere that a girl took a syringe and sucked up all the sperm from her boyfriend’s condom, then injected it into her.”

Maddy’s mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me! And she got pregnant from that?”

Torr shrugged. “Supposedly.”

“I can see Amber doing that. They’re at a party and have sex. Skylar passes out, she takes the condom, and…” Maddy wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “It’s possible.”

Torr glanced to the side at Maddy. “Skylar needs to get her to do a DNA test.”

“She doesn’t want to get one until the baby is born,” Maddy said.

Torr shook her head in disgust. “Suspicious.”

Maddy agreed.

“Okay!” Torr slapped her hand on the steering wheel. “Enough talk about her. Today is for fun!”

She pulled into a parking garage attached to a large, two-story building that took up an entire city block and found a spot. “Let’s go get you some clothes for this trip.”

Maddy unbuckled herself. “While we’re shopping, I need to find Christmas gifts for the guys. They all got me something, and they’re waiting on me to swap gifts.”

Torr’s eyes lit up. “That we can do.”

Maddy had never been to a mall before. They entered on the second floor, and when Maddy walked over to the railing, she looked down at the first floor. There were stores on both sides of a large walk area, and gaps in the center revealed another floor below ground level.

At the first store they stopped at, Maddy kept looking at the prices and then putting the items back.

Torr caught her doing this and shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about that, anymore. You deserve to get whatever you want. Have fun, and don’t worry about money.”

Torr was right. Maddy deserved to have nice things. She stopped looking at prices and grabbed what she liked.

Torr made sure that Maddy had fun trying on clothes, and by the time they took a break for food, Maddy’s stomach hurt from all the laughing they’d been doing.

They were heading toward the food court when an art shop caught Maddy’s eye, and she pulled Torr into the store.

She had no idea what Ryder needed, so she picked up a gift card.

With one present down, they continued on to the food court, grabbing meals from a burger place and sitting down to eat before hitting the rest of the mall.

At a fancy luggage store, Maddy pulled a large suitcase off the shelf, trying to decide if it was too big for the trip, or not big enough.

Torr laughed at her indecision. “Let’s put what we’ve bought so far in there to see if it all fits.”

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