Page 83 of Tear Me Down
This is the longest two minutes of my entire life.
The timer rings, and suddenly I can’t get the courage to turn it over. What if the whole time I was with Cooper it wasn’t him, and it was me? I haven't thought of that until now. All of those years that I worried about a pregnancy with Cooper, and nothing. Not even a scare. What if I can't have babies? That would be another big fuck you from the universe. Family is everything to Damien, and he wants this so badly. What if I can't give that to him?
Just turn it over, chicken shit.
I take in a deep breath, and literally shake the nerves from my limbs before I grab the test and flip it over—immediately looking at the result and not wasting another moment.
Pregnant.
I blink a few times and re-read, thinking for a moment that I'm mistaken, or that I'm hallucinating, but the same word is written on the display.
That’s what it says right? I put it down in my lap, still not one hundred percent convinced, and pull it back up. Sure enough, it says pregnant.
I feel my heart begin to race and I feel weightless, like somehow gravity changed and I’m just going to float towards the ceiling. This is actually happening. There’s nothing wrong with me, and now I’ll actually be able to live up to my promise to him. I can give him everything he wants, and I swear, my heart flips at the thought.
This isreal, I’m not imagining it or having a psychotic break. I cover my mouth to try and hide the smile growing, but I quickly remove it. What am I hiding it for? There’s no need to conceal my happiness or hold back because I think someone will be mad at me for showing a little emotion.
I can’t wait for him to get home…should I just come right out and say it? Should I do some cute thing like I see on the internet and put a bun in the oven for him to find? Well, I suppose I should wait and see how tonight goes, right? What if he’s hurt?No, don’t think like that.Nothing is going to ruin this tonight.
I pull out my phone and go to text him, hoping that no matter what happens tonight, it'll make his night better when he gets the chance to read it.
Me:
I love you so much, I can’t wait foryou to get home.
Don’t say anything else, you dumb bitch.
Maybe if I lay down for a while I can just sleep until he gets home. That way I won’t get too excited and call Ser, or make a mistake and just text him the news. I bring the test with me as I lay on top of the bed, unable to ease my grip with the irrational fear that if I let go of it, it'll turn out that it's not real, and I would've imagined it all.
Inhaling deeply, I take in his natural scent that covers our home, feeling the happiest I may have ever felt in my entire life—the test grasped tightly in my hand and laid against my chest.
Chapter twenty-eight
Damien
‘Reincarnate’ – Motionless in White
We’ve got them.
We’ve fucking got them. I know it. I can feel the certainty run through my veins. The moment Carter told me that the moles gave us a location for this meeting, I slipped into a fog of hatred—somewhere so dark and depraved that I could barely see anything else. Even as I held her against me, I could feel the rage bubbling beneath the surface. I hate her being alone tonight, even with the guards at the house since they don’t interact with her, but this is necessary. Once they’re handled, everything else will fall into place.
I’m determined to get them all back to the Attic,alive. One reason is so I can string Hugo up the way I’ve imagined the past few weeks, and the second reason is so my father can have his revenge on the traffickers. He’s never talked about them, not even after the meeting where we discovered their identities, but I could see the look in his eyes. The one that gave away who they really were to him.
They’re the ones that abducted my mother all those years ago.
They have to be.
In my twenty-eight years of life, I have never seen my father overtaken by such hatred, and I understand it completely. My hatred for Hugo knows no boundaries, and he hasn’t done anything near what was done to my mother. If this anger consumes me this thoroughly already, what would happen if Ashia were in the same situation? What if she were beaten half as badly as my mother was?
God, don’t think about it…
I’m not sure how we missed this warehouse over the past few days, because there’s a huge amount of activity here. Guards stand along the outside and secure the perimeter, multiple vehicles—including vans and trucks they use to transport the goods—occupy the lot, and the lights and electricity are working, even though this building has been vacant for two years. These are all of the signs of a normal warehouse operation for Dust, and we missed it.
Carter says it’s because we’ve been so focused on the pharmacies creating this new ecstasy and BTX mixture that we’ve slacked on the other drugs they continue to make, and while that might be true, they haven’t used warehouses this big in a while. I assume it’s because they’re trying to create even more drugs to drive the crime rate higher, but the ‘why’ doesn’t necessarily matter in this moment. The only thing that matters to me right now are the five key players in this corruption.
As much as I want to go in and immediately start shooting, we’ll need to do this quietly. I don’t want to risk Jeremy, Darren, or Bradley, and if we make too much noise before we can get to Hugo and his pals, they’ll run like a bunch of cowards, and I’ll lose track of those parasites again. This has to be done methodically and strategically.
All I can truly focus on is being able to go home and tell her it’s over, that I kept my promise and she’s safe now. I’m not entirely sure that I’ll feel comfortable enough to take the security detail off her quite so soon, but we’ll be able to slowly advance towards a place where I can, or that I’d at least think about it.
