Page 76 of Nobody Wants Me
“I can’t bring a baby into this world.”
“Sure you can.”
I shook my head.“No, that is insane and I am not going to do it.That is just crazy talk.”I put a hand to my stomach and The Butcher sighed.
“You know, women bring children into this world in all different ways.Not every option is a good one.”
Tears filled my eyes as I looked toward her.“I’ve got a death sentence,” I said.
The Butcher sighed.“And you have defied the odds.People are turning their backs on The Grid.The Beast and I are keeping them at bay.You have to trust us.”
“I do trust you guys.You know this, and I am so grateful for what you are all doing, but I’m pregnant.Don’t you think there has to come a point when we stop fighting?When we give up?”
The Butcher looked at me, and her hands moved from her hips to across her chest.“Fuck, no.You never give up.You never stop fighting.Not as long as your heart is beating and you’ve got air in your chest, you do not give up.You keep fighting.You keep living, and you make sure those bastards regret even thinking about you.Do you understand me?”
Her expression was hard.She did not accept me giving up.She didn’t accept anyone giving up.
“Do you think this is the hardest situation I’ve ever been in?”she asked.
“What?”
She took a deep breath.“When I was a little girl, I lost everyone.My sister was taken from me.As were my parents.”She moved to sit beside me.“I had absolutely no one.My dad had no other relatives.I had no grandparents that I knew of.But my mom had a brother.A man that no one spoke of at all.I didn’t even know I had an uncle, until someone received a letter.It turned out my mother had strict instructions that in the event of her death, my sister and I were to be shipped off to my uncle.The moment I entered my uncle’s world, The Butcher was born.”
I had no idea she had a sister.
“What happened to your sister?”
The Butcher sighed.“The short time we were in foster care, she got taken.I would later learn that some of the people who worked the foster system found girls that matched certain descriptions, went to ...bad people.I should tell you this now, but you know that woman you talk about?That one you saw doing the sewing?”
I nod.
“That was my sister.Harris acquired her.She was trafficked from pimp to pimp, until Harris caught sight of her.She died at his hands.”
I looked at her, and I was shocked.
“You now know more than anyone else,” she said.“Anyway, my uncle trained me.He saw my anger.My parents had been killed in a drug battle that had gone wrong.He told me the truth right from the start.I was a horrible little five-year-old brat, and he gave me a choice.He offered to find me a home, somewhere to go, or I could become one of the scariest women the world has ever known.Guess which one I chose?”
This made me smile.
“And so, I trained.Even when life got hard, he would not let up, even when I begged him for no more, he made me go another round.At the time, I hated his guts, but after I took that other round and got to my feet, he would pat me on the shoulder and congratulate me.I miss that man more than anything.He was a good man.Some people would say he was a monster for exposing me to this life.I thank him for it.I’m not a scared little girl worried about every single bump in the night.He taught me that even when all is lost, you fight.”
“What happened to him?”I asked.
“He kept fighting until the end,” she said.“He was killed, but even as he was dying, he had his weapon in his hand, and he kept fighting.With his final breath, he set off a grenade, killing all those that had tried to kill him.”
The Butcher sighed.
“Fight until the end, Freya.It’s all we can do.This life is hard and it is fucking painful, and it will break us if we let it.It is happy to keep us down in the dirt, and it doesn’t like those of us that keep rising and begging for more, but trust me, you keep rising up, and one day, no one will dare mess with you.The Grid, Harris, they will all be a distant memory, and you will hold your son or your daughter and remember this day.”
And with that, The Butcher got to her feet and left.
