Chapter 6: Day One Hundred And One

Madonna's POV 

I stopped counting at day one hundred and one because the wall ran out of space, and I only knew the number because I'd been scratching a mark for every day with the broken edge of that plastic cup, five at a time in neat little rows starting from the window. It made me feel less insane, like proof that time was still moving and I was still here.

The days in that place had no shape. The fluorescent lights took the place of the sun, the meals came at the same time, doors opened and closed, and the guards took their sweet time beating the patients who couldn't fight back. I used to wonder if there were others like me in there, people who were sane and knew it, people who fought back like I did, and if the place had already broken them. It hadn't broken me yet, but it left scars on my face and on parts of my body my own eyes couldn't reach, and sometimes I caught my reflection in the metal sink and barely knew the woman looking back.

The nurses were the worst part, honestly. They came in with those wise smiles and soft voices like kindness was something you could rehearse, and they nodded at everything I said with the same empty look, so I stopped telling them anything. I stopped eating most of the food too because it smelled wrong, so I lived on bread and water and whatever fruit showed up on my tray, and my wrists got so thin I could wrap my fingers around them twice.

But the fire in me was still there, small and buried and still burning, and I kept promising myself I'd get out and find whoever did this to me.

Most nights I tried to picture Cal's face, the grey eyes and the sharp jaw and the way his mouth curved when he smiled at me, but the pieces wouldn't come together anymore and that scared me more than the guards did.

"If I forget his face, what else am I going to lose?" I whispered to the wall.

That was when the fires alarm went off.

Red light flooded the room and I jumped up so fast I almost fell, my heart pounding while the shouting started outside and feet ran down the hall and doors slammed. Then something clicked and my door just opened on its own!

I stood there staring at it. "This has to be a dream," I muttered. I'd dreamed of this a thousand times, some nights I made it to the gates and some nights I reached the road and someone dragged me back, but this time I could smell the smoke and hear real screaming, and when I looked down the hall there were guards running around with extinguishers trying to put out the flames and hold back the patients at the same time.

"It's real," I breathed, and ran.

Smoke burned my throat and my bare feet slapped the cold floor, past the nurses' station, past double doors propped open by a fallen extinguisher, past a reception area I'd never seen before, and then cold air hit my face and I stopped for half a second. Outside! I was actually outside! I dragged the air into my lungs like I'd forgotten how.

Lightning lit up the road ahead and I ran toward it without knowing where it went, begging God under my breath to send someone, anyone who wouldn't take me back. Then the rain came all at once with no warning, hitting my skin so hard it hurt and going straight through me, skin and bones that I was, and I kept running until my legs shook and I stopped in the middle of the road with my arms hanging at my sides.

The screams from the building came back into my head then, all of them at once, and my knees hit the wet road before I even knew I was falling.

Headlights swung around the corner way too fast and tyres screeched against the road and then everything went quiet. Footsteps came running, fast and muffled like I was underwater.

"Jesus Christ," a man said, crouching in front of me with his coat soaked through. "Hey, look at me, are you hurt?"

I tried to answer but nothing came out. Then I remembered the walls and the guards and the needles and my voice broke loose.

"Please," I rasped, grabbing his sleeve. "Please don't take me back there."

He looked past me at the lights glowing through the trees and something changed in his face.

"Please," I said again, because it was the only word I had left.

He stared at me for a long second, then took off his coat and put it around my shoulders. "Can you walk?"

"I think so," My legs had other plans and I stumbled, and he caught me before I hit the ground and half carried me to the passenger side of his car with one arm around my back. Warmth wrapped around me when the door closed, and for the first time in forever the rain was just something happening outside, so I let my eyes close and let it take me.

Then white again.

I shot up so fast the room spun. "No, no, no," I said, my heart slamming, because I thought I was back there. There was a needle in the back of my hand with a tube running to a drip stand and I yanked it out without feeling a thing, swung my legs off the bed and went straight for the window, a big one with real sunlight.

The door opened behind me and a man walked in sideways carrying a tray, and he froze when he saw me standing there.

"I have food," he said slowly, holding the tray out a little like an offering. "You need to eat."

One of them. He had to be one of them. The door was still open behind him and I looked down at the needle in my hand, small but it would do.

"Stop," he said. "You don't have to escape."

"Liar!"

"You're safe." He set the tray on the table beside the bed and backed away, keeping his hands where I could see them, and the fact that he didn't come any closer made me pause. "You're not at that place anymore, this is my clinic in the city. My name is Alvian Ferdinand and I'm a surgeon."

His eyes dropped to my hand where a bead of blood was forming. "And you just undid my very good work, so I need you to sit back down."

I didn't move, but my eyes slid to the tray, soup and bread and a little bowl of fruit with steam curling off the bowl, and my stomach growled so loud I wanted to die. Almost. Because my legs had already carried me back to the bed.

I meant to eat slowly with some kind of dignity, but the first spoonful hit my tongue and something broke inside me and I ate like I was drowning and the food was air, soup to bread to fruit without stopping, barely chewing, not caring one bit that he was watching. It was gone in under a minute and for once it stayed down.

When I looked up Alvian had his brows raised, and he picked up the empty tray without a word and went back to his careful distance, and I was grateful for that.

"You're severely malnourished," he said calmly. "Your bloodwork shows serious vitamin deficiencies and your immune system is shot, so you'll need weeks of proper food and rest before…"

"Where is this place?" I asked, looking around innocently

"Cyprus."

Cyprus? My eyes filled before I could stop them. They'd taken me to a whole other country!

"My family must be going crazy looking for me," I said, and then I stopped, because the next thought came in quiet and cruel. Or maybe they weren't looking at all. Somebody wanted me here, hidden and out of reach, but who? And why me?

"Based on your condition I'd say you need three to four months to recover," Alvian said, watching me.

Three to four months. I looked down at my wrists, thin enough that a ring could slide right over them. "What did I ever do to deserve this?" I muttered. Under all those questions was one more that hurt worse than I expected, would Cal even remember me? I'd spent months trying to hold on to his face, so what if he'd already stopped looking, or thought I was dead, or what if I went home and he didn't want me there?

I swallowed hard and Alvian's look turned careful.

"I'm not sure if you know," he said, "but the results are clear." He paused. "You're pregnant."

Everything inside me stopped.

"I'm what?"

"Pregnant," he said gently. "Three months. Honestly it's a wonder the pregnancy survived everything your body's been through."

My hand moved to my stomach on its own. There was nothing there I could feel, nothing that even looked different, but suddenly everything was different and the tears spilled over before I could stop them.

There was no doubt about whose it was. The baby was Cal's, and after everything they did to me, somehow, impossibly, I was carrying a piece of him