003

003

Brianna Pounds

“Awwn, poor baby,” that was the first thing I heard immediately after I regained consciousness. I recognized that voice to be Nico’s witch, Kariana.

My eyelids, with the force I put into them, fluttered open. I was facing the ceiling and it was now I recognized we were in an abandoned warehouse. My stomach down to my legs was numb; I couldn't feel anything. My upper body felt like lead, heavy enough for me not to be able to lift it and see.

Kariana was at a far corner, watching my lower body, and I tilted my head to the side since it was the only thing I could manage to control. I saw the whack doctor's sandals. He was below me, kneeling and very focused, bloody clinical materials at his side.

My mind came to its senses immediately. “My baby,” I whimpered with no strength.

Kariana snied, “Is she supposed to be awake by now?”

Nicodemo appeared in my view at Kariana’s comment. “My baby, please Nico, tell them to stop. I'm your wife.” My eyes pleaded with their own strength as my voice was failing me.

If I could move at least, I would have at least tried to fight. It was evident they'd tampered with my body, and just like Kariana remarked, maybe I was supposed to be dead by now but my spirit just wouldn't give up. My baby wanted to live. I wanted to live to raise my baby.

“Nico, please.”

“Ugh, she's getting on my nerves with her begging,” Kariana said, irritated.

Nico scrolled on his phone and responded absentmindedly, “Let her enjoy her final moments, Kariana.”

The way he took strides away from my view, not minding my hand reaching for him for help... his words... It was inhumane. I knew he could stop this, but I was now just seeing through my husband, the man I'd shared five years of my life with, constantly fighting to keep our baby, even one, for once.

He was the one doing this to me. Just because of another woman. Just because of Kariana.

I took my gaze to her. Maybe I'd been begging the wrong person, and if I begged her instead, maybe she'd rethink. I was a woman like her, a pregnant one at that.

“Kariana, please. Make him stop.” She could keep Nicodemo to herself. “Just let me live, please.”

Something in Kariana’s eyes softened. She ambled to me and squatted. “Really?” Her eyes shined. “You really want to live, don't you?”

With the way she spoke, there might have been hope. “Yes,” I murmured, almost nodding too eagerly. “You can take away my baby but please let me live, I beg you.”

Kariana lifted her tiny fingers to my forehead and tucked away my hair gently. “I really want you to live too, you know? I just didn't like you getting pregnant.”

“I promise I won't anymore, I swear. If you spare my life, I'll pack my things and make sure never to see Nico again. I won't say a word of this to anyone either,” I rushed out.

Kariana let out an amused snort and I worried I might've said the wrong thing.

“That's not the point, Brianna.” She dug her fingers into my hair in a tender massage. “You're such a caring woman that sometimes I worried one day you'd convince Nico against me. I worried day and night, Brianna. You're so good, you really are.” She murmured, “You know, when Nico pitched the idea to me, I called him crazy. I stopped talking to him, I even considered reporting him, but then I sat down and thought of it.” She stood abruptly on her feet, my eyes following her movement as she continued, “I thought and thought and thought, Brianna. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to think it over. I kept saying in my mind, 'Nico you're crazy.' I even called and told him, but Nico told me one.” She stopped pacing and held up a finger.

“He told me that in life you must take what's yours forcefully, by hook or by crook, which got me thinking. Yes, Nico was mine from the very beginning. Why should I let a random woman take him away just because she's pregnant for him?”

I gulped, knowing where this was headed. I might've betrayed Kariana first, and maybe mostly unknowingly, but I didn't deserve this. All these years she should've just came up to me, and I would have walked away from the marriage.

“A day before your wedding, I bought a wedding dress and came to the chapel and cried my eyes out. I mourned the ghost of my man that you snatched just because you opened your two loose legs.” I flinched as she roared the last part, before lowering her voice like she was crazy.

She indeed was. Never in my years of seeing Nicodemo and Kariana working together as business partners, like Nico had always said, did I ever fathom that Kariana was this sociopathic.

“And on your wedding day, I was there too,” she continued. “At a corner. Watching. I watched your happiness, I watched your family's, I watched your stomach, and I said to myself, 'Kariana, are you going to let this all slide?” She said, holding her forehead like she was thinking. “And I said, before I go, I have to do something for you. I almost got caught, believe me.” She chuckled like the memory amused her.

“I put it in the cake, disguised, and boom, it worked. You ate the damn cake. Isn't that impressive, Brianna?” she stopped in front of me, staring down at me.

Tears had my vision clouded, and whimpering, I shook my head. It wasn't any bit impressive. This was somebody's life she was destroying.

“Oh poor baby,” Kariana murmured in coiling sweetness. “I’m not a horrible person, okay? It wasn't all me, it was all Nico.. If you had taught him to keep his hands to himself, he wouldn't have come searching for me in the first place after your wedding, after he betrayed me.” She scoffed the last part out like Nico’s betrayal was still fresh in her heart and she still hadn't forgiven him.

“Only to realize that your husband was much more wicked than I was, so you can't blame me, okay? It's all Nico, your husband.” She made a gesture like she was washing her hands. “All Nico, Brianna. It was all him.”

I heard Nico snort a laugh. “You don't need to explain yourself to anyone.”

“She needed to know,” Kariana said to him over her shoulders, her eyes never leaving mine, and I saw wickedness flood her eyes.

“I'm sorry Kariana, I didn't know I hurt you this bad. Nico didn't tell me about you,” I cried.

She didn't react, just maintained her contact, and I kept shaking my head, glaring my melted eyes at her in hopes that small atom of humanity could engulf her.

She only snapped her gaze away when another voice announced, “The baby's out.”

I looked in the same direction, not needing to lift my head as the doctor had my premature baby in his hands, coated in blood and gray substance for Kariana and Nico to see.

My baby. “My baby,” I whimpered, fighting for air. “My baby, please, don't hurt my baby.”

My baby still had his umbilical cord attached. If only they could drop my baby and let us live... if only.

“Good,” Nico said, “you know what we discussed you do with it.”

“Please!” I managed to scream this one to go above a whimper, and Kariana snapped her gaze to me.

“And her? What do I do with her?” the doctor asked.

“I'll handle her,” Kariana said without hesitation, taking long clicking strides towards me.

She reached me, and it all happened so fast. From her lifting one of her stiletto heeled legs, to taking it straight to my jugular. “Go to hell,” she gritted, and knocked the sharpness of her heel into my throat, cutting off air and life instantly.