Psychopathy

Chapter 75- The Clinic

The building was imposing, but Isabel didn't back down from it. This was the only place she could think of to help her with the chain around her stomach. Even if the place itself couldn't get rid of it, maybe they could help her figure out how to do it herself. She'd tried breaking the chain the way she'd broken the others, but the chain had only strengthened. But she wasn't going to stand idly around and let the new chain destroy her life. She was going to do something about it, even if she wasn't sure what that "something" was yet.

Hopefully the building in front of her would have some answers.

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Ciara's knuckles were almost white as she tightly held her fists on her lap. As she sat in Akilah's car, she focused solely on keeping her breathing steady and her heart calm. It wouldn't do for her to have a panic attack, not when she was so close to getting a solution for her problem. It had only been nine days since she had learned of her pregnancy, but it felt like an eternity. In those nine days, so many things had changed for her.

She could feel herself spiraling down into that dark place in her mind, and she was pissed off about it. Just as she was starting to make some real progress, James Bunder had gone and stolen it from her. How dare he? How dare he leave a piece of himself growing inside of her? Before she had gone to the hospital, she had started to look at her own reflection. She was finally able to look at her own body and not automatically feel disgusted. She could see her muscles growing and her body changing, and damn it, she was actually starting to like her body!

But that was gone now. Every time she looked in the mirror, she would see those scars on her face and his voice would ring in her ears. Reminding her that she was never going to escape him. And when she looked at her body, all she could see was her stomach starting to swell with his spawn. Just as she was starting to feel like her own person, he had gone and so completely taken her body from her. Getting her pregnant was his final power play. It was his final claim on her. It was his checkmate.

Akilah had seen her starting to spiral back into self-loathing and had immediately flown into action. Even if she couldn't make the final decision for Ciara, she could help point her that way. It just so happened that she was getting ready to have her IUD replaced, even though- according to her, anyway- it was still good for another few months. Better safe than sorry. So when she had made that appointment, she had made a separate appointment for Ciara.

A consultation. That's what they were calling it. In the last stretch of Halsey and in After, she had wrestled with her faith. But when Akilah said what her appointment was for, Ciara had immediately prayed to whoever would listen that "consultation" was secretly code for "abortion". Maybe if she could just get to the clinic and convince herself that termination was the best course of action, they would do it before she lost her nerve.

She had lost her nerve so many times already. For every reason she had to abort, she thought of another to go through with the pregnancy. It hadn't helped when Morgan had jokingly said that if the child did have that genetic predisposition to killing, she could raise it to be a vigilante. She knew that he was only trying to make her feel better, but the thought had made her stomach churn. Did he seriously expect her to go on and raise a real-life Dexter?

Yet, sometimes she would feel her fingers gently drift over her stomach and she'd find herself fantasizing about being a mother. It had always been something she wanted. But did she want to be a mother to his child? And sure, there was the possibility that it wouldn't be anything like him. And that thought hurt the most. She didn't like to think of what was inside her as a child. It was easier that way. But every now and again she would picture what it would be like to have a little mini-Ciara. How victorious it would feel if the life inside of her ended up being nothing like him and exactly like her.