FIRE & BLOOD • EVAN 'BUCK' BUCKLEY / 9-1-1

71

GIGI

A muffled scream  brought me back to consciousness. My head roared with pain when I tried lifiting it up from the pillow. Everything in front of me morphed together bringing a wave of nausea through me. I had no clue of where I was at but the smell of this place did not help with the nausea. Someone was struggling a few feet away from me, trying their best to scream but their mouth was covered shut. I tried to blink away the dizziness and force my eyes to focus but all I could see was dim lighting and figures that seemed to blur in and out of my vision. I could tell I was in a cage, a very large one that gave me enough space to walk a few feet if I had the strength to get up. And there was a bucket in the far right corner. I turn my head slightly towards the left, fighting the urge to puke. There's a second cage in the gray space, twin to the one I was in. Am I in a warehouse? 

"My god, you haven't changed in the slightest. All these years later and you're still such a stubborn bitch!" Dylan's voice rang throughout the space full of rage and annoyance. There was a thud against the floor followed by a loud clang. "You want to act like a bitch? Then, you'll stay locked up like one." He has brought someone else here.

"Fuck you!" 

Wait. I know that voice. "Stella?" I reach a hand towards the cold metal of the cage and pull myself upwards with all the strength I could muster which was zero to none as my body plopped back down onto the mattress. What on earth is running through my system? I could hear the sound of her palms againts the cold floor as she crawled across the small space of her cage. 

"Gigi! Are you okay? Has he hurt you?" Stella banged against the metal. "If you hurt her I swear to god, Dylan"

"You will what, Stella? Please, elighten me." I can hear the smirk in his tone. 

"I'll kill you" Stella's voice dripped with such malice I have never heard in her voice before, leaving me shocked at how unrecognizable she sounded. "And I will do it slowly so I can watch you suffer."

Dylan barks out a laugh, taking a few steps towards Stella's cage and crouches down so he is eye level with her. "You were always so cute when you got angry." Another loud slam against the metal from Stella had Dylan roaring with a laugh that gave me goosebumps. 

"Just let her go, please. You don't want her. You don't need her when you finally got the one person you actually want. So, let her go."

My mouth opens but no sound comes out. It felt as though someone has thrown a weighted blanket ontop of my chest and I would soon be slipping back into darkness. I don't even know what day it is. 

"I'll think about it. But for now, I have some business I have to take care of. Try to behave while I am gone. Catch up with your friend here, I'm sure she'll be thrilled to learn you now have a tiny human growing inside your belly." 

Once his footsteps fade away and we are all alone, I can hear Stella shuffling around in her cage. "Gigi, I need you to wake up!"

"Yo-you're pregnant?" My chest feels too heavy and it was getting hard to breathe. There was a moment of silence before I heard a few sniffles. 

"Yes" Stella whispers, her voice barely steady. "I took a test once I got to my parents house."

"We need. to get you. out of" I roll over to my left to face Stella. Soon I will be unconscious, I can feel the exhaustion in my bones. I don't have much time. "You have to get out of here."

"I'm not going anywhere without you" the tone in her voice tells me she isn't going to argue about it. "G, I don't know how much time we have until he comes back but I'll figure something out. We are both getting out of here."