Love's Sins (Sequel to Silent Cries)

Chapter Eleven - Finding Out.

Katherine's POV

The sun rays shine through the high up bathroom window, specs of dust swirling around at the faint breeze. I've always been fascinated by how light can magnify such tiny and otherwise insignificant things and make them into something of beauty. True, it's dust and conveys that there's dirt, but even in filth it shows that everything has a form of beauty attached to it.

The toilet lid creaks beneath me in protest to my weight when I shift again, my discomfort clearly showing thoroughly. I peer across from me at the sink with my lip tucked firmly in between my teeth. It's not the sink that's fascinating to me but what's on top of it. A small stick with a box beside it labeled "Home Pregnancy Test." The edge of the stick is damp from where I urinated on it for the test.

I need to wait a solid five minutes before I can find out if I'm expecting. These tests aren't always accurate but I have no better option than a drug store version. I'm running three weeks late on my period and it's been itching in the back of my mind, the growing concern got to be too great and I managed to smuggle some money out of the savings jar and head down to the pharmacy. The woman who sold me the test gave me the warmest smile, completely unaware that a pregnancy was the very last thing that I had wanted. I am twenty seven years old and have been in a relationship with the same man for four years in a row and married for a year of that, but all isn't what it seems.

When I first met Lucas, he was so kind and came around to me often at the shop to get fitted for clothes. Once he requested for me personally to assist him with a bouquet at hand, I was smitten. We had dated solidly for six months until his true colors began to show through. He had been opposed to my picking up extra hours at the store and it finally met a breaking point. He lashed out at me for the first time after I refused to take more time off to spend it with him.

I had no idea that a simple smack across the face and a fat lip with a bruised jaw would turn into a god send compared to his worst wrath. His reprimands continued on after sweet grace periods and apologies for his "loosing his cool." With every time he lashed out at me, the punishment got worse and on three different occasions I wound up in the hospital for body lacerations or broken bones. Last month, he came home and was fuming from a tough day at work and snapped completely at me for supposedly looking at him wrong.

I had to stay in the hospital for three days from one broken rib, internal bleeding in my stomach, and from multiple bruises and lacerations all over my body. Lucas had really outdone himself that time, making my strip down and beating me to shit with the wooden board that had come loose from the shed around the back of the apartment complex. After he was through, he still wasn't done with my torture and took me from behind in the roughest of fashions like he normally would to diffuse the remains of his tension. The rusted nails made it necessary for me to get a tetanus shot and thirteen stitches to close the wound up my right hip. The scar is there as an ugly and mocking reminder of how foolish I'd been to oppose him. I should've known better to not set aside the dishes I was feverishly trying to finish washing and given him my most supportive gestures.

Now I'm suffering the severe price from it all. My entire body is tensed up and shaking from the anxiety and nausea crawling up my throat, making the bruises up my back ache in rebellion to the jerking motion. I exhale a deep breath, crossing and uncrossing my legs in impatience. The time is ticking by far too slow and I am dying to know the results of the test. Fixing my eyes on the mirror in front of the sink, the dark circles and brown eyes of mine burrow a hole deep inside my very being. How could I have let this happen?

The test beeps, making my entire body go still and freeze over like ice. I want to get up and run rather than check the test and find it positive right now more than ever. I force my legs beneath me and slowly rise, looking down and tasting a metallic tang on my tongue from my split lips. This has to happen and now, I finally will my feet forward, every step making a tight knot develop and clench tightly in my stomach. After ages, I'm finally in front of the sink and fumbling for the test with my head down until it's in my hand. I exhale and thrust it beneath my eyes.

Positive is the mark.

My body heaves in that second, tears jumping into my eyes and spilling over as I run to the toilet. I make it just in time, lifting the lid and choking out the poor breakfast of plain toast into the water. The trembling picks back up, the nausea growing strong at the foul smell of my own vomit on my senses and I continue to hurl until there's nothing left but air. When I'm done, my legs turn to jelly and I fall back against the wall in a painful trance.

What will I do in nine months from now? What will become of my little baby when he or she enters this world? How will Lucas react at the news of the unplanned pregnancy? It was my fault for missing a day of my birth control. I can't even remember if he ever even liked or wanted kids. Would he beat me or hug me and tell me he was happy? Or would he want me to abort the pregnancy or even give up the baby for adoption?

All of the questions are overwhelming me. I hug my knees my chest, another round of sobs knocking the wind completely out of me and tears flow down like a fountain in response. How can I answer those questions when I don't even know what to do right now? Squeezing my eyes shut, a new image comes in front of my eyes and it shatters the last bit of sanity I'm holding onto in the moment.

The image is of Lucas's angry face with his black leather belt raised and poised to pelt down. I'm on the floor curled up and leaning against the door with a small bundle of blankets in my arms, my eyes filled with tears as I throw myself over the bundle in a protective crouch. I don't need to see a face to know that the bundle is my little baby. I'd sooner die than let my husband hurt my son or daughter in one of his fits of rage against me. The damn steroids that he's on just fuel his already major anger issue.

My entire body begins to tingle at the image and my heart is pounding so hard that I worry it'll stop at any second from overdrive. I have always wanted to have children of my own after never having any siblings as a child and finding the existence lonely at best. Now the idea of bringing a child into this world scares the living day lights out of me, adrenaline and blind panic from hysteria coursing through my battered body.

I clap my hands down over my ear to block out the memories that rise from my mind. The sound of the wooden board coming into contact with my form, the sound of Lucas's angry cries telling me that I brought this on myself, and finally the most disturbing sound is the cracking of bone in my rib cage. What if I ever saw or heard these things but on my child?

Eventually my body grows calm again from exhaustion, the adrenaline now leaving me weak. I lye down on my side and press my cheek against the soft carpet on the bathroom floor, reaching up and twirling the strings from it around my fingers. It's oddly calming to me, after one of Lucas's beatings and or sexual assaults, it helps to fiddle with something around me and keep my hands busy.

My mind has grown quiet aside from one thing I've set out for myself. I need to tell Lucas about the pregnancy soon, maybe it'll stop him from beating me? But even that I'm unsure of. I'll just have to try and hope for the very best. Rest assured, I'll do everything in my power to protect my little one from their abusive father.

Author's Note.

So this is the beginning of Katherine's POV into the past. I thought I'd start in before she had Rory to give you guy somethings to think about.

Lucas is an abuser and in many homes like these, situations like this take place and the victim(s) are left terrified. Lucas also is on steroids and those types of drugs can cause mood swings and things like 'Roid Rage.'

In the next chapter, we will be skipping forward by almost nine months. We will get to find out more about what Lucas's reaction was to the pregnancy by then and more. Now obviously Lucas didn't kill Rory or get rid of him right after he found out but Katherine had yet to know his reaction.

I also want to take the time to draw your attention to a few of my other books that are fairly similar to these. 'I'm For Real' is a book I've been working on for the past few months and already has several chapters up. My newest book that has two new chapters up is 'Raymond & Aly' and I'd very much appreciate it if you checked them out :)

Please do leave a vote and or comment if you felt this story deserved it. It really does help to motivate me to keep on writing and you guys really do mean so much. I love interacting with you all.

Until next time.. Stay strong.