Return of the Trumpwife

Return of the Trumpwives

Four days later ...

Jeananne was tossed like a heap back into her dog kennel shelter; weakened from the torture that drained her Trumpwife powers. Barron, confined in the neighboring cage, looked in at his stepmother. Her lying on the rust-mottled floor of her cage made his heart drop.
"Jean?" Barron whispered through the bars of his cramped quarters, lazily clinging to them with loose fingers on the gritty, rusted metal. "Jean, are you okay?" The boy stared at her intently, barely breathing himself as he watched and listened for her own breathing or any indication of life, for she looked so lifeless. "Jean, answer me! Please!" Barron pleaded, fearful that his young stepmother had finally succumbed to the torment Chelsea inflicted upon her. Filled with sadness and anger, the boy gripped the bars and shook the cage, rattling the rusty bars.
          "Barron?" Jeananne rasped, raising her head slightly.
          Barron ceased his racket and peered through the bars at Jeananne. "Jean!?"
          "What is it, Barron?" she said, struggling to turn her body over to face him. Her pale, worn face sickened Barron to his core. In that moment, the ire he bore toward his stepmother left his soul like a wild hawk, and in its place pounced a heavy feeling of guilt that weighed down on his conscience, only made heavier by the image of a beaten-down Jeananne before his very eyes.
          "I'm sorry," he squeaked; tears welling in his eyes.
          "What?"
          "I didn't mean to walk in on you and Dad, and I should've stayed inside," Barron pushed the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. "If I didn't go outside, they wouldn't have caught us. This is all my fault."
          "Barron, no," said Jean. "It's my fault. I was dumb to forget Chelsea when your father and I killed Hillary and the others."
          "You killed Hillary, though! That should have been the end."
          "No, Barron. I'm a Trumpwife, and it's my duty to protect your father. Had killing Hillary been the end of it all, my purpose would have been fulfilled and I would have been called to the Trumpwife Realm as soon as that hag bit the dust."
          "Trumpwife Realm?" Barron said, "That's where my mom went, huh?"
          "Yeah," said Jeananne with a sigh.
          Barron yawned. "Jean?" he said, "What do you think my mom would have done ... if she was here?"
          "Your mom would have never gotten herself caught up in a mess like this," Jean replied. "Not Ivana or Marla, either. I'm a fucking disgrace to the Trumpwife honor."
          "No you're not," Barron said. "You're a good Trumpwife. My father would have been dead by now if you weren't."
          "I'm barely a Trumpwife now, anyway. My powers are gone, and Chelsea's plan will go off without a hitch, especially once I give bir--forget it. Go to sleep, Barron."
          "We'll get out of here; don't worry, Jean," said Barron.
          "Go to sleep, Barron."
          "Okay."

...

Jeananne stared absently at the cement ceiling with Barron's soft breathing providing accompaniment to her empty thoughts. She sighed.
          "I'm going to die here," she thought. "Melania, if only you were here right now."

A soft, drawn-out metallic squeal disturbed Jeananne's reverie. She slid her arm beneath her side and propped herself up to investigate the sound, and gasped at the sight of her cage door hanging open. The padlock which kept her confined lay nearby with the key that worked on both her and Barron's locks stuck in the keyhole.
The young woman tentatively crawled toward the opening of the metal kennel. She stuck her head out, almost expecting the scenario to be a trap set by Chelsea Clinton.
"It's alright, Jeananne," a very familiar feminine Eastern European voice said in the dark.
"Melania?" Jean whispered. Excited, she hastily crawled out of her cage. Then, a heavenly glow surrounded Melania's slender figure, and the former Trumpwife was revealed to the current one.
Jeananne's face lit up and she immediately went to embrace her mentor. Too weak and cramped to stand after being confined in such closed quarters for so long, she instantly collapsed.
"Easy, Jeannane," Melania said. "We don't want to attract attention."
"Melania? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the Trumpwife Realm?"
"The other Trumpwives and I have bore witness to your predicament, Jeananne, and we've come to help."
"What?" Jean said.
Then, the glowing entities of Ivana Trump and Marla Maples appeared, smiling down at Jeananne.
"I thought you weren't allowed to leave the Trumpwife Realm?" Jean said.
"Well, we decided that we needed to, just this once," Ivana said.
"Chelsea Clinton has nearly drained you of all your Trumpwife power, hasn't she?" asked Marla. "Well, you don't stand a chance at getting out of this situation without your power."
"We've decided that each of us will lend you a little bit of our powers to defeat Chelsea and get your power back," Melania said. "Destroying her is the only way to do so."
Barron stirred in his cage. "Jean?" he said wearily, squinting at the mass of light outside of his cage. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he instantly recognized his mother.
"Mom!" Barron exclaimed.
          Jeananne removed the key from the discarded padlock on the floor and hastily unlocked Barron's cage. The boy stumbled out past his stepmother and embraced his mother, crying into her breast.
          "I missed you so much," Barron whimpered. Melania stroked her son's hair and kissed him on the head. "I thought you weren't coming back?" he said, looking up into his mother's eyes.
          "We must move, now," Ivana said. "Chelsea is sleeping in her quarters directly above us."
          "Where are we, anyway?" Jeananne inquired.
          "An old fallout shelter dating back to the Cold War," answered Marla, "and very close to the border of D.C."
          "Correct," said Ivana. "Anyway, our best chances at restoring Jeananne's powers as quickly as possible is to ambush and kill Chelsea in her sleep. It's a few minutes past midnight now; I do not doubt that she's fast asleep."
          "Wait," Marla said, "we need to lend Jeananne our powers first."
          "Right, I almost forgot," Ivana said. "Trumpwives," she said, beckoning Marla and Melania to take her lead. Barron stepped out of the way to watch the transfer of power as the three Trumpwives past placed their hands on Jean's head. White light surged from their palms and into Jeananne's flesh, and the young woman's vitality was visibly being restored. When the transfer was complete, Jeananne easily came to a stand.

The Trumpwives and Barron, who held onto his mother's hand, moved quietly down the unguarded, empty corridor. They soon arrived at a closed metal door.
          "Beyond this door is the staircase leading up to the main chamber," Ivana said softly. "If we are to successfully ambush Chelsea Clinton, we need to be extra quiet from this point on until she is destroyed."
          The others nodded. Ivana ordered Marla to open the door. Just as the second Trumpwife placed her hand on the latch, a thunderous explosion boomed on the surface, causing the fallout shelter to quake violently for a second.