Hunter - Book 2 of the Hunted Series

Chapter 6 - The preparation for the two battles

 I didn't answer. I didn't know how to answer that. The suggestion provoked this bizarre mix of fear and hope. I wasn't sure how to take it. Hadn't we already agreed that my extreme weight loss was what had caused that to stop?

When Jeremy pushed a pregnancy test at me I raelised htat maybe I'd been the only one who'd agreed competely on that possibility. He fixed his black eyes in mine. So calm. Like this was no big deal.

"Pregnancy test!" I almost raised my voice, almost, but managed to keep it soft. Was it even possible? Of course it was. We'd gotten carried away several times since I'd gotten there. But still... "It's not that."

"Better to be safe now. Speaking of weight loss, breakfast time. Three scoops of the powder in one glass of full cream milk and three pills." He dismissed me, leaving me with the idea that I might be pregnant, like he'd said I might have the flu.

"What if I am pregnant?" I sat down, refusing to be dismissed so easily, keeping my voice low. "What then? Nick doesn't want kids. What about all these attacks on me? I ...this is a really bad time for that to happen." Really bad. Pregnancy should have involved stuff like ...I didn't know. Laying in bed. Getting served food. No worries. 

"Then we'll worry about it then and increase your nutrient intake. Unless you'd be thinking about an abortion."

The word abortion made me grimace. No. I wasn't against them, exactly, and if I'd gotten pregnant after being raped I might have gone that way, or maybe not, I didn't know... but the word abortion right now felt so wrong. After all the deaths, after seeing so many girls die in the past year, my own family, there was no way I could be willingly responsible for another death. It didn't matter if it was the size of a seed or a bunch of cells or whatever it was. Which it wasn't there anyway.

"I guess that's not an option." Jeremy read my face easily. "Take the test before you get worried about that."

I nodded and went to get breakfast, the package heavy in the pocket, my head spinning at the idea. I reached down to touch the stomach. It wasn't big, it wasn't even really curving, it was just a stomach that had nothing unusual or special about it. Well, except that every other inch of me had gotten bony, but my stomach hadn't. Pregnant! Why had it taken me so long to think about this possibility anyway? I hadn't had a period since I'd come here, putting that aside to first stress, then the weight loss, and both were probably more likely reasons than a pregnancy.

Still, when I saw Kate playing with her brother in the living room nearby, two cute five year olds whacking each over the head with stuffed animals, the cute girl screeching, the idea stuck in my head like a tack jabbed into the brain.

"Get me any food?" Nick interrupted my thoughts as he prodded me, before leaning over to steal one of the pieces of toast.

"Sorry, no." I glanced back at him. He was already turning to the fridge and rummaging through it, keeping his sore side still. If it was a pregnancy then he was equally to blame. He was experienced enough with sex to know what sometimes came out when something was put in. Thirty years or so and he hadn't had a kid yet. When I felt the urge to pee, my heart sank, dreading the test.

It had to be just stress and weight loss. I was underweight, apparently, and anyway a pregnancy wouldn't probably even last during that kind of treatment. The test wasn't even important.

Nick slid beside me and pushed papers down. He glared at the seating arrangement and started to try and work it out, scratching his head, stuffing food into his mouth.

I stood up and headed back to look at the map instead of do the test. When Jeremy looked at me, waiting for an answer, I shook my head and he took that as a 'not pregnant'. I let him. The idea that I was pregnant was just too much right now. If I was, it wasn't going anywhere any time soon, and if I wasn't, it also could wait. The wedding was overwhelming enough.