Sleeping With the Enemy

Chapter Forty Seven

"You're hurting me." I wince, biting my lip as Herrera parades me outside, the ground sharp on my bare, slashed feet. My hands are bound behind my back again and the zip ties cut into my already mangled skin.

He doesn't say a word, just keeps prodding at me and leading me into the darkness. All I can make out is that we're in the forest somewhere, but I only know that because I kept stepping on pine needles. The rain is casting a blanket of goosebumps on my skin and making it hard to see anything at all.

"You don't have to do this, you know. It will be worse for you if you hurt me and the baby. Brandon will never let you live."

"Sweetheart, I've been dead inside for a long time. There is nothing your bastard husband could do to hurt me." Herrera hisses, his patience wearing thin. Dante jumped ship and left long ago, probably realizing that any fate he met out there was better than getting caught here by Brandon.

I'm quickly realizing that Herrera has nothing to lose. He has no reason to keep me alive and all he cares about is causing the Avenetti family as much pain as humanly possible. There's no better way to do that than killing me and the baby. In fact, it's almost better for him that I'm pregnant.

I'm not going to make it out of this alive, and I'm not going to see Brandon again. I will never hold our child, or watch Brandon be a father. I'll never live to see if Adam recovers, or to experience the life I planned out with Brandon.

I want the big stuff. The traveling around the world and raising our family and being by his side as he leads this group. But I crave the small stuff just as much. Arguments over whose turn it was to do the dishes, and why he could never get his socks all the way into the hamper. The weight of his arm over me as I slept next to him every night, curling up on the couch to share a bowl of popcorn after a long week. Telling him not to spoil our children but watching as they open up a mountain of presents from him on Christmas morning. The way he'd glance at me across the room at a crowded party and wink, knowing we were both counting down the seconds until we were alone. I'd given all of these dreams up at one point, but now they are being taken away from me and I don't have any say in it. Heavy tears barrel down my cheeks, and my chest heaves with sobs as reality sinks in.

"Oh don't get all emotional on me now. You had to have seen this coming." Herrera snarls, forcing me to my knees in the gritty mud. He picks up a shovel and starts digging. "You couldn't honestly think you'd get away with this. Agreeing to work with me and then pulling the wool over my eyes?"

I don't answer him. If I only have a few minutes left, I certainly am not going to waste them on him. Instead, I'll spend them reliving the good things. The way my mom used to sing to me when she'd curl my hair in the mornings, and how every Saturday, my dad would make waffles for breakfast. The day they brought Adam home from the hospital, and I finally had my lifelong playmate. How I would always sing in the car to music and my dad would try to catch me by turning the radio down when I wasn't paying attention. The way Adam would sneak into my room in the middle of the night when it was thundering, and I'd try to act like I was brave so he wouldn't be scared. The day we moved in next to the Avenettis. The dinners and the pool parties and the camping trips. The way Brandon would stick up for me to the other boys, and always made sure I was okay. The summer Alex taught me how to jump off the bridge into the icy river below us, and how much trouble we got in once our parents realized what we were doing. Passing notes with him in middle school and how he always picked me first in dodgeball even though I was a girl. How Steven taught me how to drive a stick shift in the parking lot of the warehouse, and how he didn't tell my dad when I backed the car into a parking pillar. Those few months I spent deliriously crushing on Brandon before he got up the nerve to kiss me. The day he asked me to be his girlfriend, and the thousand days after that that we were completely inseparable. The fit my father had when my mom and I came home the day she let me die the ends of my hair purple. The way it felt to have Brandon's arms around me, melting into them like I was made to fit. Those would be the things I'd focus on if this was the end. The memories that made me smile, and realize how good I actually had it growing up. No matter what he did, Herrera couldn't cloud those for me.