Page 43 of Bound By Blood and Lies

Everything about me is not.

The cuffs bite whenever I shift in the chair as I try to find a position that doesn’t make the metal dig deeper into my skin. My hands hover above the plate for a moment before dropping uselessly back into my lap. I don’t trust the food. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anything in this room except the cold knot of dread sitting in my stomach.

Pregnant.

The word keeps circling through my mind like a firefly I can’t quite catch. I try to ignore it and focus on the things I can actually control, but the thought keeps slipping back in between every other one.

I took my birth control with Roman.

I remember that clearly.

Which means if there is a baby…

The memory of Fisher makes my skin crawl. What if it’s his? What if the thing growing inside me belongs to the man who spent weeks breaking my body apart piece by piece? I swallow the lump in my throat. If it is… what would Roman even think? Would he want me pregnant with another man’s child?

Do I?

I’ve never wanted children.

The idea of it has always felt like another kind of cage, another way for someone else to control my life, and the irony that I might now be carrying one whilst chained to a bed in a stranger’s house is almost enough to make me laugh. My hand drifts unconsciously toward my stomach, hovering there before I force it back into my lap.

I won’t go there.

I can’t go there.

The silence stretches between us until the sound of footsteps carries faintly through the door. Longstaff’s attention shifts. His eyes flick toward the sound before he slowly turns away from the window. A second later, a lock clicks and the door opens as a man steps inside.

He looks nothing like the men who guarded the warehouse. There’s no immediate menace, no bored cruelty sitting behind his eyes. Instead, he carries himself like a man who is used to stepping through the front doors of expensive homes. His hair is completely grey, not the dignified salt-and-pepper of someone ageing naturally, but a flat, uniform silver that makes the strange little moustache look even more obscene.

A crisp white coat hangs over a pressed shirt and patterned tie; the whole outfit is immaculate. Slung over his shoulder is a black medical bag, the leather is polished with what appearsto be his name embroidered neatly across the front. He looks professional. Civilized even. He smiles brightly as he walks in.

And the performance might almost work… if he hadn’t just willingly stepped into a locked bedroom where a woman is chained. No respectable doctor would agree to that. Which means whatever this man is pretending to be, it isn’t innocent.The normality of it feels surreal; a doctor, not a guard or one of the monsters from the warehouse, just a man arriving to do his job.Somehow it makes the dread in my chest twist even tighter.

“Doctor,” Longstaff nods, and the man inclines his head politely before closing the door.

“Mr Longstaff,” he replies with a nasally tone.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice. Dr Fisher is… indisposed at the moment.”

The glare Longstaff shoots in my direction isn’t lost on either of us. My mouth curls into a feral smile at the implication. I’m tempted to bare my teeth and pretend I’ve got rabies, just to see how this doctor reacts. Let him wonder if I’m the reason the last doctor isn’t available anymore, even though Robyn was the one holding the knife. That feels like a detail I don’t need to correct.

“Hi, Fae. I’m Dr Harrow.”

I don’t deign to respond.

I just stare at him; my face is deliberately blank as his eyes flick over me. The movement is quick but practised, lingering to take in the cuffs at my wrist and ankle before sliding politely away again. My lips curl faintly and I hold his gaze. I can tell this isn’t new to him. Men who are shocked don’t hide it well. Men who have never seen something like this don’t pretend it isn’t happening right in front of them. Which means he’s seen this before.

How many other pregnant girls has he tended to? How many of them were prisoners like me? Were they always broughthere… or did he go to them? Did he work with Fisher too? Did he ever walk through that warehouse with his neat little bag and his polite smile as women were chained to the walls? That thought sends a shiver down my spine. The doctor sets his leather bag on the edge of the bed and unclasps it. The movement is practised as he begins laying out a small case of medical supplies like this is nothing more than a routine house call in a perfectly ordinary home.

“Let’s confirm things properly, shall we?” Dr Harrow says at last, though the words are directed toward Longstaff rather than me.

A scoff slips out.

“Problem, Fae darling?” Mr Longstaff asks mildly.

I turn my head away from him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of eye contact. If I never speak to that traitor again, it will still be too soon.

“Ah, she’s having a little temper tantrum, Doctor,” Longstaff says lightly. “Please…” He lifts one hand, palm up, gesturing toward me. “Continue.”