Page 31 of Midnight Wedding

They’re pregnancy tests.

Two of them. Different brands.

“Take them,” he says and leans up against the wall. “I’ll wait.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, barely able to keep from shrieking. “You think I’mpregnant?”

He looks at me like I’ve gone absolutely insane. “You don’t?”

I open my mouth to tell him that obviously I don’t think I’m pregnant because that’s impossible?—

But it makes sense.

We weren’t careful that first time. I thought I had my days down right, but if I screwed up and he came inside of me while I was ovulating, that would explain everything. My nausea, my weirdaches and pains, all the physical problems I’ve been ignoring the last couple of weeks.

I feel like a robot as I shuffle back into the apartment and close the door behind me.

“Who was that?” Mom calls from the living room. “Were you talking to someone?”

“Just a neighbor,” I say woodenly. “No worries. It’s fine.”

She says something else but I don’t hear it. I close the bathroom door, lock it, turn on the shower, and take out the tests.

My heart slams in my skull.Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. I follow the directions and leave the stick on the counter while I get started on the second brand.Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.

This can’t be happening. Here I was, moping in my room thinking he abandoned me, only for the truth to be so much worse.

He thinks I’m pregnant.

And he’s right.

The first test stares at me with its mocking little symbols. I read the instructions a dozen times and they never change.

Pregnant. I’m pregnant.

I don’t need the second test to confirm it, but it does anyway.

I’m numb as I shove the tests and the boxes back into the paper bag and shuffle out into the hall. Mom’s show is turned up loud and she laughs at something on the TV. I feel like I might be sick again, but this time, it’s not morning sickness.

Because that’s what it’s been, right?Morning sickness.

I’m so freaking stupid. I should’ve seen this sooner. It’s just that I don’t have much experience with sex and I’ve been so distracted by my mother’s cancer that it never even occurred to me.

He’s still in the hall where I left him. Arsen stares at me with those dark, stormy eyes of his and runs a hand back through his thick, dark hair. It’s something he does when he’s agitated, even though he doesn’t show it on his face. When did I start noticing his mannerisms? I don’t know, but the silence stretches between us.

“Positive,” I whisper.

He looms over me. His face twists into something—agony? Anger? Then he grabs my arm and drags me to his apartment.

“What are you doing?” I gasp at him as he takes me back to his place, slams the door behind him, and hammers the bolt closed.

He keeps his back to me, his hands against the frame. His back rises and falls as he sucks in air. I’m reminded that he’s a killer, that I watched him murder a man not that long ago, and he’ll happily do that to me. I won’t even put up a fight.

So many regrets. I let my mom down. I screwed over my dad. Vadim’s going to have to get a job, but that’s probably for the best. Mostly my parents are going to suffer because I won’t be around to make money and help out the family anymore, and that’s on me.

I got selfish. I screwed a serial killer and now I’m paying the price.

No more exploring, no crawling into drain pipes, no sneaking through open doors, no going anywhere.

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