Page 74 of Vengeful Lies

September 20th

12:31 P.M.

It felt like she was burning up from the inside out.

Nothing helped anymore.

Gabriella didn't think she’d put on clothing in days. The feel of anything against her skin hurt, even the lightest fabrics. Thepain, added to the pain already thrumming through her body from her injuries, and especially the bite mark, was too much.

Nausea was her constant companion.

It never left her alone.

Not even when she was sleeping.

Well, dozing more than sleeping because she still couldn’t seem to shut her mind off adequately enough to properly sleep.

Because she was still too afraid.

It was like she’d never be able to feel safe again.

Worse than just feeling nauseous was that it reminded her of the five pregnancies she’d lost. Even though she’d lost all of them before the five-week mark, she’d been pregnant with each baby long enough to suffer morning sickness.

So now not only was she terrified to close her eyes because of fear that those men who had hurt her would come back for her, or other men would come and do worse to her, but she was mourning the loss of her babies all over again.

No doubt that was triggered by losing access to Essie because whether it was ever a conscious decision on her part or not, she’d begun to think of the little girl as hers. Which was stupid because she’d always known the job had an expiration date. After all, Essie wasn't going to stay little forever.

But she’d thought that expiration date would be Essie growing up, and she’d thought that Cade would likely be okay with her staying in touch with the girl so she would always be part of her life.

This was hell.

Losing that little girl when she was already so vulnerable was slowly killing her.

As much as Gabriella didn't want to admit that she was vulnerable, she liked to pretend that she always had it together and nothing could break her, the reality of her current situation forced her to accept facts.

She hadn't handled the abduction well.

Refusing to tell anyone everything she’d gone through was proof of that, as was her lack of appetite and inability to sleep.

Pretending she was okay for Essie’s sake hadn't helped her.

The final blow had been Cade’s rejection, and it had lodged like a bullet in both her heart and her mind, poisoning her bit by bit as she wasted away.

It was like his words had broken something inside her.

That part of her that had always been so determined to fight for herself, to find what she craved and not stop searching for it until she did.

Looking back, Gabriella could acknowledge that falling for Cade had been a mistake. He was emotionally unavailable, and she never should have put her entire life on hold because she’d stupidly fallen in love with him.

Her entire life had been built around Cade and Essie, and without them, nothing would stop her from withering away.

Which as she glanced down at her naked body, laid out against the cool white tiles of the bathroom floor, was exactly what she was doing.

Over the last few weeks, she’d lost a dramatic amount of weight. Enough that it was noticeable when you looked at her. Her hip bones poked out, and since she was lying flat on her back, she could feel her shoulder blades digging into the unyielding tiles. You could even make out some of her ribs.

There were times in her life as a child when she’d been in foster care that she’d barely been fed, her foster parents preferring to spend the money they got for her care on themselves rather than food for her, but she’d never been this thin.

Dangerously thin.

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