Page 72 of Jett

MAYBE IT’S SECONDS, maybe it’s hours, but I wake to blinding pain in my womb, and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

“There she is.”

A gruff voice fills my ears, and stinking, putrid rot fills my nose as the man leans in close. His teeth are rotting in his skull. It turns my stomach.

“I thought you’d never wake up.” He grabs my breast and squeezes hard. I try to shove him away, but my hands are bound by thin black zip ties and I only manage to unseat him from his position kneeling over me.

“Help!” I scream the word as loud as I possibly can, and I’m rewarded with a hard backhand across the face. My eye feels like it’s exploding as pain rushes to my temple and throbs inside my head.

“Fucking mouthy bitch.” His beefy hand covers my mouth. He smells like petrol and trash. My stomach roils and I gag.

“Maybe we need to teach you a lesson about keeping your fat trap shut.” He kneels beside my head and unzips his pants. The other man in the balaclava watches on in amusement—if the curve of his lips and the glint in his eye are anything to go off.

Pain engulfs all of me—from my head, neck and shoulders to my back and belly, and even down to my legs. But the very worst pain is inside me. It’s in my heart and in my womb for the baby I can’t protect. The man closest to me whips out his penis and tries to shove it between my closed lips. I turn my head, because it’s the only part of me I can move.

The man standing by my feet strokes himself inside his pants. I want to retch, and then he swears as I feel a gush of wetness between my legs and my belly cramps.

“Fuck. She’s bleeding bad. We need to get outta here.”

“Not until we teach that scumbag biker a lesson.” Balaclava shoves his cock in my face, leaning his hand against the wall and penning me in. Searing agony shoots through my back and lower abdomen. I cry out, and glance at the space between my legs. Red. All I see is red soaking the snow-white carpet.

The front door bursts open and Mrs Robinson’s dog, Winston, bulldozes into the apartment, knocking the standing man to the ground. Behind him, Mrs Robinson shrieks, “Leave her alone! Get away from her! She’s pregnant! I’ve called the police.”

She shoves into the apartment wielding a broomstick. Her dog sets his sights on the man kneeling beside me. He screams and blood splatters onto the carpet as the dog continues to bite his arse. The standing man shoves my neighbour, and her frail body falls to the floor with a cry. I try to move closer to her, but everything inside me screams. More blood gushes from between my legs. I wish my arms were free. Then I could cradle my baby and show her that she’s not alone.

The men flee with Mrs Robinson’s dog taking off after them. My neighbour from down the hall emerges from his apartment with a phone in hand. “She’s bleeding, and the old lady is on the floor. There’s blood pooling beneath her head. She’s unconscious.”

Blinding pain courses through my whole body as I crawl to my knees and attempt to shuffle across the room toward Mrs Robinson, but I make it only a few feet before my head swims and my whole world turns black.

***

BRIGHT LIGHTS.

One after the other flash overhead as I’m wheeled through a corridor. I clutch at the mask over my face and remove it. “My neighbour. She’s hurt.”

“Miss, miss, you can’t take your mask off.”

“My baby.”

“We’re rushing you through for an emergency C-section.”

“No ... she’s too ... too small.”

***

IWAKE TO THE QUIETbeeping of hospital room monitors. I hurt everywhere. My hand travels to my stomach automatically, but it’s not pulled taut and heavy with my child. There is no life inside. I throw back the blanket and lift the hospital gown. My abdomen is covered in gauze. I don’t have to lift it to know what lies underneath—an ugly scar where they plucked my baby from my womb. I feel around the bedframe and reach for the call button. I push it, and shortly after, a midwife in brightly patterned scrubs enters the room. “Good morning, Mrs Cole.”

I clear my throat. It feels like swallowing razor blades. “What happened? Where’s my baby?”

“You suffered a placental abruption, Mrs Cole.”

“Where is she?”

“I’m very sorry to tell you, but she passed in the womb. She was stillborn when we performed the C-section.”

“No! No, no, no, please? No. Where’s my baby? Where is she?”

“We have her in what’s called a cool cot. We thought you might want to hold her.”

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