Page 35 of The Sinners Touch

Hearing them talk so casually about their family had to be breaking her even more. Seeing her cry was more than he could handle right now.

“I need to check in with Bailey and go over some things with Jeremy. He’s my partner at the BAU. I have to get him up to speed on the case. Nik, can you take Angel back to the apartment for me?”

Nikoli wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at Angel, who didn’t seem to be aware of the fact she was crying.

“Yeah, but me and you, we’re gonna talk later.”

Kade nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

She stared at the stick, willing it to show her a result. She’d been arguing with herself for weeks, but when her period didn’t show up for a second month, she bit the bullet and bought a pregnancy test. Combined with her queasy stomach that never seemed to go away and her ability to sleep at the drop of hat, Jasmine told her to get herself to Walgreens and buy a test.

The clerk at the drugstore had given her that knowing look, and Angel told her where she could stick that condescending expression. She hated when people looked at her like that, like she was worth less than a normal person. Yes, she wasn’t married, and she might be knocked up, but so what? The world today was full of unwed mothers.

Her body went cold at the thought. All the bravado in the world wasn’t going to change facts. Shewasn’tmarried, and shemightbe a single mother. She was only nineteen. How could she be anybody’s mother when she barely knew how to take care of herself? She was a stripper, for God’s sake. Pregnant women didn’t strip. What would she do? Get a job flipping burgers? Every cliché scenario she could think of ran a marathon race through her head.

The toilet seat caught her when she sank down, her knees going weak. What was she going to do? She was barely an adult, just learning about life. How was she going to take care of a tiny human? One who depended on her for everything? Hell, she barely depended on herself.

What was she going to do if that test came back positive?

A baby.

A tiny human.

Her hand went to her stomach.

A tiny little life growing inside her.

She picked up the stick again. Nothing. Stupid thing.

What would she tell Kade? She used birth control, dammit. They used condoms. There was no way she could be pregnant.

Only there was. When she’d had the stomach flu and skipped her birth control for three days because she’d been too sick to keep anything down. Then there was that one time in the shower. One time. Only one freaking time they hadn’t used a condom, and she’d promised him it would be okay because she was on the pill, not thinking about the previous week.

Oh, God, would the birth control pills hurt the baby? She’d been taking them religiously since then. Could they cause birth defects?

What if Kade was furious? What if he told her to fuck off and he didn’t want any part of it? She didn’t see him as that kind of person, but they’d only been dating for six months. There was still so much she didn’t know about him, so much he refused to talk about. Whenever she tried to talk to him about his family or his past, he shut her down. Never in a mean way, but in a joking manner, and changed the subject.

What if he wasn’t the man she thought he was? What if he was like the boys she knew who would run screaming from the situation?

Did she even want the baby? There were options. Abortion was out of the question, though. She respected other women’s right to choose, but it was abhorrent to her. Adoption was still an open option. If things didn’t work out between her and Kade, adoption could be a solution. A baby deserved a real home with a parent or parents who could give it everything it needed. She wasn’t sure that was her.

Angel grew up with parents who loved her, who sacrificed everything for her and Peter. They had been their parents’ entire world. Could she do that for her child? Could she be that unselfish? Or would she hate the restrictions the baby put on her? She’d seen what happened to the girls in high school who’d gotten knocked up. Some of them grew to resent their kids because of how much they had to give up.

The last thing she could bear would be to resent her own flesh and blood.

This was driving her crazy. Still no lines on the stick. Had it been fifteen minutes yet? Her watch laughed at her. Eight minutes.

“Out of the bathroom, Angel! I have to get ready for a date.”

Peter pounded on the door, and she ignored him. What was she going to tell her brother? He’d sacrificed everything for her. And here she went and got herself knocked up like every other idiot girl who thought it would never happen to her. She took precautions, dammit, and it still might have happened to her.

Three more minutes ticked by, and she got up and looked at her pale face in the mirror. Tears made wet tracks down her cheeks under red, swollen eyes. How could she be crying without even realizing it? Her breathing slowed, and it became harder and harder to pull air into her lungs. Spots danced in front of her eyes, and she fought for air.

What was happening to her? She gripped the edge of the counter to try to stay upright as the world tilted and startedto spin. She blinked several times, a whimper escaping. Panic clawed at her throat, and she fell back, unable to stop her legs from folding beneath her.

The resulting crash brought her brother pounding on the door. “Angel? You okay? What happened? Did you fall?”

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