Page 6 of Endgame
“What the hell?”
I drop to my knees to take a better look, because no. It can’t be what I think it is.
It is.
Up close, there’s no denying it.
Pregnant.
Lotus is pregnant.
My breath catches. The word echoes in my skull, refusing to make sense, refusing to settle. I feel like the ground beneath me has shifted.
She’s pregnant and out there.
Alone.
With every ounce of energy I have left in my body, I sprint to our parents’ bedroom.
Together, we’ll find her and her baby.
We’ll save them both if she decides to keep it.
We will.
1
AURORA
TWENTY-THREE YEARS LATER—PRESENT DAY
Being twenty-two and locked up like a damn prisoner has to be the biggest joke ever.
Wait, no. It’s not a joke. It’s my life, being trapped in a cage disguised as a home.
Every now and then, though, they crack the door open. Then, on the rare occasions I’m actually allowed out of this mansion from hell, it’s never real freedom. There’s always a security detail breathing down my neck the second I step outside.
Unless I outsmart them. Which I do, much to my adoptive parents’ dismay.
Shoplifting is my rebellion. It’s how I pay them back for the constant abuse they put me through at home.
Since I’m only allowed on shopping trips—always far enough away that I won’t run into my parents’ acquaintances—I spend hours pretending to browse. Once I’m ready, when no one’s paying attention, I shove clothes or whatever I can find into my bag. Not to run away, but to get caught.
The only time my parents even agree to let me out of here is when I scream at the top of my lungs for hours.
Sure, they could silence me forever by locking me in the basement and throwing away the key.
But if I died there, in their home, they’d have a lot of explaining to do, filthy rich or not. Besides, they have other plans for me.
Mom’s plan isn’t an obvious one. I just think she wants me dead. Whenever I leave the house, I get the feeling she hopes I’ll be kidnapped or end up in a car crash that finally takes me out. I see it in the way she watches me when I leave the house—calm, smirking. Hopeful.
She’d never admit it. Never tell Dad. Because she’d never go against his wishes, and his depraved, fucked-up idea of a wish is marrying me off.
He can’t do that if I’m dead.
Besides, if I’m dead, they’d have a lot of explaining to do.
I hang my head in defeat, eyes fixed on the plush white rug in my bedroom. Not that the cops would care. Not my nonexistent friends. I was never allowed to go to school, college, or work.
