Jessa Ch. 08

Jessa awoke with a start. The apartment was quiet. Torah was gone. She sought for what had awakened her and finally settled on her cell phone. She picked it up and saw a message from Torah, sent an hour and a half ago timed to arrive just now. It said she had an appointment with Gemma for an ultrasound that morning to check on the pregnancy. And also gave her permission to shop for pantry items afterward. It also included a stern warning not to talk to Gemma about anything but babies. Instinctively, her hand went to her belly. An ultrasound all ready? It seemed too soon, but the prospect of seeing the baby was exciting, too.

She climbed out of bed and showered. Then headed into the kitchen for breakfast, noting that Charl was at the door this morning. She suspected that Torah had her security team checking on her eating habits as well as her good behavior, but it wasn't a concern, because she found she was always hungry. Before long, it was time to leave, and Jessa found it irritating the way that Charl was hovering. When they reached the parking garage, Menah was there with the car, waiting. Still, Charl wouldn't let her out of the elevator until he had thoroughly scanned the garage, then he hustled her into the back of the car before settling in next to Menah. Jessa had expected them to drive to the hospital, but they went instead to the office building where Jessa had met with Gemma for her talk. She was further surprised when Menah parked on the street rather than in the garage.

"Stay in the car," Charl told her, as he got out. She watched for a moment as he walked toward the office building, scanning roofs, windows and the minimal activity on the street.

Jessa couldn't rein her curiosity any more. "Why park on the street, why not in the garage?"

"More places to hide in the garage," Menah said quietly. He was watching in the rear view mirror for a signal from Charl. When the signal finally came, he got out of the car and did his own scan before opening the door for Jessa. Then they both hustled her into the building, not relaxing until they were in the elevator. When they reached the office, Gemma herself met them. Jessa was relieved when the men stayed out in the hall.

Gemma led her to a back room fitted out for exams. Jessa changed into a short gown and climbed onto the table. "Isn't it too soon?" she asked Gemma.

"We're going to do a transvaginal. We won't be able to see a fetus yet, but we might be able to see the gestational sac. Personally, I would have waited a few more days, but you know how Torah is," she said with a raised eyebrow, as if waiting for Jessa to say more. When Jessa didn't fill in the silence, she continued. "I don't want you to be disappointed if we don't see anything. It might be too early. We'll just wait a few days and check again. Okay?"

"Okay," Jessa said, laying back.

Gemma moved her equipment closer. For a few minutes, she concentrated on adjusting the equipment and positioning the ultrasound wand. When she was settled into search mode, her eyes glued to the screen, she asked, "You're awfully quiet today. Is everything going okay? Has Torah been more reasonable?"

Jessa shrugged uncomfortably. Gemma laughed. "He told you not to talk to me, didn't he?" Jessa nodded guiltily. Gemma patted her leg. "If it makes you feel any better, he told me not to talk to you, either. Fortunately, I don't have to take orders from Torah. I haven't forgotten our talk, so don't you give up your dream, you hear me?"

"He's letting me continue my Advanced Micro Biology program," Jessa said.

"See! Progress. I think you may just be good for Torah. Now look at this." She turned the screen so Jessa could see. "You see that spot there?"

"My baby?"

"Well, its home for the next nine months. Now look at this." The spot disappeared as she moved the wand for a moment and another spot appeared on the screen.

"A different angle?" Jessa asked.

"Nope. A twin. Probably fraternal."

"Twin?" Jessa repeated, disbelieving.

Gemma laughed. "Yes, twins. We'll look again in a few weeks," she said. "You can get dressed. I'm going to get something for you."

Jessa was smoothing her gown when Gemma came back into the exam room. She handed Jessa a bottle of prenatal vitamins. "I don't get to hand these out nearly often enough, nowadays. Don't let yourself run out of these. If you can't find them locally, you need to order them, okay?"

Jessa nodded. Gemma eyed her speculatively. "Are you happy? 'Cause you don't look happy."

"It's just a lot to process," Jessa said slowly.

Gemma put a hand on her arm. "If you need to talk, you call me. I don't care what Torah says. Got it?"

Jessa nodded. "Thank you."

When she left Gemma's office, her security team was hovering protectively. Jessa asked, "Can I send Torah a text?"

Charl, the more talkative one, answered. "His phone will probably be off but he'll get it when it's safe."

She nodded and pulled her cell phone out, texting Torah the news as they headed for the elevator. She checked the contacts that Torah had programmed in for her and found Mia's number. As they descended to the main floor, she called Mia and let her know the news. Mia squealed in delight so that Jessa had to hold the phone away from her ear, but she smiled. Then she called her mom, since Charl wouldn't let her out on the street until he had checked it out thoroughly. Her mom didn't squeal, but she was equally as excited. Jessa decided that their excitement must be infectious because she had a smile plastered on her face by the end of the second call. A few moments later, Charl pulled up in the car. Menah had her wait inside the building while he did one more scan of the area, then he rushed her into the car and they headed for the market.

When Charl pulled into a parking space on the street, a light finally went off for Jessa. "Was Torah's teammate killed in a parking garage?" The two men exchanged a look, which told her pretty much everything she needed to know. They didn't answer, but they both got out of the car and Menah opened Jessa's door for her. "You're not going to scope out the place?"

Charl answered as he came around the car. "This stop wasn't scheduled. No one could have known we'd be here."

"Oh," she said. She looked down the street. There were a number of the typical brown vans parked as well as coming and going from the market. They would be delivering food to people, mainly highborn, living in the surrounding region. Her family had used the same sort of service where they lived, it was so much more convenient than driving to the market when a whole enclave shared one car. Charl gestured toward the entry way and the two men fell into step behind her. They were about halfway there when Jessa heard two popping sounds behind her. She spun around just in time to see Charl and Menah falling to the ground. At the end of the block, two men dressed in black and with guns drawn were running toward them.

"Run," Charl yelled at her, and she spun back but was grabbed from behind before she could even take a step. A hand was over her mouth and an arm was around her waist. Jessa threw her head back and connected with the forehead of the man behind her, who swore but didn't release her. He was pulling her toward the back of the nearest brown van. Jessa twisted slightly and tried to ram her elbow into his solar plexus, but he was shorter than her, and she connected with ribs instead. She had only moments to break his hold; the two men with guns were nearly on them. One of them shot Charl again as they ran past. Jessa stomped on the instep of the man holding her and twisted at the same time. His grip on her waist loosened and she tried to duck and turn under the hand covering her mouth, pushing against the chest of her captor. He made a desperate grab for her, catching the shoulder of her gown and tearing it. She straightened to make one last lunge for freedom, but then a fist connected to her cheek and she went down into waiting arms. She was lifted and thrown into the back of the van. The three men climbed in with her and the van was instantly moving.

Jessa tried to sit up, but a foot kicked her down onto her belly and then one of them was sitting on her back. One of the other men grabbed her arms and held them down. Her hair was yanked out of the way and something was being slid under her choker, making it tighten on her neck alarmingly. Then the choker along with the tracking device was suddenly gone. The door to the van was opened, the choker thrown out on the street. When the man on her back moved, Jessa kicked out and had the satisfaction of connecting with someone's leg and hearing a grunt. She was pulled up to a kneeling position by her hair and one of the men leaned over to peer down at her. He was short, and she thought he might have been the one at the van. He held her cell phone in front of her face.

"What's the pass code?" he demanded. Jessa spit at him and something smashed into the side of her head from behind. The grip in her hair prevented her from collapsing. "Try again," he prodded, pulling a knife from his pocket and flicking it open. He slid it under what was left of the shoulder of her gown and twisted, cutting through the remaining fabric. Then he slid it under her bra strap, slicing it neatly. He slid the blade of the knife down, pushing her bra cup away, exposing her breast and pressing the sharp blade just under her nipple. Jessa gasped, struggling for control. "The pass code," he asked again. She whispered the numbers. He leaned closer. "Again!" She repeated her whisper as he leaned even closer.

She delivered a swift uppercut just the way her dad had taught her and was delighted to see blood spatter from his mouth. Immediately after, though, a fist connected with her cheek again, and she went down, blackness closing in.

****

Jessa opened her eyes, slowly, painfully. She heard the sound of fingers snapping. When she could focus, she saw pairs of feet. She was lying on a concrete floor. The only light was coming from a lantern sitting on the floor a short way from her. Her head hurt, and when she reached up, she felt blood caked in her hair and slowly seeping from a cut on her scalp. She pushed herself up as best she could, her head throbbing with every motion she made, and tried to focus on the bodies attached to the feet she could see.

"Ready?" someone said.

"Rolling," came the reply.

The first person to speak stepped closer to her. "So you're Torah's bitch and you're carrying Torah's bastard." He turned toward the man just behind him. "Let's show him what we do with his bastard." Jessa realized the other man was holding her cell phone, apparently taking pictures or video. The first man turned and stepped closer to her, then looked back at the one with the phone. 'Getting this?"

"Good and clear," he nodded. Jessa was wondering if she could sweep the man's legs out from under him, but before she could do more than contemplate that action he delivered a hard kick to her belly and she choked on her scream, curling up to protect against other blows, sobbing.

The assailant turned back to the phone. "Your bastard will die and your bitch is now mine. Soon you'll be dead, too. But before then, I want you to think about me fucking her, every day, long after you're gone." He made a throat cutting gesture. "That's it. Leave it over there by the lantern. Grab her and let's get out of here."

Jessa was hauled to her feet by two men who had been behind her. They all but carried her to stairs and then up to the main floor of a building. She was drug outside and loaded into a gas vehicle with darkened windows, then dumped unceremoniously on the floor in the back of the vehicle. Two more men climbed into the car. She saw others headed elsewhere before the door was shut. She tried to sit up, but a foot was planted in her chest and she was shoved back down. From the floor, it was hard to see much, but what she could see indicated that they were in an abandoned city. She rolled on her side. Her belly was cramping now, on top of the constant ache from the kick.

It seemed like they drove for an hour before they finally slowed and parked underground. Jessa was drug from the car again, though this time she had slightly more luck getting her feet under her and working. Jessa noticed what appeared to be a gas-powered generator in one of the parking slots. Despite the fact that they were already underground, once they were inside the building proper, they took stairs down, even deeper into the bowels of the structure. Lights had been strung, presumably powered by the generator, and they entered a large room with computers and other equipment.

Jessa was taken to a small room off of the large one and dumped on a mattress on the floor in one corner of the room. Then she was left alone. Across the room, there was a desk with a laptop on it and several chairs. She struggled to her feet and moved to the desk. The laptop was password protected, so she didn't waste time on it, but moved to the drawers. In one, she found a small pen knife. She took it and scurried back to the mattress. Draping a blanket off the edge of the mattress, she selected the longest blade on the knife, spit on it, then honed the blade against the concrete floor, underneath the blanket.

When the man who had kicked her came into the room, she slid the knife under the mattress and donned her most fearful look, cringing back on the mattress. He looked at her appraisingly, but then sighed and did something on his computer. When he started to leave, he looked over at her with a wicked grin and said, "I'll be back in a little while, bitch."

When Jessa had gotten the cheap knife blade as sharp as she could, she hid it under the mattress again and moved to the door, peering out through the thin crack that had been left. There appeared to be a celebration going on; she could see bottles of hard alcohol. Some of the men in the outer room appeared quite drunk. There were microwave containers strewn about, presumably part of their celebration feast. One reasonably sober man was sitting at a computer, watching the monitor closely. Even as Jessa watched, he called out, "He's on line. He's getting it now." Who, she wondered. Torah?

"Where?" her kicker demanded.

"Tracking now. Damn it! He's off again."

"What! Was he on long enough to see the video?"

"Just barely. It looks like he was using a tower near Paris."

"Okay, that means he could be here by morning. Everybody sober up. We're going to have a job to do." When the kicker turned and started toward the room she was in, Jessa raced for the mattress and pretended to be asleep. She heard him enter and cross to the mattress; felt him staring down at her. Then she heard the rustle of clothing. It was all she could do to keep her breathing even. Then he was suddenly on top of her, ripping her gown down from the already torn shoulder. He reeked of booze. She put up a half-hearted fight against him. When he slammed his cock into her dry pussy, she didn't have to fake the cry of pain or her tears, both of which he seemed to inordinately enjoy. Fortunately, it seemed to excite him into coming quickly, and he mercifully rolled off her a few minutes later.

Jessa waited and waited even longer, until his breathing was deep and even. She slowly reached for and freed the pen knife from under the mattress, then even more slowly sat up and rose to her knees. She took three deep breaths, locating her target, then looked one last time at the face of the man who had brutalized her and probably ended the chance of life for her twins. Even as his eyes opened and widened at the knife held high in her hand, she plunged it down into his thigh then pulled toward her, trapping the femoral artery against the femur and slicing it clean through as she yanked the knife free.

She jumped up, ignoring the pounding in her head, gathered the man's clothes and backed away. He simply stared at her, his eyes getting wider as he bled out. He opened his mouth to try to say something, but his heart was already struggling against the diminishing blood flow. Whatever he tried to say was lost forever. Jessa donned his clothes and peeked out the door. The only one in sight was the man monitoring the computer. She examined him critically. He was smallish, but under the loose clothing, it was hard to tell how wiry he might be. So far, she wasn't impressed with any of these men who had captured her, with the possible exception of their shooting ability. She had almost broken free of the man at the van, then nearly decked him in the van. The kicker had been careless as well as drunk. None of them could hold a candle to Torah or Erich, not just in strength, but in situational awareness, manipulation, you name it. She looked again at the exit, and the man staring at his computer. There was no way he wouldn't see and raise the alarm.

She slunk out of the room and toward the man, whose back was to her. The deciding factor was that he had small feet, his running shoes might just fit her perfectly. She was barefoot, he never heard her approach. She looped her right arm about his throat, reinforced it with her left and pressed with everything she had, ignoring the throbbing in her head and the cramping ache in her belly. He responded like most people would, betraying a lack of training, as he clutched at her arm, trying to pull it away from his throat. Jessa had locked her arms, using his back as leverage. He had no hope of breaking her grip that way, and by the time he realized that, he was too weak to throw her off her feet or present any realistic threat to her eyes or other vulnerable points. She held her grip until he was down on the floor, then she stole his shoes.

She ran west. She had no idea who had the key to the car, or if she could even figure out how to drive a gas powered car, so she put her trust in her feet and wove through the long deserted streets of the city. From signs, and her smattering of German, she determined that she was in Cologne. She also knew, after two or three miles, that her head and her belly would not let her go any farther. She found a building with several stories, possibly an apartment complex, and climbed to the top floor. She knew rats couldn't climb, and she dearly hoped that any other flea-infested critters wouldn't be so inclined. It was very eerie to see half-decomposed furniture in the room she found, the natural fibers long since reduced to dust, but nylons and polyesters and who knew what else, looking like they simply needed a good cleaning. She found one of those synthetic blankets in a closet and settled on the floor to sleep.

The next morning, she was up again. The cramping was worse, and she was starting to bleed. She knew, without a doubt that she had lost one, if not both of the babies. She longed for her phone, to call Gemma, perhaps the only friend she had in this new world, but her phone had been left behind, and Gemma must be, too. It was only a slight relief that her head felt somewhat better. The challenge now was to evade the men she was sure would be searching for her. She took the pen knife and cut away all all but a short fringe of her hair. She fashioned a pack out of the blanket and searched the apartment for anything usable. A couple of blocks later, and she found herself at the shores of the Rhine, between two bridges that had been destroyed, probably by the floods.

Jessa stripped and loaded her clothes into the makeshift pack, then swam across the river on her back, holding her pack aloft. On the other side, she dressed again and tried to strategize. She needed food and water. The Rhine still stank of pollution from chemical plants and nuclear meltdowns and who knew what else. By the same token, there wouldn't be any inhabited towns so near to abandoned cities, not that she had any credit to make purchases, anyway. Her only option was to steal. That meant the frequented byways and that meant Highway A1. She pulled the backpack on and walked, too dehydrated and hungry to run.