Final LockDown (21 page)

I groan again, embarrassed that my body is reacting to this.

“Argghhh!” I scream as the flogger changes to a cat, the nasty thongs smashing against me. They whip through my resolve and straight into my pain threshold. I clench my fists tighter, agony flooding me.

“Feel it. Allow it inside of you,” Marcus instructs.

“FUCK YOU!” I shoot back, rewarding me with a further ten lashes, my skin raw and probably bleeding. “GO TO HELL, ARSEHOLE!” I continue screaming as tears fill my eyes. How does Abbi do this all the time, without so much as blinking?

“I'm already there, wise-arse, trying to drag you out. Now brace yourself, because this is going to sting.”
This isn’t already stinging?
I’d love to strap this bastard down and take a cat o’ nine tails to him.

Fire, it burns through my back, slicing through my skin as the tip of the whip thrashes against me. I allow the tears to fall, angry and bitter against my cheeks as I struggle in the bonds that hold me. My soul begins to shatter. “Please. Stop,” I beg, my chest heaving a sob that wants to be released. I need Abbi, she will make the pain go away, she will save me.

“Getting there, but not close enough,” Marcus sadistically replies. I hear the slice through the air, then the crack like thunder, as the tip breaks the sound barrier and splits my skin. I am sure it has cut me open, leaving me to bleed out. My heart is certainly aching, crying and pleading for my wife to come and save me.

Sagging in my restraints, I take blow after blow of the whip as it slowly kills me. “Please,” I mumble out, spittle falling from my lips, my arms hanging a little painfully.

“Just a few more, Leighton,” Marcus answers, dropping something to the floor.

I hear a ‘WOOSH’ in the air as something wisps around me.

A cane. A mother-fucking cane. I brace myself, knowing no matter what I do, this will hurt more than anything I have ever felt.

It hits my skin, setting off an atomic bomb against my flesh. Lightning strikes attack me, burning every pore on my aching being, splitting through my body and straight to the core of me. “Feel and forgive yourself.” I hear him instruct me through the relentless strikes against me.

The only thing I can feel right now, is my heart breaking. I can’t feel the outside pain anymore, my body is becoming numb, but inside my heart and soul I am shattering open, my wall crashing down. “You can feel it can't you? You feel the pain?” Marcus asks me and I know he is referring to the internal pain, not the blisters and welts on my flesh.

Whoosh after whoosh hits me, but I feel none of it. I can only feel my heart crashing to the floor as I imagine the pain I am causing Abigail and my family. I feel a raw hate for myself and for the animal that is controlling me.

“Let him go, Leighton. Let him free.” I drag myself up tall, using every ounce of strength I have to stand up. I feel the energy return, the hurt and anger surfacing.

I roar, like a mother-fucking lion. I bring my head up high, screaming at the top of my lungs. Everything I hold inside falls from me, the hurt, the anger, the frustration, slowly dwindling out of me. I allow myself a breather, allow myself to forget the self-hate for a while.

“Finally,” I hear Marcus say proudly as he unshackles my wrists and ankles. I drop to my knees, bringing my hands up to my face.

I cry.

I allow the tears built inside of my body, to break free. They smother me, drown me in the fear I feel. “Well done,” he tells me, wrapping a blanket around my shaking body. He sits me down, leaning against the wall. His strong arms hold me to him, my head on his lap as he strokes the back of my head. “Cry, let it out, let him out. You are not that person, Leighton. You are strong and you are loving. Abigail needs you, so you need to fight. You are getting there, you are so close. Let him leave you, let him go.” Marcus whispers as I tremble and shake in agony.

“I need her.” I cry quietly, wanting Abigail by my side. I need her, I need her warmth and her love to guide me, to keep me from falling.

“I know, and she needs you too. But you need to be completely better before you go home. I am so proud of you Leighton. You are an amazing man, don't ever forget that,” Marcus tells me, hushing my cries and holding me into his comforting warmth.

“How will she ever forgive me?” I ask him, my lips shaking with my tears.

“She will forgive you the second she sees you. She loves you Leighton. She will be happy to know you are safe and well,” Marcus informs me and I calm a little, relaxing into his comfort.

“Sleep now, Leighton. Allow the nightmares to go.” I feel my heavy eyes closing, everything overwhelming me.

“I love you, Abbi,” I whisper as I fall, darkness surrounding me.

A month!

It has been a long, dreary and depressing month for me. It has been thirty-one days since he walked away, leaving me sat in my hospital bed in utter despair. How do I even tell anyone or describe to them, the agony inside of me, the feeling of my heart slowly breaking, the cracks splitting under the unbearable pressure of everything? To wake up every morning, looking to the side of me to see if maybe he has crept back into the bed beside me and everything will be ok, or maybe this is all just some fucked up dream that I need to forget about.

I am sadly disappointed as I awake every morning to the empty, cold crisp sheets, no crumples or wrinkles from his usual presence. My entire being is non-existent, my soul having escaped its vessel and probably wandering aimlessly through the never ending array of gases and substance that creates this earth. I’m not even close to finding myself again, finding the person who I am. Leighton is gone and I can’t, I refuse to accept the fact he isn’t coming back.

Nobody has found him or seen him, he has gone off the face of the earth without so much as a tiny bit of evidence he was once here, other than the identical looking child he fathered, I wouldn’t even know he has ever existed in this world or the next.

I have been putting myself through the paces at physiotherapy, desperate to get my arm working. There is no way, if he returns, I am going to be weak. I will show him how strong I am, how much I have fought to better myself, without his help. And maybe, just maybe there is a sick satisfaction in the fact I can possibly bust his cheek up with a nice right hook, courtesy of his training.

My life had been hectic before, but now, with Maria about to pop, already suffering Braxton hicks and still a month to go, although docs think it won’t be more than a week, I am ready to pull every strand of my hair out to maybe feel some relief through the pain.

It has been far too long since I have endured his gloriously painful touch and my body is aching with a strong need to feel his hand against my raw and sore flesh, to send those delicious throbbing bolts of pleasure through me, grounding me, reassuring me I am loved and he cares for me. I need that pain, I fucking need it and he is letting me down, making me suffer in the most horrendous way I know possible.

“Snap out of it Abigail. If you are thinking about that prick again I will seriously stab you in the eyeballs. I’ve had enough of seeing you so caught up over him, he’s fucking gone, he’s left you to fend for yourself, and he can get fucked up the arse for all I care.” She strops out, she seriously has anger issues and I don’t think her hormones are completely to blame.

“He’s my husband Maria, I can’t just forget about him in a month. A piece of me has died Maria, can’t you understand that?” I ask her, as tears I swore I’d never let surface again, fill my eyes.

“Of course I can, it just infuriates me that he still controls you so much even though he’s god knows fucking where. You’re my best friend Abbi. No, scrap that, you’re my fucking sister and I know I speak for every one of us when I say that when I see Leighton I will break his dick and his fucking nose.” I can hear her giggling to herself behind me as she imagines the satisfaction she’ll get from that.

I shake my head as I wash the few dishes up from this morning. She is a crazy bitch, but she is my crazy bitch. I often wonder, with a brother like Antonio and a father that I know a bit about, what had she actually seen as a kid? Was she included in their fucked up father/son assassination sessions?

“Argghhh.” I hear a scream from behind, causing me to jolt and jump in shock. It is so out of the blue, sure she’s been grumbling and moaning a little from the false contractions but this is a little different. I look to her and she grabs her belly desperately. The bump is easily double my own during my pregnancy, if not more.

“Just breathe through it Maria. It’ll soothe soon.” I guide her as I walk around the island in the kitchen to put Melissa’s dirty bowl in the sink to rinse it off with the last few remaining bits I have left to wash.

She settles quickly, working through the agitating Braxton hicks. “Great, now I’ve fucking pissed myself.” She cries, embarrassed. I snicker trying not to laugh as it has been a regular occurrence for her, but it is no wonder with fifteen pound of baby plus fluid and placenta stuffed into her. “Could this be any more embarrassing?” she whines.

“Not the first time, hey hun?” I laugh at her, remembering the many times she hasn’t made it to the toilet in time, the force of her little Rugrats kicking her uterus and bladder, causing her to urinate.

“Ab, seriously, do you have something I could wear? I’m drenched. Argghhh, this sucks majorly, I need these two out ASAP or I might just die of humiliation. I swear, I don’t even know how those guys are still with me, I have been an embarrassing mess the last month.” I laugh at her circumstances, the fact that when Mel was born she was desperate for a baby, her hormones crazy trying to get the twins to impregnate her. Now, not so much. She hates it. I also laugh because she has been this crazy psycho bitch for more than a month.

I turn from finishing washing up the breakfast things and walk around the island to where she stands. I jump back as the puddle on the floor catches my eye. “Maria, that’s not urine sweets, that's your waters,” I inform her and her eyes bulge, looking from the wet floor to me back to the floor.

“Fucking finally.” She huffs out in relief before doubling over again, this time I know it is the real thing, the real contractions are attacking her insides and I can understand the pain she is going through. She begins to scream and cry at the top of her lungs. Tears spilling from her eyes.

I bet she wishes they’d stay put for another week now.

“Calm down Maria. I’ll call the guys. You go and get yourself in some dry clothes and I’ll bring the car round to the front, okay.” She nods and it is clear a contraction is taking its toll on her because she is puffing and becoming breathless already. I can see this labour is going to be hard on her and I am glad I will be present to keep her calm even when her boyfriends will most likely be panicking.

“Please, Ab, don’t leave me.” She looks to me, begging me with those dark brown eyes, the same as Ant's, pleading for me to stay by her side. Her fingers dig into my arm as she holds on, working herself through her contraction.

“I’ll be back in two minutes, I’m just going to run and get you some clothes to wear and call the guys, then I’ll drive you to the hospital. Sit down on the stool and don’t move. If another contraction comes, it shouldn’t, but if it does just work through it like we did just now okay. You’re going to be fine babe. Just think, soon you’ll have those two handsome little boys to cuddle and it’ll all be worth it, I promise you it will.”

“Hurry, god it aches so badly,” she says as she rubs her huge protruding belly. The sentiment makes me sad and empty, missing the feel of my own daughter inside of me, the sad thought that if Leighton never returns I will never feel that feeling again. There is no way on this earth I could allow another man near me, nobody will ever match up or be anywhere in comparison to my husband.

“I’ll be a minute Maria.” I run from the room, grabbing my phone on the way, dialling Brad as I run the stairs up to my room.

“Abs, what’s up? We haven’t seen Leigh yet,” he informs me, before I say anything.

“Get your arse to the hospital now, Maria’s in labour. We’re just leaving mine now, make sure a room is ready when we get there, she isn’t going on a ward, she goes private.” I rush out as my feet hit the stairs like a cannon, one after the other, a single purpose in mind.

“Oh my fucking god.” He almost screams through the phone.

“Now Brad, get your arse in gear, and where is your brother? Both of you to the hospital now,” I command them as I skid to a halt in my room, running into my closet to find my old maternity stuff, not like any of it would fit properly but it is better than nothing.

“LUKE!” I cringe as my ears are deafened from Brad’s deep barrelling voice.

“What?” I hear his twin’s voice. I tap my foot impatiently as I await their understanding.

“We’re going to be dads; we need to go to the hospital now. Maria is in labour.” I hear the same foul language leave his twin's mouth as he acknowledges the seriousness of the situation. Shit is becoming real and I expect that scares the crap out of them.

“Hospital now! Bring her bag she packed.” It is like I am their mother, but somebody has to take control, to get their arses into gear.

I am glad for this happening right now, it takes my mind off of the fact I have no clue where my own man is. If I can help Maria get those babies into the world safe, I know everything will be good for a while.