Helanie:
"You should have sat in the back seat. You must be so restless." The Kaye who had abducted me was starting to soften toward me.
He had said the same thing at least twenty times in the last ten minutes before we started our journey again.
"It’s okay. I told you I want to sit with you," I reminded him, repeating my answer from earlier.
"Anyway, is there anything you want me to do?" he asked, sounding different this time.
"No, it’s fine," I replied, though I was breathless. I was still in pain, and my back hurt the most.
"You know what?" He suddenly stopped the car and turned to me. "Let me give you a foot massage," he suggested as he got out of the car and went through his things.
He didn’t have anything that could help with a massage, so he walked over to my side, opened the door to let me breathe some fresh air, and then just stared at me in confusion.
"You know how to work with herbs. You can get me any herb and it will work," I told him. He looked shocked at first, then nodded and started to walk away.
We had no reception, so there was no way I could call for help, and I couldn’t run in my condition.
Soon he came back with some herbs he had gathered and began making a paste out of them in a wide-necked bottle’s cap. Kneeling in front of me outside the car, he started to massage my feet.
"These herbs are known to have healing properties. They can ease the pain for a while, but they’ll make you sleepy," he explained.
When he finished massaging and said that, I immediately regretted letting him do it. I didn’t want to fall asleep for the rest of the trip when I could still aim for his heart.
That was the biggest mistake. As soon as he finished massaging me and got up from the road, I began to feel very sleepy.
He hadn’t been wrong about the herbs easing the pain, instantly, I felt as light as a feather.
My back didn’t hurt anymore. There was no pain at all. I even felt like I wasn’t pregnant. That was how comfortable I became.
I sat in the chair, drowsy and unable to speak, while Kaye spread out blankets and laid a mattress in the back. Then he returned to the passenger seat, took my hand, and helped me up.
"No, I don’t want to sleep," I protested. How could I explain why I didn’t want to?
"You must. You look tired and heavily pregnant," he said, reminding me of what I already knew.
I was just as confused as him about how I had gotten pregnant, and how I had become so big in just a single day.
He laid me down in the back, placed a pillow under my head, and covered me with a blanket.
He made sure the mattress was arranged so I wouldn’t fall. And then I drifted into a deep slumber.
"Kaye, please, you need to stop the car right now. You’ll regret it if you go through with this plan," I pleaded from the back. But when he didn’t listen, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
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