Chapter 78 Part 78

Chapter 78 Part 78
Merit

It was hours later when Weston opened the door again. The metallic scrape of the lock sliding back made her jolt upright. He stepped inside carrying a tray, as if this were a routine domestic visit instead of imprisonment. He set it carefully on the nightstand beside her bed.
Merit didn’t hesitate. She lunged for the open doorway, her bare feet slapping against the cold floor. She made it halfway up the narrow staircase before Weston’s arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her clean off her feet.
“Let me go!” she screamed, kicking and clawing at him. Her fingernails scraped against his skin. She twisted violently, but he only laughed—that calm, almost amused sound—and carried her back downstairs as though she weighed nothing. He dropped her onto the bed without ceremony.
“This won’t work if we don’t work together, Merit.”
“You can’t keep me down here!” she sobbed, scrambling backward against the wall. “What did I ever do to you? You could’ve just said you didn’t want a child! I only thought you’d want to know!”
Weston straightened his sleeves as if she’d inconvenienced him. “Be realistic,” he said coolly. “Someone like me would never have a child with someone like you. This child would never amount to anything resembling power—not like North. I cannot have you running to the media with this.”
“I won’t,” she cried. “I’ll keep quiet.”
“I know you will,” he replied, already turning toward the door. “Because you won’t ever leave here.”
Panic surged within her. She rushed forward and grabbed his arm with both hands. “Please. I’ll have an abortion if that’s what you want. You won’t ever hear from me again. I promise.”
Weston studied her for a moment, detached. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with you yet,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll think more clearly once the child is born. For now, this is your home.” The door closed with a loud thud and the lock slid into place.
Merit screamed until her throat burned raw. She beat her fists against the wood until her knuckles throbbed. Eventually, exhaustion replaced rage. Hunger gnawed at her stomach and overpowered pride. She ate half the food from the tray, swallowing quickly as tears slid down her face. He’d brought more water. She drained one bottle in seconds.
Sleep came in fragments. The bed wasn’t uncomfortable. There were enough blankets. That almost made it worse. The false comfort. The illusion of care. She woke abruptly to a loud thud somewhere beyond the door. Her heart leapt into her throat.
She rushed to the entrance, pressing her ear against it. “Hello? Is someone there?”
Silence answered her. She wrapped her arms around herself and slid down to the floor. She had no idea what time it was. There were no windows. No clock. No sound except the faint hum of air moving somewhere in the walls.
Eventually, exhaustion dragged her back under. When she woke again, she was certain it had to be morning—though there was no way to measure it. The tray from the night before still sat on the nightstand. Cold. Untouched beyond what she’d eaten.
Hunger clawed at her again. She began to search. In a set of drawers she found her clothes. Folded. Neatly arranged. In a storage bin she discovered puzzles, a coloring book, notepads, pens — even a teddy bear. It felt grotesque. Like he’d prepared for a long stay. Like she was expected to settle in.
She found a concealed toilet behind what looked like cupboard doors. A small shower stall sat beside it. She stripped and stepped under the warm water, letting it wash over her trembling body. For a moment, she could almost pretend this wasn’t captivity.
She refilled her empty bottle from the tap. She waited. And waited. Time blurred into something shapeless. When she woke again, nothing had changed. No new tray. No footsteps. No sound. She banged on the door and screamed until her voice cracked into hoarse fragments. She kicked the wood. She pounded her fists until they swelled.
Days must have passed. Her stomach cramped violently. The water began tasting metallic, stale. Her head spun each time she stood. Then came the pain. It tore through her abdomen with a severity she hadn’t felt before. She collapsed against the wall, clutching her stomach as blood began to trickle down her legs.
“No,” she whispered.
Her body convulsed in waves of agony. She crawled to the shower stall, turning on the water as blood pooled beneath her. She cried silently this time. Not from fear—but from knowing. Her body was rejecting the baby.
There was nothing left inside her to sustain it. She stayed in the shower until the water ran cold. After that, something inside her fractured. She began talking out loud to the empty room. Laughing at things that weren’t funny. Staring at the door as if it might answer her back.
She could feel the weight melting off her. Her hip bones protruded. Her ribs pressed against her skin. Standing made her dizzy. Sometimes black spots filled her vision. She laughed once when the thought struck her.
Weston was going to let her die down here. She began writing in the notebooks. Letters to Axl. She told him about her childhood—the parts she’d never shared. The expectations. The pressure. The loneliness. She wrote about things she wished she’d done differently. She apologized. Over and over.
She wrote to her baby. She wrote to her parents. She wrote to herself. The pages filled quickly. When the writing stopped making sense, she clawed at the wooden door. Splinters embedded themselves under her nails. Her fingertips split and bled. She didn’t stop until her strength failed.
She hummed Axl’s songs in the dark. Sometimes she could almost see him standing there. Once, she reached out—convinced he was real. There was nothing there.
As the days dragged on—or what felt like days—she could no longer rise without shaking. Even breathing felt like effort. The puzzle she’d completed remained spread across the floor. The teddy bear lay beside her pillow.
Her water bottle stayed empty more often than not. When Merit finally lay down and closed her eyes, she did not intend to surrender. But her body had nothing left to fight with. A shuddering breath left her quietly. Her muscles relaxed. Her heart slowed. It was peaceful in that final moment.
Her blood-stained clothes remained in a heap on the floor. The letters sat stacked neatly on the nightstand. The completed puzzle waited on the floor. The empty bottle rolled gently beneath the bed.
Upstairs, the world carried on. No one knew. No one wondered.
Merit Rossini would die on a Tuesday—alone, forgotten, and convinced in her final fading thought that perhaps Axl would have come if he’d known.