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102:

The shower was hot. Her bruises and scratches were just that, a wrenched arm, bruised knees and back, a welt on her face, the black eye. And they stung to be in the heat, but in the long run it felt good. She washed her hair, looked down at her concave stomach, and skinny legs, the big boobs, leaking now all down her front, and she had no nursing pads. She self expressed milk and tried not to think about how painful full boobs were. She'd had to nurse both babies, more than usual in the last seventy-two hours.

She got out, listening at the bathroom door as she dried off to Robert's voice as he cuddled the babies. Little tiny babies.... She thought, just infants. Not even a year apart. Even her mom had not had any kids as close as Hannah and Abby. Except adopted kids.... and twins...She qualified.

She dressed in Robert's shorts that tied in the front and pulled the waistband tight, his tank top and then his t-shirt, while her own clothes were being washed. He had a blow dryer, so she used it, drying her long red hair, and studying her face in the mirror.

She felt scared, so scared, a fear that wouldn't quite leave her even though she knew the main threat was gone for the moment. She was scared of the intensity of Carlos Villarino's bizarre desire to kill her and harvest her vital organs for his grandson to live.

A brother... she thought. A brother. Another brother...

Can anything I do save him? What is Fabry's disease? Her mother had told her just an hour ago on the phone that the boy, Manuel, had Fabry's disease, and that he did indeed need transplants. But her mother was optimistic. She felt that there were options for transplants that didn't include Melia and Megan.

Wasn't it weird that Carlos Villarino had twin daughters, and that their names started with M's too? Melissa and Melinda? If you took two letters out of each of those names you came up with her name, Melia. Wasn't that weird? Coincidence? Maybe that was another reason he secretly had wanted to kill her first.

But he'd wanted to kill her, or rape her, or take nasty pictures of her... she didn't know... what did those things have to do with harvesting her organs to save his grandson? The man was seriously unhinged.

And then she thought of Megan. Where was she? Her mother had only told her that neither Megan nor Maille were in the family custody. Cassie on the other hand, was safe. She never dreamed that her sisters would come after her. They had tried to negotiate her freedom. They had come because they loved her that much. Her eyes welled up with tears that choked her before raining down her cheeks. Glad she could let it out this time, she just stood over the sink and let herself cry.

A knock on the bathroom door was accompanied by a soft voice. "Mommy? You okay?"

It was Robert's voice of course; neither Hannah nor Abby could speak yet. But like all Dad's (even though he wasn't the dad) like all guys who played dad, she thought, he spoke for the baby, as if the baby would say that if he or she could.

The door opened and she gulped back the sudden onslaught of shaking and trembling that had accompanied her tears. Robert immediately set Hannah down to crawl around the bathroom floor near her mother's legs, and took Melia in his arms.

He smoothed her damp hair, cradled her carefully against his chest, and whispered soothing words into her ears. "You're okay now. It's all over. You're safe."

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