Victim by Darden Hext (best ereader for academics txt) 📖

Frank y are you ignoring me?! We need to talk!

baby please dont do this! I need u.

i love u. dont do ths to us!!!11!

Several other texts went the same way with no response. The voicemail light flashed as she stared off.
His baby... our baby. Her hand rested on her stomach as she caressed the empty cavity that once contained the only thing that would bring them together forever--a family. Victoria refrained from crying again. He wouldn't have done this. Not Frank. Not my Frank. She dialed the voicemail.

"Victoria, Listen. I don't know what to believe. I am tired of you trying to manipulate me. Just leave me alone. I never want to see you again. I mean it."

Absorbing the words as if she heard it for the first time, she clutched the phone as the cheap plastic assembly made a creaking sound. She knew he had said it before; though she couldn't remember, the words seemed too familiar, liked they fit comfortably in place inside her mind... like a puzzle piece giving more picture to her venture for insight.
Still feeling left in the dark and wondering about the men, she dialed the unknown number.
"Flow here," a voice answered.
Victoria didn't know what to say.
"You need a vacation?"
"Vacation?"
"Yeah, some more juice?"
"More?"
"Hey, quit playin' games with me. You need some more or not?"
Victoria hung up the phone and pulled up her sleeve to observe the puncture holes. She counted closely for three. Her head throbbed as she tried to remember, but nothing came to mind. She did not understand, she never used drugs.
She felt like she came to a dead end and wanted to just lie down and die. She couldn't call Frank.
Those scumbag friends of his. They are the ones that did this to me. Victoria left the restaurant and approached a person unlocking their car in the parking lot. She asked them for a ride. The young man returned a resilient silence, but she had lied and said it was an emergency, accompanied with fake tears and biting of her lower lip. The young man agreed and drove her to where she wanted.

Jefferson and Northwest Tenth. Victoria's memory was starting to come back to her as she was entering the neighborhood she was again familiar with. The young man drove off after dropping Victoria off in front of the house. She approached the door and tried to open it. Locked. She went around to the back porch where she knew there was a spare key. The dead plant that covered the key was no longer there. Looking around, she tried to spot where else it could be. A new statue of a small dog was sitting by the door. She moved it and saw a key in its place. The key was different, the locks were probably changed to keep her from using her own set even though she didn't have it on her.
The door unlocked and she went inside from the back. The back entrance led to the kitchen; the dishes were clean and there was a vase of flowers on the table. Her heart started to pound--he never decorated like that, she always did the dishes.
It's been three days, what has he been up to without me? She continued into the house and saw a couple of small boxes in the living room of some old stuff she was familiar with. Her heart sank and started to feel dizzy again. A broken frame of a picture with her and Frank was on top of one of the boxes. She went into hallway where there was the one bedroom and a door to the bathroom.
Victoria opened the bedroom door slowly, scared of what she might see. Maybe Frank would not even be here. He might have left for work, but she wasn't even sure what day of the week it was.
The sunlight of the new morning barely lit the room and there she saw, in the bed, Frank and another woman. It felt cold and then hot and she felt like she was going to vomit again. She felt the pain in her abdomen. That pain was even worse.
Murdering bastard. She went to the kitchen, blind rage. She grabbed one of the cutlery in a wooden holster and went back to the bedroom, breathing heavy.
"How could you do this," Victoria screamed. The second person, that was not Frank, was startled and fell out of the bed. Frank sat up in shock as if he woke into a nightmare.
"What are you doing here! You are supposed to be--"
"Dead?"
"No! What?! Put the knife down, babe."
"Tell me, Frank. What were you thinking? Trying to overdose me on heroin! You tried to kill me!"
The mystery girl with Frank that was getting off the floor looked at Frank in disbelief. "I didn't tell you to kill her! I said make it look like she was using and the cops would do the rest!"
Victoria lashed at the girl, "Shut up, whore!" She looked back at Frank, "She put you up to this?
"Victoria, you did this to yourself. You left me no choice. You won't leave me alone!"
Victoria lowered her guard. She couldn't understand. "But you love me. We love each other."
"Babe, I did love you. But we have been broken up for months!" Frank got out of the bed slowly. "Give me the knife, okay?"
"You won't leave us alone! You are crazy," The mystery girl yelled in a hostile tone.
"Alexis, stay out of it, please. She's got a knife in her hand."
"Oh, the whore has a name? Alexis, is it?"
"Victoria, stop. She's my girlfriend."
Victoria's lips were quivering and Frank approached her slowly.
"You killed it," she mumbled.
"What?"
"You... killed it. The baby."
Frank's eyes lit up and stepped back. "I didn't do anything! That was my boys. They were supposed to do it clean. Please, understand I never wanted any of this to happen this way. I told them to make sure you weren't pregnant. Not... not like that."
"This baby was supposed to be our family," Victoria lifted her shirt to show Frank the battered stomach. "But you want to be with this whore!"
"Babe."
"Stop calling me that! Do you know what this pain feels like? Do you know how much pain is inside me?"
Frank couldn't speak. His lips were agape and he looked at Alexis who was crouched on the floor like she was anticipating an attack. Frank subtly shook his head at her and she forced herself to relax.
"This pain... I am going to carry the rest of my life. Because of you," her tone changed to a frightening sternness.
Frank's eyes began to water, "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, but it wasn't my fault!"
"I used to think of this moment over, so many times. I just never imagined it would play out like this. I loved you, Frank."
"Please, Victoria, let's talk this--"
Victoria thrust the knife into Frank's stomach. She watched his eyes bulge and his jaw drop. Alexis screamed and cowered in the corner some more. She pulled out the knife and watched Frank fall to the ground, coughing. Blood pooled out of his wound profusely. Alexis was sobbing hysterically in the corner while Victoria looked at the blood on the knife. She dropped it and then threw up before she blacked out.

Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep.
Victoria heard the sound of machines. She opened her eyes and saw an IV in her arm, a doctor standing next to her and an officer on the opposite side. Her right hand was in handcuffs, attached to the bed's railing.
"She's awake," the doctor said.
"Victoria Fenton. I've had my fair share of run-ins with you, but I didn't think it would come to this. You've been placed under arrest and are in official custody of the police department. As soon as you are discharged, you are coming with us," the officer nodded to the doctor and walked out of the room. He was someone Victoria had seen before several times. Her memory was almost fully back now. She remembered almost everything and what happened at Frank's seemed like only a dream. She remembered the first time Frank called the cops on her. Then, Frank had a restraining order put out on her. Victoria remembered times that would appear to be "stalkerish" and "harassing", but she only loved him.
"Victoria. My name is Doctor Johansson. You were severely dehydrated and you have a significant amount of liver and kidney damage. Heroin was found in your system. You are lucky to be alive."
Victoria started to cry and managed to ask, "What about my baby?"
"What baby?"
"Is the baby okay?"
"I am sorry, but also fortunate to say, that you were never pregnant. With the amount of heroin in your system, a baby would not have survived anyway."
"I was never pregnant? Don't lie to me," she yelled at the doctor.
"I'm sorry. There was no baby."
Victoria wanted to thrash in the bed, but began choking on her tears. The doctor continued to speak to her about her medical results and what she needed to do, but Victoria's memory took over.
She remembered being at Frank's, trying to get in the house and convince him to stay with her. She told him she was pregnant with his baby the night she got him drunk and they fooled around. A tactic to manipulate him into staying with her forever. Victoria sank with remorse.
"Where's Frank?"
Doctor Johansson's eyes wavered and he removed his glasses and curled his lip.
"What happened?"
"Victoria, I think you should just rest up and heal for now."
Victoria closed her eyes and tried to think about the good memories she had with Frank; the carnival, the concerts, the dinners, the cruise, the car show.
Frank. Victoria rubbed her stomach, no more pain, but because it moved from her stomach to her heart. The thoughts of them together turned to scarring words from their past. "You bitch!", "whore!", "You're crazy!", "We will never be together!", "Why can't you get it through your head that we will never be together!"
Victoria murmured, "I'm sorry." Imprint

Text: 2012
Publication Date: 12-01-2012

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