#10 (Part IV)

#10 Ominous Foreboding (Part IV)

     “It’s too late for that.” He said. “You’re going home, Ms. Applewhite. And you’re going to be hobbled.”

     “I’ll run!”

     “No money and no food. I doubt you’ll have much beyond the few clothes you brought along. What things you have left in your apartment will be gone forever. No. No, you won’t run.” He held up his hand so that his two fingers angled the gold circlet they pinched to catch a glint of the dim compartment light. “Not if you want your ring back.”

     My heart froze. Instinctively I looked down to the hand he had held so tightly just moments ago. A pale band of skin circled one finger, the marriage finger, where a ring is set when a woman is wed. My gaze jerked to where the man with the newspaper stood.

     Or had been.

     I heard a faint cry, a broken cry, an infant’s cry, not mine. I was desperate and voiceless.