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"TellIzel do this to you?"

I shook ain I didn’t want to tell his that Javier would do to her would be worse than death, and then she would take it out on the other girls Javier didn’t protect the other girls like he protected ame But the hest bidders, not even Izel would hurt or disfigure because she shared the profits they brought But the other girls, the ones that no one had bought, those who had physical flaws or ouldn’t succuame And Izel was a dirty player

More pain rackedmy neck to come off the back of the tub and my arms to collapse around my belly My eyes clenched shut,blood in the back of

Javier rose into a standing position i it open and calling out in Spanish to his uard, "Get the doctor! Apúrate!"

I doubled over,my stomach I screamed out in the small space "Javier! It hurts bad! Javi--"

Minutes later that felt like hours and I was being whisked out of the bathroom and into our bedroom Javier laid me down upon our bed Five women entered the room--the same ones who delivered my stillborn thirteen months previously--with clean towels and water and other sterilized supplies

Javier moved away from the bed and went toward the door

I reached out my hands to him "Javier, please…don’t leave me here alone" Tears streamed down my cheeks, tears not so much from the physical pain now as it was fro to leave "Please…"

He looked across the rooh brown, almost black pools; flashes of his dark brown hair and handso in and out ofin a hurried fashion to deliver one

I stared at that door--angry and sad and lonely--for as long as I could, until another contraction ca ave birth, but to a boy or a girl, I didn’t know

I reached out my hands for it after they’d cleaned it up and wrapped it in a blanket Its tiny cries filled the room and my ears and my heart The nurse just looked at me with my baby in her arms, her broeathered face framed by black curly hair and black eyes, held absolutely no emotion

"Por favor…let me have my baby"

The woman turned her back tome up

"Javier!" I cried out I screamed his name so loudly, over and over until I was hoarse "Javier! Por favor! Por favor!" Tears barreled from my eyes "Mi bebé…," I cried out softly just before I passed out from exhaustion

Nora looks atfull of so I never quite expected--sadness and shock, maybe

I feel so ashamed that I can’t even look at the hidden cauilt, only able to wonder what Victor ht now