Leilanie tented her knees up under the sheets. “I read you’re supposed to keep your knees bent to help keep the baby. I can hardly wait to have it. Omar said you didn’t want to have children.”
“Not his, for damn sure,” Michelle muttered.
“Omar really likes you, you know? But now that I’m having his baby, he’ll probably marry me,” Leilanie said.
Dream on, Michelle thought, peeking out in the hallway.
“He said he’ll love me, even when I’m huge with the baby.”
“Look, not to burst your bubble, but Omar is married,” Michelle said. “And you’re not having one baby. They implanted three eggs, or embryos, if that’s what they are now.”
“What? What! That’s a lie.”
Michelle gave a gigantic sigh. If she wanted to cause a rift between Omar and Leilanie, she could do it. Give Omar some major discomfort the next time he saw Leilanie.
She turned around and went over to the bed, sitting on the edge of it. Opening her purse, she pulled out the white envelope. She took out the pictures, spreading them on the bed. Beside the pictures she placed the marriage document on the bed and shined the laser light down on the pictures and marriage certificate.
Leilanie grabbed up one of the pictures of Omar and Michelle, squinting in the light that Michelle shined down on it. She was shaking her head in denial. She picked up another one of Omar in his tux, and Michelle in the wedding dress, standing in front of a minister on the beach.
“Fakes,” Leilanie whispered. “He’d tell me if he was married. How could he do this without me knowing? I lived with him.”
“It happened last night,” Michelle said. “I was drugged and forced into the marriage ceremony.”
She could see fat tears flooding Leilanie’s eyes. They slowly dripped down her cheeks. She was shaking her head, like she still didn’t believe it.
Michelle went on, “Then my eggs were stolen in an operation today. I only have a few because Omar had me raped by Samson a couple of years ago. You remember him? The big guy Omar employed. He hurt me so badly I lost an ovary and the doctors didn’t think I could ever have children.”
Leilanie was still shaking her head. She picked up the marriage certificate, tears falling on the document.
“So, Leilanie,” Michelle said, “If you’re getting angry now, you can leave this place with me. Start your life all over again, without Omar.”
“Three babies?” Leilanie whispered. “I just wanted one. Mine. With Omar.”
“Forget that sociopathic man. He’ll just use you, and continue to hurt you.”
“But I love him,” Leilanie said, elongating the word ‘love,’ like a teenager in desperate puppy love.
Michelle sighed in exasperation. Love is blind when you’re young, she thought. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” Leilanie said, her voice shaky. “How can I have three babies? If I don’t stay with Omar, where can I go?”
Michelle shook her head. “You must have relatives. There are choices now, Leilanie. One is not to have those babies. Choose wisely. I need to leave now, if you don’t want to get out of here with me.”
“I have to talk to Omar. I’m not going to leave. I don’t believe you,” Leilanie said defiantly, but she sounded shaken.
Michelle paused in the doorway and turned around. “Ask Doni, the nurse, about how many eggs were surgically implanted inside you. She’s the one who told me there were three. And you’re not the only one Omar plans to impregnate. Omar took my eggs so he could implant them into several women. Several of his so-called witches. Those women will just be surrogates, like you, used for the propagation of his progeny. He thinks he can have children with special psychic abilities. They’d probably be as deceitful, devious, and evil as he is.”
As Michelle walked down the corridor, she heard Leilanie sobbing behind her. It was sad, but that little girl had to wake up and really take a look at what Omar was doing.
Michelle saw Dondi was busy in a patient room when she passed by. That was good. She’d be gone before anyone noticed she was missing.
There were windows in the rooms she passed and some ambient light showed in the hallway, enough for her to make her way down the hallway and past the nursing station. The woman there said, “Where are you going? Are you a patient?”
Michelle ignored her and continued on past the desk.
Since there was pounding and shouting from the elevator she couldn’t use that method to leave; she needed to find a stairway to the lobby. She saw an unlighted exit sign and headed for it. When she opened the door, all was totally black. She used the laser light and saw steep steel stairs descending down to the other floors.
Michelle grabbed the handrail and started down.
Chapter 16
Omar’s use of power that caused the electrical blackout at the clinic made him a little weak. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. A major use of psychic ability like that sapped his strength for a couple of minutes. He leaned over, hands on his knees, breathing deeply.
Like sparkling water filling a goblet, he felt the power and refreshing energy entering back into his limbs.
He looked through the glass doors of the clinic, but instead of seeing the radiant electrical auras from four people in the lobby, there was now only a muted glow from the woman sitting at the reception desk. Where had Rod, Vincent and Heather gone? he wondered. Maybe they were searching for Michelle. That would not be tolerated.
Next priority: stop them. The method didn’t matter. Too bad they weren’t all stuck in the elevator. Causing a little malfunction would be child’s play. Dr. Franz was in the elevator, though, and as Michelle’s doctor, he was valuable. The others were in for some nasty surprises.
Omar walked directly through the doors of the clinic. He didn’t have to be buzzed in,
