“Please. Please don’t hurt me. I just want to have my baby....”

“Oh, you will.” The stranger’s lips curve upward to reveal chalk-white, even teeth. “You’ll have your baby.”

Far from reassuring Heather, the words—and the smile— strike her as sinister, sending a new wave of dread shuddering through her.

She struggles to keep full-blown panic at bay, her pregnancy- swollen body tethered to the four posts of the bed. She can’t possibly escape. Even if she were left alone long enough to work the ropes free, even if she were in prime condition to run, she wouldn’t get far. She has no idea what lies beyond the door of this room. She was brought here blindfolded, at gunpoint. The blindfold is off and the weapon now concealed, but she senses its deadly presence nearby. She can’t take a chance.

And so, physically helpless, she can only search wildly for a mental way out, for some logical explanation to grasp.

The only rationale Heather’s fear-muddled brain can conjure is that she isn’t really here; this simply cannot be happening. She must be home in bed. This has to be another one of those crazy nightmares she’s been having these last few weeks, between bouts of heartburn and frequent nocturnal trips to the bathroom.

Squeezing her eyes closed, she promises herself that when she counts to ten and opens them, she’ll see familiar pink- and-white-striped wallpaper, her Beanie Baby collection, the bulletin board above her bed, still decorated with pictures from the prom with Ryan and from cheerleading camp last summer.

One...two...three... Mom made her go to camp. The year before, Heather had begged to go and Mom said they couldn’t afford it. This year, her mother somehow scraped the money together despite Heather’s protests. She wanted to stay home to be near Ryan, who was lifeguarding at a borough pool.

Of course, Ryan was the very reason Mom wanted her to get away from Staten Island for the summer. She thought they were spending too much time together. She was worried that what had happened to her would happen to Heather. No amount of begging would change Mom’s mind about camp.

“You’re going, Heather. Period.”

...four...five...six...seven...

Period. Ha. She didn’t even realize she had missed hers until she got home from camp. Overnight, she had become a walking stereotype—the Roman Catholic schoolgirl who lost her virginity on prom night and found herself pregnant. She had become her mother’s worst nightmare.

No, she had become her mother.

...eight...nine...ten!

There is no pink-and-white-striped wallpaper.

No Beanie Baby collection.

No bulletin board.

Renewed despair launches in Heather’s gut as she gazes frantically around the nondescript box of a room. Painted white walls. Dresser, chair, four-poster wooden bed. One window with the blinds drawn and plain beige curtains hanging from a metal rod.

Where the hell am I?

A wave of longing sweeps through her; longing for the frilly white priscillas Mom bought on clearance at Kmart last year. At the time, Heather complained that they were too babyish for a fifteen-year-old. Now she’d give anything to see them again. To see Mom again.

“Please...” she whimpers, succumbing to the realization that this is no nightmare.

This is real.

As her captor looms over the bed, she’s certain that her life—and her baby’s life—is in danger.

“What’s the matter? You’re afraid, aren’t you? Poor thing.”

The eyes that gaze down at her are oddly vacant, betraying no hint of human empathy. Gone is the cheerful voice that asked if she needed a hand loading her packages into the car, having given way to an eerily detached monotone.

“It’s almost over. Don’t worry.”

What’s almost over? Oh, God. Please help me.

Heather has been transformed into yet another stereotype: the pretty teenaged girl who’s disappeared from a shopping mall.

Once again, she has become her mother’s worst nightmare.

“You should calm yourself down. All that shaking isn’t good for the baby, you know.”

Oh, please. Please.

I want my mommy.

I want to go home.

“Are you hungry? What am I thinking? Of course you’re hungry. You’re eating for two, and it’s almost six. Time for dinner.”

Only six o’clock?

Hours seem to have passed since she waddled out of the mall and across the icy parking lot through freezing rain.

Heather automatically attempts to lift her left wrist to check her watch, but it’s held fast by the twine that binds her hand to the bedpost.

She whimpers in frustration, closing her eyes. A series of images rush at her.

The shocked expression in Ryan’s beautiful blue-green eyes when she told him the EPT was positive.

Bitter disappointment, etched with resignation, on her mother’s face.

A shapeless blob on an ultrasound screen, one she wished would miraculously disappear so that Ryan would reappear in her life.

But that was eight months ago.

That was before she ever heard her baby’s rapid heartbeat; before she felt the little flutters of life stirring beneath her swelling belly; before the flutters gave way to kicks and punches and sometimes, the staccato taps the doctor told her are the baby’s hiccups. Somehow, the hiccups made the whole thing seem real.

The pregnancy she once cursed has transformed into a blessing; she now longs with anticipation for the date she once dreaded. And it’s almost here.

Less than forty-eight hours until her due date.

She’s been so exhausted, and the weather was so crummy. Why didn’t she just stay home? Why did she feel compelled to make one last trip to Baby Gap and Gymboree?

Because she hated that her baby’s layette was so skimpy. Because she convinced herself that the baby would need a few more Onesies, a few more little knit caps and tiny socks...

And maybe, because some part of her longed for one last trip to the mall; longed for that link to the carefree teenaged days she’d left behind as her stomach ballooned and Ryan and her girlfriends abandoned her.

“Hey!” A painful jab in her arm startles Heather back to the horrific present. Her eyes snap open to face her tormentor once again. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you hungry?”

Oh, God. Please. Please don’t let this sick lunatic hurt me. Please.

“I want to go home.”

A surprisingly gentle hand strokes her head. “Hush. Everything will be all right.”

Hush...

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word...

The melody of the folk lullaby she’s been humming for months, whenever she’s alone, drifts into Heather’s head.

“Please. Please let me go home.”

Please. I want to rock my baby and sing lullabies. Please.

“Sorry, that’s not possible.” Her captor’s smile has been replaced by an all-business demeanor that strikes Heather as even more chilling. It’s as though there is a specific agenda, a purpose to her being here.

“What do you want to eat? Do you have any cravings? Pickles and ice cream, maybe?”

The laughter that follows is maniacal, subsiding just as rapidly as it began.

“Now, what can I make for you to eat?”

Maybe this is just a harmless crazy person, Heather tells herself. Maybe the best thing to do is go along until somebody shows up here to save her.

Wherever here is.

She has no idea which way they traveled after she was shoved into the back of a van that was parked close to her mother’s car in the mall parking lot.

The van was so damned close. Why didn’t she notice that? Why didn’t she carry her own damned packages?

Why didn’t she listen to Mom when she said never to talk to strangers?

“I’m waiting,” the stranger says now, in almost a singsong voice. “Tell me what you want to eat.”