Chapter 4
- Before the Lobotomy-
'Christian's lesson is what he's been sold'

I ran as fast as I could, which, due to the fact I was 5 months pregnant, wasn't all that fast really. I heard yelling behind me and I tried to pick up the my pace. I got a pain in my chest and I swung around a corner and cleared a small wall. The cops following me kept running down the main street and I watched them from my hiding place in the bushes.

I lay there for a while, letting my heart beat return to normal. I felt really sick and I knew I shouldn't have run that fast, but it was either that or get caught. I wiped the sweat off my brow with a shaking hand and looked up at the evening sky. It was still tinged with a purple glow but darkness was falling quickly. I rubbed the babies bump gently, feeling the baby shift a little, I smiled. The kid was okay, it was tough. Even at this tender age, I knew this kid was going to be a fighter and that thought just made me smile all the more.

It took me a while to feel confident enough that the cops had left for me to leave my hiding place. I walked out from behind the wall and headed home, walking as fast as I could with the hood of my jacket up and my hands tucked into my pockets, shivering in the cool summer breeze. Christian would be worrying himself stupid, no doubt. I would have rung him an hour ago but my cell had run out of battery.

I opened the front door and gave a long happy sigh, pulled my jacket off, kicked my shoes off and threw my keys into the little kitsch earthenware bowl we kept by the front door.

"Honey, is that you?" Christian called from the kitchen.

"Yeah…" I replied.

Christian peered around the frame of the door, he was smiling but it was easy to see that he had been worrying about me, his eyes were red around the lids. He had a habit of rubbing his eyes until they were sore when he was worried. He held his arms out and I walked towards him, letting him hold me close to his body. Or at least as close as I could get with the growing bump.

"Where've you been?" he asked holding me gently by the arms and looking into my eyes.

I could feel the heat off his hands through the thin sleeves of my shirt. I looked deeply into his eyes and I knew I couldn't lie to him, he could see right through me… but I had to try.

"I just went for a walk." I replied, a small smile on my face.

Christian just sighed at me and fixed me with a look of concern. He stroked the wisps of hair that had fallen around my face out of my eyes, sweeping them behind my ears. His hand lingered on my cheek for a second, his fingers softly stroking my cold cheek.

"I thought you said you wouldn't do this anymore? I thought you said you'd stop, at least 'til the baby's been born." he said, his hands on my belly now.

I felt like a child being scolded and I hate to admit it… he was right.

-o0o-

Sleep came surprisingly easily that night. There was none of the usual upheaval of trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in and having to get up to pee every five minutes. It seemed for the first time that baby and I were in complete harmony, that and I was completely drained. I drifted off to sleep without a care in the world, dreaming of another place and time, Christians arms wrapped around me.

It was at 4 am they came, with their guns and their bright flashlights and their screaming and shouting. They stormed through the front and back yard doors, kicking them in, yelling for us to put our hands up and stay where we were. My heart was beating so fast that I genuinely thought it was going to burst through my ribcage. Then there was this calm silence for a moment and it seemed that the whole world was standing still, taking a deep breath before the brutality of reality came crashing down around me.

I was dragged from the bed by strong hands and I distantly heard the cop arrest me for the attempted murder of a police officer. But the one thing that made the tears fall was not the fact I was going to prison, I knew that was going to happen at some point, it was Christians screams of rage and love that tore at my heart strings. I turned to him as they roughly pulled my hands behind my back and I smiled at him. A reassuring smile that everything, for him at least, was going to be okay. He stared at me and forced his face into a look of anger sealing his lips and grinding his teeth in pure rage.

I vaguely remember being practically carried down the stairs, my knees had become weak even though I wanted to walk out of the house with pride and my head held high, it seemed like my body just wouldn't let me. When they got me outside, a crowd had formed of neighbours wanting to find out what was happening. Let them watch, I thought, let them see. They were like vultures circling the corpse of the underground movement.

But in amongst the crowd of nosy neighbours were others I recognised, their faces half hidden by hoods and scarves wrapped around their mouths. They stood their in silence, watching me. I gave a slight nod at them and they looked at each other over the heads of the crowd and turned away, walking quickly away from my house and into the dark. They'd be back at the old garage on the corner of Adeline Street, sinking whisky shots and smoking cheap cigarettes by the time I'd been bundled into the back of a waiting cop car.

I managed to see Christian before we pulled away, arguing with a cop and struggling against the grip of another, trying to get to me. I looked through the other window at the crowd, who were now yelling for the cop to hit him and I just sank into despair. It was enough to make you sick, watching them bay for his blood practically. It was just another form of entertainment for their media warped minds. Like war was not enough for them, they had to have it on their front doorsteps. Well… that would soon be arranged.