Acrasia

"This is shitty," Rae said. They'd been yelling through the bars for hours, trying to get someone's attention; Britney was having a serious bout of morning sickness. Finally someone had come and escorted Rae an Britney to a nicer facility for her to hurl in. It was basically just and empty cell a few square feet smaller than their own.

"You're telling me," Britney groaned. Rae patted her gently on the back.

They sat in silence for a while. The only sounds were Britney's constant swallowing and water dripping from some unknown source. Britney dry heaved over the metal toilet and Rae held her hair, and then they sat back against the concrete wall together.

"Rae?"

"Yeah Britney?"

"How are we gonna make it out of this one?" she asked quietly.

Rae was quiet again, wondering the same thing. "I don't know. But Chris will figure it out. And Jeremy. I trust them with my life."

"What's gonna happen to us?" she asked, this time in a whisper.

"We'll be fine," she replied confidently, but deep down she was doubting it.

It's not that she didn't trust Chris and Jeremy and their dads to find a way out of this shit, but everything just seemed so impossible right now. How had this even happened? Her head hurt and her stomach was rolling, partly from watching Britney hurl for the last hour and partly from stress. But Rae didn't say anything else.

Someone knocked on their door and she saw a blonde head thought the tiny barred window. The door opened and a tall man came in and smiled stiffly at them. He had warm brown eyes and a grey 5 o'clock shadow, and the hair at his temples was frosted with white. "I'm here to take you to your cell again."

Rae glared at him and made a show of mean mugging him to let him know how much she hated him even though she didn't even know his name, and then she grabbed Britney's hand and led her out of the room with he chin up. She started walking down the hallway, but their guard stopped her.

"Sorry miss, you've been moved. Elijah feels you would be better if you we're all separated."

Rae looked at him with wide eyes and Britney tightened her hand around Rae's. "Uhm fuck no," Rae said. "We are not going to be separated, you hear me? Bring me to my husband now."

"It's orders, ma'am," he said, his face reddening slightly.

"Honestly, Hon, I couldn't care less about your bullshit orders, okay? That's my family. And I'm not leaving them and you can't make me." She walked away towards their original cell, still gripping Britney.

"No, listen, please Mrs. Huntington, it's my family too." She a turned around to look at him. "He's got my daughter," he whispered.

"What?" She asked quietly.

"My baby girl, he's got her. And if I don't do this I'll never get her back. Please," he pleaded, "you gotta just do this." He took a few steps towards her and said as quietly as he could, "I can take you messages, I can help you, but you have to do this."

He pulled something out of his pocket and thrust it in their face. It was a picture of a girl probably no older than fifteen with the same blonde hair and slim nose as him. "That's my Hannah. He hasn't touched her yet, but he will if I don't do what he says. He says he'll send her to North Korea. Please," he begged.

"Okay, mister, calm down. We'll go, but Britney's staying with me and you gotta keep me and Chris in contact, you hear me? I hate to say this, but desperate times call for desperate measures and if you don't help me then I won't help you and I don't know what will happen to Hannah."

"Thank you so much, miss, thank you."

He led them down the hall in the opposite direction of Chris and Rae's stomach did a few more somersaults. She hated having to threaten this man with his daughter, and she hated willingly walking away from Chris. She hated everything at that moment.