Chapter 107 Beseech Ii

• Judge’s [POV]
• Late the next morning, I check on Mercedes. I slipped out of bed with the sun, but she didn’t even stir. I know she must be exhausted. As she said, her body is working hard to make two little humans. A boy and a girl. A bubble of something like happiness erupts in my chest at the thought. I close the door behind me, and she still doesn’t move. She’s in much the same position she was in when I left her earlier today, curled into where I was lying, her face on my pillow now, hand where my heart would be. She breathes quietly, her expression relaxed, and it makes her look younger than she is.
• I think about how she came to be here, in my house. In my keeping. How I took her from the compound bound and blindfolded. How I stripped her bare in every way and broke her in ways I didn’t intend to. I think about how strong she was throughout all of it. All the humiliations, the hurt, the sadness, the pain, the attacks. How strong she is. Stronger than me, I think. I don’t know if she realizes how much I learn from her as I consider how far she’s come. Who she is now. Those women at The Society wouldn’t recognize this Mercedes.