My heart was practically pounding out of my chest to know what she was about to tell me.
"Well, I have your bloodwork," Emily sighed. "You have a higher hormone level. Which tells me you are likely pregnant or it's the birth control. To know for sure, we need to do an ultrasound."
"Okay." My world was crushing me to hear these results.
"Follow me," she instructed. "I'm going to do your ultrasound."
Orlando and I followed her around several units. Until we reached that department where they do the images.
"I'll be outside," Orlando said as he was about to take a seat.
"Can you please come in with me?" I softly asked. "I can't do this alone and I don't wanna be alone."
Orlando encircled me in his arms and kissed my forehead gently. "No matter what happens you won't be alone. I'll take care of you and this baby as my own."
Emily smiled and then Orlando led me in. I laid back on the bed and lifted my shirt. She squeezed this gel on my belly and then started the ultrasound. Orlando held my hand as we all studied the screen. Yet I was shocked to see my womb was empty. She checked everywhere and it showed I wasn't pregnant.
I breathed a huge sigh in relief but I noticed Orlando and Crystal's mom sneered at the screen strangely. There was an unpleasant feeling coming from them and I didn't understand it.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, perplexed and slightly scared.
"Nope, you certainly aren't pregnant," Crystal's mom smiled at me but her smile is like a cloaked smile as if she wasn't telling something.
She cleaned up the gel and we went back to the patient room to talk.
"So I think your body is thinking it's pregnant whenever you aren't pregnant," She tried deciphering. "It's like a false pregnancy. It's more common to happen with animals. But women are known to experience it too."
"Then what about my vomiting?" I asked, lost as ever.
"It's stress-related," Emily said. "So what I'm going to do is put you on a different birth control pill to settle your hormones down. And might I suggest that you relax. You're overworked and you don't need to rush anything. My brother doesn't mind you living in his mansion."
"Thank you for everything," I smiled and felt so much better.
~~~
We arrived back at a much fuller mansion. Mr. Mill, Mrs. Mill, their family members, friends, and servants returned home from their vacations.
"Victoria, I am so glad you've returned home to us," Mrs. Mill hugged me tightly.
I smiled, "I'm just going to be staying until I can find an apartment."
"You don't have to leave," Mr. Mill offered with a newspaper in his hand. "You're always welcome to stay here."
I smiled, "I know I just need to get my life together."
"You've always been very responsible," Mr. Mill smiled, handing me the newspaper. "Why don't you check out the newspaper? If you don't find anything. You can stay for however long you wish."
I appreciated everything that he was doing for me. "Thank you."
"Everyone's in that entertainment center." Orlando asked, "would ya wanna head there? You can borrow my phone to call some places."
"Sounds good, Orlando." I walked alongside him through the mansion. We reached the entertainment center. Which was your basic adult entertainment. It had a bar, a pool table, a foosball table, a ping pong table, and this ginormous flat-screen TV hung on the back wall.
Max and Alejandro were playing pool with a few other friends. Zach and a few other guys were at the tv watching this new station broadcasting live from Egypt. I guess they found an area behind an excavation site that had all these ancient bodies buried in the sand.
I took a seat at the bar with Orlando and we started to check out the available apartments to live in. While I did my best to ignore what the TV was saying. Any other day, I'd be glued to the screen to see what was being unearthed from an ancient dynasty.
~~~
"Rent would be over 998," the cranky landlord said over the phone. "And there is no kitchen and if you break anything you pay for it."
"Ok, thank you for answering my questions," I said, putting an x-mark over the flier when I ended the call.
"I guess that one is a no," Orlando smiled at my stressed face.
It took me an hour to call everyone available in this newspaper. Either the rent was too high and most of them weren't full apartments and a few of them were shared with roommates which were only single men. That was certainly a no go for me. The last thing I need is to live with another man. It's bad enough I'm back with Orlando.
"Why don't we take a break for today," Orlando suggested, taking back his phone.
"Yeah, come check out what's going on in Egypt," Zach said from the couch. "You wouldn't believe what they found behind that ancient city you excavated in."
Ok, now that caught my interest.
"What's going on?" I asked, walking over and then sat by Crystal who came in a little bit ago. "Is Mr. Collin digging up behind the city?"
"Nope, a different team," Crystal enlightened me. "Mr. Collin owned the old city but a different man owns the old city's farmland. He decided to send in a team to dig around. They found the whole population of the ancient people that once lived in that city you excavated in."
"No way!" I said, shocked and I remember there weren't any bodies in that city. Other than that 22-year-old pregnant girl and those demolished mummies that were ripped apart by grave robbers.
"That's not even half of it," Zach claims.
"What else is there?" I asked while I saw the team on the tv showing tons of very old bones.
"They determined the whole city was murdered," Zach revealed.
"What!" I was shocked. "Everybody?"
"Yup, everyone including children and infants," Crystal frowned. "They think it was a war but they aren't sure because none of the victims were killed by a sword and there were no signs of a battle."
"That's crazy," I said, fixated on the screen.
"What's more crazy is that almost every bone they found had these sharp pointy teeth dug into their neck bone or somewhere else that would be fatal enough to kill them," Alejandro shared.
"Like fang marks," I muttered and everyone watching nodded their heads and no one's eyes left the screen.
'You've woken the blood-sucking monster!' That murdered Egyptian girl's voice emits in my head.
"Imposter..." I whisper real low as I remembered that hidden message.