There was something satisfying about repeating it over and over, focusing on each small detail until the sweat was dripping off her nose, her body quivering, nearly unable to carry on, slowly adding more and more press-ups to the total she was capable of. She enjoyed the firmness in her stomach, the lean muscles in her thighs, the strength in her back and shoulders. If – when – she got out of here she was going to keep doing her exercises with Max.

Apart from running on the spot. She was never doing that again. She would only run in forests and by rivers and in the sunlight and fresh air.

This time, though, she couldn’t focus. It seemed pointless. Why bother? It passed the time, but other than that it didn’t help. What was the point of keeping in shape? So she could live longer? Prolong the agony of being trapped?

She stopped and sat on her haunches, watching Max run from wall to wall. If he was taken from her she wouldn’t be able to go on. All of a sudden it was clear: if he was taken, she would kill herself. One way or another, she would take her own life. Not because she wanted to die; she didn’t. She believed she would get out of this, one day, and then she would, somehow, make up for all the years she’d been in here and her life would be full of family and friends and love and affection.

She would kill herself because she couldn’t go through it again. Couldn’t fall in love with another of her babies knowing that they would be taken from her.

After Max was gone the man would stop using condoms and she would get pregnant again and this sorry cycle would repeat itself. She didn’t know why he did it. She asked him, once, but he looked away, suddenly hurt. She thought it might be that he had some twisted fantasy that they could be a family, and, if she was here long enough and had enough children it would somehow come to pass.

It would never come to pass, because this was the last time. Either she saved Max, or she killed herself. She had thought about it before, but she had always pushed the idea away, thinking maybe, sometime in the future, but not now. This time was different. She could not repeat the cycle again.

She glanced at the calendar.

Whichever it was, this was the last time.

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