Someone tries to push me back again.
I shove them off.
My voice doesn’t sound human when I say, “Don’t touch me. I’m not leaving her.” It’s a bark that tears out of me from the monster I lock inside, something I only ever call on for my most brutal tasks.
It’s my youngest brother who steps in front of me, Tolly’s hands raised like he actually thinks he can calm me. His face is tight with fear, panic in his eyes. He’s soft, he’s always been soft, even when he’s a complete and utter fuckhead, he’s still fucking delicate. It’s actually the thing I admire the most about him. His ability to emotionally connect, without all the savagery that comes with it when I try.
“Billy,” he says quietly, like he’s trying to speak to something wild. “You need to let them work-”
“Iamletting them work.” My voice cracks, splintering like glass behind my gritted teeth. “I’m not leaving.”
His silver eyes flick to my back, to the damp shirt I threw on when we got here, currently gluing itself to the fresh wounds carved into my spine. They burn and throb and sting with every breath. But none of it matters. Not compared to her.
Because she’s not moving.
Her chest barely rises. Her lips are losing their pretty red colour. Hair sticks to her face with sweat and blood, and she looks… too still. Too quiet. Like she isn’t here anymore.
Her soul drifting above her body, floating upwards, heading towards the veil that separates life from death.
Doctor Jay is too calm when he leans over her, voice calm and steady, “Her blood pressure is crashing. Get the transfusion started.”
My eyes are fixed on her chest, on the large curve of her belly. I don’t even hear it when something drops to the floor, the metallic clatter vibrating up through the souls of my feet.
But I do hear one sentence that drives a spike straight through my spine, “Baby’s heart rate is falling.”
My own heart stutters, stops, my lungs seize like I’ve been strangled.
The baby.
Our baby.
Our impossible, fragile, cursed and blessed miracle.
I lurch forward, and Gore grabs me to keep me from shoving everyone aside.
“What’s happening?” I choke out, Gore’s huge hands impossibly tight over my shoulders, Rune and Tolly holding my arms behind my back, dragging us all back a few more steps.
No one answers me.
They’re too busy fighting the clock.
“She’s haemorrhaging-”
“Call for more hands-”
“We’re losing time-”
“We need to get the baby out, now-”
The words fly like daggers, each one cutting something different inside me.
Then one of the medics looks up at me with eyes that have seen war, death, sacrifice, and she says the one thing I never wanted to hear in my entire life. “Either she delivers now or we lose them both.”
The world stops turning.
Everything inside me stops moving.
And I think my body might actually fall apart from the inside out.
