“You’re a walking bloodbath and this makes you nervous?”
He grins, sharp. “Never seen someone freshly born before. Kinda fucking weird.”
Julian circles back to us, perching on the edge of a vinyl chair that squawks under his weight. He leans in. “Hopefully the Board is so fucked up from the battle, they don’t have time to send someone in to grab the baby.”
I arch a brow. “Aside from the Kings, who do they have?”
He rolls his own. “Girl, you have no idea how deep the Academy stretches and how much they control.”
“Enlighten me.” I say.
“Maybe Bam can. Some post-coitus hush hush in the dark.”
He lets the conversation die and resumes his pacing. I wonder if he’s rehearsing the next move. He seems to be the one who writes the final lines.
Another scream. This one cracks at the top, then dies off. There’s a beat of silence so pure it rings.
Bam stands, dragging me up with him. I don’t resist. My feet are cold and I’m still wearing the borrowed clothes, but I’ve stopped feeling like a runaway in them. Now I’m just… present. Here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.
The Pineridge boys stiffen. Slade rubs the back of his neck and mutters, “Any second now.”
I count the seconds: four, five, six. The world holds its breath. Then—
The wail of a newborn.
The sound slices through everything—the blood, the bone, the history—and for a second, nobody in the corridor moves. I imagine this is how you feel when the gun goes off at the start of a war: shocked, relieved, terrified.
The door swings open a few moments later. Caius steps out, shirt untucked, blood on his sleeve, a pale yellow blanket cradled in his arms. For a second, he doesn’t see any of us. His whole world is the tiny bundle pressed to his chest.
He looks different. Not weak, but stripped down to something that’s almost human. There are beads of sweat in his hair, and the lines around his eyes have gone soft. The ice is gone from his face. He looks down at the baby, and the look is so raw it’s embarrassing.
He takes a single step forward, then stops.
“It’s a girl,” he says, voice breaking on the word. “She’s perfect. O is fine, just taking a few moments. Said I could show her off before she wants her back.”
The hallway erupts. Not with shouts, but with a low, rolling wave of sound: laughter, clapping, even a cheer from Slade that echoes down the hall. Someone throws a fist in the air. Julian punches the ceiling, actually punches it, leaving a crater in the drywall.
An elevator dings and a hesitant nurse steps onto the floor, eyes wide as she scans the bodies before she straightens her back and walks over them towards Caius. She tries to shush us, but even she is smiling, eyes going wet as she looks at the baby. “Congratulations,” she says, and Caius nods, not looking up.
He brings the baby down the hall, slow, as if afraid he’ll drop her or break her just by moving too fast. His friends part, bowing their heads as he passes. Stopping in front of his cousin, they whisper something in hushed tones before he nods and carries on toward us.
He stops in front of us.
The baby’s face is wrinkled and red, lips pursed in an offended O. Her eyes are clamped shut, but her fists are up, balled tight. The blanket is too big, making her look even smaller. Caius stares at her like he’s afraid to blink and miss something.
Julian leans over Bam’s shoulder, peering at the bundle. “She looks like a pissed-off potato,” he says, but there’s real awe in his voice.
Bam grunts. “You look like that after a fight.”
Caius ignores them both. He looks at me, and for the first time ever, he’s not posturing, not playing chess three moves ahead. He’s just… grateful.
“She’s alive,” he says, “thank you. For ending it.”
I nod, swallowing. “You did it.”
He smiles, small and broken. “We did it.”
He lets the others gather around, everyone jostling for a better look. The baby stops crying, just for a second, and the silence is somehow louder than her wails.
