I look down at my hugely distended stomach. I already look nine months pregnant. And just then, a horrible thought strikes, and I turn around to look up at Abaddon. “How long do angel-spawn babies or whatever gestate anyway? It’s still just nine months, right?”
And still, looking down at myself, I can’t imagine growing bigger in the next three months. I won’t be able to walk.
Which is when I look back just in time to catch Abaddon’s eyes flick toward Thing, who looks to Romulus, who shrugs.
My eyes shoot open wide. “What doesthatmean?” I shriek. “Oh my god, we need to go get an ultrasound. We need to find out what’s happening in there.” My hands fly to my stomach.
“I thought you didn’t want to?—”
“Well, now I do!” I yell. “I don’t care if we have to terrify some clinicians somewhere, I have to see what’s growing inside me!” I yell.
Grabbing the chair for support with one hand and the table with the other hand, I gingerly heft myself to my feet. “What are we going to do when the baby comes? We need an action plan. How have we not made an action plan?”
Abaddon takes my hand. “Breathe. Just breathe. It will all be all right. Romulus will go get a doctor.”
I pause my pacing and look at him. “Really? But how?”
“I’ll kidnap one.” But it’s Remus’s voice I hear, and when I turn and look, it is indeed the maniacal-faced twin grinning at me.
“Dear god, don’tkidnapsomebody—” But my sentence is cut off when a pain lancing through my stomach has me grabbing for Abaddon and screaming.
I’m almost knocked off my feet by the sudden, wrenching pain of it, but Abaddon catches me.
And then suddenly, a pool of water releases and gushes at my feet.
I shake my head in terrified denial. “I can’t have this baby now. It’s too early!” I think it is, anyway. I look at Abaddon and scream in his face, “Get me to a hospital. Now!”
“What will they do at a hospital,” Remus asks from behind me, “if you deliver a monster baby?”
My eyes go wide, and my nails dig into Abaddon’s arms as I imagine nurses screaming in fright and running as the head of my sweet little baby crowns… horns and all.
Plus, if we go to a hospital, I won’t be able to have Abaddon at my side. I can’t do this without him. I can’t?—
Pain tears across my stomach again, and I screech, clawing for him. His strong arms are there instantly, closing around me and holding me close. “Fuuuuuuuuuck!” I holler.
“Get her to the bedroom!” Thing shouts.
Abaddon hefts me into his arms and starts to run. As soon as I have my breath again, I yell over his shoulder to Thing, “Boil some water!”
And then I screech again, this time not from a contraction, but because Abaddon leaps, with me still in his arms, out thewindow!
I scream directly into his ear as he flies the six stories up and back in through the window of our bedroom.
“Why didn’t you take the stairs?” I yell at him as soon as he lands and deposits me on the bed.
“Faster,” is all he says, helping to get me situated.
I would yell at him some more, except right then another contraction hits.Too soon, toofast, I think, but then I’m screaming and clutching my stomach to be thinking about anything else than combating the pain.
I can’t say I’m delighted when Thing and Remus appear in the bedroom minutes later. My dream birthing scenario certainly never included having my brothers-in-law present.
But I don’t know anything about what’s going on.
I don’t know if this labor is premature.
Or if this is the kind of birth I’ll be able to survive.
Or if?—
