“Adam,” I said, and when I looked up, I saw tears standing in Anabelle’s eyes.
“After his father,” she whispered, and I nodded.
“He’s a Kane, and he’ll always be a Kane, but he’s also part Yung.”
Anabelle warmed a wet wipe between her hands, then gave me the package to warm with my own body heat while she carefully and systematically cleaned the baby. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought she’d done it a thousand times, but the truth was that she and Melanie had done all the reading they could, and Anabelle had obviously learned even more from our time with the Lord’s Army.
Adam cried until his bath was over and she swaddled him in the clean, soft T-shirt I’d laid out. In all the raids we’d carried out since escaping—being driven?—from New Temperance, we hadn’t come across a single article of infant clothing, and the half-dozen baby blankets Melanie had collected were still somewhere in the back of the cargo truck. That old, soft shirt was the best I had to offer Adam.
That and a few minutes spent in the care of the aunt he would never know.
Anabelle put him in my arms, and the sound that bubbled up from my throat was half sob, half laugh. Adam wassobeautiful. He had his father’s straight, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, but his irises were all Mellie. Light brown, almost golden, those eyes blinked up at me, and for a second I felt as if I had my sister back. As if I’d never failed her and her baby.
“Oh, your mother would have given anything to be here with you now,” I whispered as tears rolled down my cheeks. “She loved you so much. She would have done anything to keep you.”
“Nina.” Anabelle laid one hand on my arm, staring at the baby as he stared up at me. “We need to do something about Meshara.”
“She can wait.” I couldn’t look away from Adam’s precious face. “She’s not a threat anymore.” And I wasn’t looking forward to burning a hole through my sister’s chest.
“We really shouldn’t put it off,” Ana insisted. “When the sun goes down, light could draw degenerates, and we don’t exactly have shelter out here.”
I made myself meet her gaze. “I don’t have much time with Adam, and I want him to spend all of it staring at my face. Listening to my voice. That’s as close as he’s ever going to get to meeting his mother.”
“But…”
I shook my head, then sat in the cargo area and tucked my feet up onto the upholstery. “Just close the hatch so nothing can sneak up on us.”
Anabelle carefully closed the back of the SUV, leaving me wedged into the narrow rear of the vehicle with just enough space to cradle Adam comfortably. He seemed content for the moment, even with nothing to suck on, so I decided not to worry about the fact that we hadn’t found either of the pacifiers Melanie had collected from the same shipment that had given us several canisters of powdered baby formula. Which were also in the delivery bag, unless I’d missed something in our luggage.
Having done what he could for Meshara, Eli was outside, going through our things for any baby supplies we might have missed—not that that he thought we’d actually need them—and packing what we couldn’t do without into the car he and Anabelle had driven.
The SUV’s rear passenger’s-side door opened, and Anabelle climbed over the middle bench seat to settle sideways in the third row, from which she could peek into the cargo area for glimpses of Adam.
“He’s so sweet,” she whispered, and I nodded as the baby’s eyes fell closed.
I tensed for a moment, afraid that he’d already slipped from the world after less than fifteen minutes spent in it. But then his tiny chest rose and fell, and I realized he was just napping. I resisted the urge to wake him up so I could stare at his eyes, because I was afraid that would make him cry, and we had nothing with which to console him.
We didn’t even have any of the cloth diapers Melanie had made. Not that I would have known how to put them on, anyway. Hopefully, Eli would know what to do about that.
“I wish Mellie could have seen him. I wish he could have seen her.”I wish he wasn’t about to lose his last living relative.
Tears filled my eyes, and every time I blinked them away, they came back. I had to clench my jaw to hold back the sob fighting to be heard. The knife sheath poking me through my pocket was a constant reminder of what little time we had together and exactly how it would have toend.
Then, suddenly, Adam’s whole body tensed.
“Ana!” I whispered, terrified, and when her eyes flew open, I realized she’d dozed off, sitting straight up.
“What?”
“He just went really stiff. I need you to take him.” Adam’s tiny face blurred beneath the tears filling my eyes. “I think this is the end.”
Ana pulled herself up onto her knees and peered over the bench seat. “He’s still breathing,” she whispered, and when I blinked to clear my vision, I realized she was right. “He probably just messed in his blanket. Here.” She handed me the package of wet wipes. “Why don’t you clean him up while I see if Eli found anything else for him to wear.”
She got out of the car before I could object, and in my head the seconds ticked away. Seconds Adam couldn’t afford.
If I didn’t act soon, my sacrifice would be for nothing.
I pressed the lever to fold the right side of the bench seat in half, then laid the baby on the nearly flat back of the chair.
