“Nina…Noooo…” Her eyes widened and she crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to take the baby. “Don’t you eventhinkabout it.”
“There’s no other way. I failed Mellie—I can’t let her son down too. Take him, Anabelle.”
“No.” She shook her head and took another step back. “Just wait. He might make it on his own.”
But if that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t know until he’d already died, and by then I couldn’t help him.
“Take him. Please don’t make me put him on the ground,Ana.”
“Nina, please…” But she held out her arms, tears standing in her eyes. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this tohim.He’s already lost his mother.”
“I need you to take care of him. Anathema will help you, and if they can’t, Eli’s people will. Tell Adam about Melanie for me. Tell him about his dad. Tell him how much he meant to all of us.”
“Nina, wait…,” she begged as I placed the baby in her arms.
“And tell Finn…” I sniffled and wiped tears from my face. “Tell him I love him.” I pulled the knife from my pocket and dropped the sheath onto the ground as I backed away from the edge of the road, toward the overgrown field beyond. “Tell him I love himsomuch. But this is how it has to—”
Gravel crunched at my back, but before I could turn to look, something whistled through the air behind me.
The world went dark again.
I woke up on the third-row bench seat, my knees tucked up to my chest. After a disorienting moment spent blinking into the dark, everything came back to me and I sat up straight, terror clawing at my insides like a cat in a cloth bag.
“Adam!”
But there was no one else in the car.
Eli had hit me. There was no other explanation for the crunch of gravel behind me before I’d lost consciousness.
I climbed over the seat and opened the back door, then stepped out into the night. Metal squealed behind me, and I turned to see the interior of Eli’s car light up as he opened the door and got out. Another silhouette sat in his passenger’s seat, and I recognized the outline of Anabelle’s hair.
“Howcouldyou?” I marched toward him, fire raging in my gut even as agony squeezed blood from my heart one miserable beat at a time. “I wanted him tolive! That wasmychoice!” Two feet from him I pulled back my fist, but Eli made no move to defend himself.
“Nina.” Anabelle pushed open the passenger’s-side door and stood. “Adam’s alive. He’s been waiting for you to wake up.”
“Wha…What?” Shock drained the blood from my face, but I didn’t believe her until I saw the squirming bundle cradled in the crook of her arm.
“He got lucky,” Eli said. “Sometimes there’s a soul or two in the well, Nina. The Lordknowswe work hard to put them there.”
“But you didn’t know he’d live when you hit me.” Anger roiled within my voice. “You were willing to let him die.”
“I was willing to keep you alive,” he insisted. “The Lord isn’t done with you, Nina. He wouldn’t have given you the gift of exorcism if he wanted you to throw it away, and I trusted that if the Lord has a purpose for Adam as well, he’d find a soul for the child.” Eli shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at Anabelle and the baby. “I guess I was right.”
I didn’t even realize I still wanted to punch him until my fist crashed into his jaw. Eli’s head rocked to the side and he stumbled back a step, but he took the blow without complaint. “I guess I deserve that.”
One punch was the veryleastof what he deserved, but…
Adam’s cry pierced the night and I turned to him, startled. And that’s when it hit me. He wasalive.
I was going to see Mellie’s baby grow up.
Anabelle smiled. “Get in the car. We can’t let him cry out here.”
I sat in the backseat, startled to see Meshara buckled in next to me, and Anabelle put Adam in the crook of my arm, then handed me a bottle. While he drank, she and Eli climbed back into the front.
“How long was I out?” I couldn’t tear my gaze from the baby’s face, and the soft little sounds of contentment he made while he ate touched some fragile part of me I hadn’t even known existed. I’d never seen anything so tiny and helpless. So utterly dependent upon the world to keep him alive.
But Adam was not born into a kind world.
