I’ve never been allowed to study it before. Slowly, I nod. “Okay. Is it crazy to assume we’ll get the fetalheart rate at the same time we look at the baby, instead of using the handheld Doppler?”
“Right you are.” My father gives an approving smile as he pushes a button and the screen flickers to life. There’s some text on the screen and he leans in, fiddling with a dial and a few buttons. “In addition to the fetus’s heart rate, we’ll also be able to confirm the position of both fetus and placenta, though I did already feel the head is down.” His lips twitch. “I think you’re going to enjoy this.”
I let out a low whistle to disguise the discomfort creeping down my spine. “It must have taken you some time to learn how to use this.”
“Well, yes. But I’ll teach you.” He points to a bottle then Twenty-Two’s swollen belly. “Squirt some of that gel on her for me, would you? It helps reduce friction and eliminates air pockets. Ultrasound waves don’t travel well through air.”
My brows shoot up, wondering if my father has any medical texts that’ll help me understand better, but I do as he says. Soon, all the questions I have fly from my head as I watch him work with the equipment.
Touching the transducer to her belly, it slides easily through the slick gel. He flips a lever and all of a sudden there’s sound, the gentle, but rapidwhoosh, whoosh, whooshof the baby’s heartbeat fills the room.
My eyes flick to the screen, realizing that an image has appeared. It’s a mangled mess of black and whitethat makes no sense to me, but my father seems content enough as he continues to work.
“I don’t understand what we’re looking at.” My brows furrow as I watch the rapidly changing image.
“Basically,” Nolan says after a pause, “the equipment produces sound waves that, in turn, echo from internal organs and tissue before sending signals back and relaying them on the screen. That’s what you’re seeing.” He points to a spot on the display. “See? There’s a little face. Eyes, nose, mouth.”
My brows dart upward. “Oh.”
“If the babe cooperates, we might get a glimpse of the sex. It can be tricky.”
“And the cheek swab and blood testing that you told me about? When—?” My mouth snaps shut on my question at the sudden grim look that comes over my father’s features.
He glances up from the screen before quietly murmuring, “I’ve already done that testing.”
My eyes widen as realization dawns. He’s already done it. “The last time you took a sample from us. That’s what you were doing.”
He spares me only the barest glance. “Yep.”
“I didn’t realize…” My head tangles as I attempt to make sense of all that. “But how does that work? How do you?—?”
There’s an uncomfortable beat before he answers. “We send the samples off to a lab.”
“Oh,” I mumble, digesting that information.
And then, to my surprise, he continues quickly, “Itwas one of the errands Finneas was due to complete on his supply run.” His lips press together, agitation rising. “Of course, we won’t know the results until we can get back to pick them up.”
And suddenly, it’s blatantly obvious why the Collective has been so fucking out of sorts about the bridge. It was never about the lack of ability to get supplies. I’d thought it was curious that we have the capability to sustain ourselves for months on end and then they’d been thrown into a fucking state of panic over having to rebuild the bridge. Granted, it’s been awful to feel like we were cut off and unable to procure more supplies, but it shouldn’t have been nearly the emergency it’d been made out to be.
Finneas must really want to know who this child belongs to for him to be pushing so hard for us to rebuild so quickly.
That realization leads to a whole host of other questions. Why? What does it matter?What’s mine is yours and all that…
But it does matter because while they don’t ever discuss it, I know they named Finneas as leader because he’d impregnated One and Two almost simultaneously at the very beginning. Hayze and Dragan were born the same month, just days apart. The other three weren’t successful in their attempts at procreation until many, many moons later.
A knock on the door interrupts any further thought on the matter as well as anything else my father might have told me. He tears his gaze from thescreen, clearly agitated, then bites out, “Enter,” before continuing to sweep the transducer over Twenty-Two’s stomach.
The door swings open to reveal Delilah standing there with Eight behind her. My heart thumps wildly at the appearance of my blonde-haired fury.What the fuck is she doing here?Our eyes meet and lock before she remembers herself and lowers her gaze to the floor.
“You may come in, sweetheart,” my father rasps. “We’re ready for you.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
DELILAH
My blood pumps so hard,it throbs inside my head, a relentless beat that has my anxiety creeping higher by the second. I scan the room from under my lashes. Twenty-Two calmly lies on an exam table, buck naked and legs spread wide like an eagle’s wings by those fucking stirrups—the same ones that have appeared in so many nightmares since I was restrained there myself. Swallowing hard, I realize these crazy fuckingbreeders, I guess I’ll call them,have an ultrasound machine. The intense ill-contained excitement on Nolan’s face can’t conceal the fact that he’s enjoying this processwaytoo much.
Cross’s back is ramrod straight as he observes, all while carefully keeping his gaze from landing on me. I want to scream at him to look at me, to help me through whatever is about to happen in this sterile room. But he’s making it blatantly obvious that he won’t be doing anything of the sort. Jaw musclepopping, he gestures to the screen he and his father are studying with rapt fascination. Nolan moves some sort of instrument over Twenty-Two’s expansive stomach, angling it this way and that, brows furrowing in concentration.
