There were no cars, no obstacles, nothing but two trucks and four people and a world that was suddenly too small for what was happening.
I took my eyes off the mirror and focused on the road. The horizon was flat and endless, the sky so blue it hurt. But the space inside my chest had compressed to the size of a bullet.
I hit speed dial on the hands-free. The hospital answered on the first ring.
“OB. Black Butte General. This is Jane.”
“O’Reilly,” I said, “I’m inbound with a six-month omega, water broke, contractions less than two minutes. We’re twenty out, running hot. Send someone to the lot to meet us.”
“Copy,” she said, cool as ever. “Name?”
“Stinson. Joseph.”
She repeated it back, then said, “We’ll be waiting. Tell your driver not to park like last time.”
I almost smiled, but the next contraction started—audible even through the closed windows and the distance between the trucks. Jojo’s scream echoed in my ears, bright and raw.
The drive to Black Butte General was a war zone made of asphalt, loose gravel, and the fear-sweat of men who had never learned to stop pushing the red line.
I tailed Rawley’s F-150 with the Dodge idling ten feet behind his bumper, both rigs spitting dust like it was napalm. For a while, the world was nothing but vibration and engine noise, the inside of the cab pulsing with the drone of the tires and the high-pitched whine of my own blood in my ears.
Carter sat shotgun, hands braced on the dash. I watched him in the periphery, saw the way his gaze tracked the horizon, his free hand drifting compulsively to rest over the gentle curve of his belly. His knuckles went white every time we hit a rut, but he never said a word.
Rawley set the pace—seventy, then eighty, the needle climbing in direct proportion to Jojo’s screams. Through the windshield, I could make out Jojo’s head, flung back against the headrest, and the flash of Rawley’s hand as it left the wheel to steady his mate’s thigh.
We hit the two-lane blacktop. Instantly, the F-150 accelerated. I matched his speed, keeping formation, every sense strung taut. For the first time in years, I felt out of control—not just of the truck, but of time itself. It was collapsing around us, folding the future into a handful of heartbeats.
A mile marker flew past. Another. At the county road intersection, a white sedan rolled up to the stop sign. Rawley never slowed, just blasted through the cross, the sedan lurching to a halt and nearly skidding off the shoulder.
I swerved, missing the other car by a foot, and for a split second caught the face of the driver: mouth open, eyes bugged. He’d never seen anyone drive like this outside of a movie.
I risked a glance at Carter. Sweat beaded his upper lip, but his jaw was set, eyes locked forward. He looked more calm than any civilian had a right to be.
“You good?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road.
He nodded. “Never better,” he said, but the words were hollow. “Do you think—I mean, it’s not too early?”
“Jojo’s tough,” I said. “And Rawley—he’d carry that kid on his own back if he had to. We’ll get there in time.”
Carter’s hand moved up, covering his own stomach. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said, voice so soft I almost missed it.
I wanted to reach over, to lay a hand on his knee, but I couldn’t spare the control. The truck fishtailed again as Rawley took a corner at fifty, and I had to counter-steer hard to keep us from going up on two wheels.
We barreled through a straightaway. The land on either side of the road was a blur of spring wheat and ditch weed, fence posts stuttering by so fast they were just lines in my vision.
A hundred yards ahead, a tractor pulled into the lane, ancient and slow. Rawley didn’t break stride, just swung into the oncoming lane and passed it with maybe three feet to spare.
The tractor driver never even flinched, just raised a hand in salute.
That was Montana: even the locals knew better than to get between a man and his kid.
We rolled into town with the F-150 leading. The speed limit was thirty; we hit the square at double that, blowing through a four-way with a chorus of honking and a spray of loose gravel.
For a moment I thought we’d be stopped, but the sheriff’s cruiser was parked two blocks away and the deputy just raised his coffee in salute as we screamed by.
Rawley’s driving got worse the closer we got. He was rattled—shakier than I’d seen him even under enemy fire. The usual precision was gone, replaced with desperate, jerky movements.
At the last turn before the hospital, he overshot and had to whip the wheel around, fishtailing so hard Jojo’s door swung open for a split second before latching shut again.
