He can’t go out like this.
He has to be here for his daughters and his wife. They’re the family he’s wished for but never thought he’d find, and he won’t let anything take that away.
There’s a thump, thump, thump coming from upstairs, and he musters a last ounce of strength from somewhere deep in his gut and shoves the runner away with a kick to the stomach. Grabs a candlestick from the shelf and bludgeons the softened skull until the body finally drops to the ground.
He doesn’t pause to catch his breath before rushing upstairs again, his heart shattering and seizing when Addison calls out his name like it’s the last thing she’ll ever say.
When he rounds the corner, two runners have already forced their way past the bathroom door.
Chapter 24
Addison has always been decent at compartmentalizing pain and emotions. She could suffer abuse from Vincent in the morning, then cook dinner that evening as if nothing had happened.
Focusing on what’s important when there’s nothing she can do about the rest of it has always been her go-to coping mechanism, but if there’s one thing she cannot do at the moment, it’s ignore the whole body misery she’s enduring in this bathroom.
Wyatt is gone, fighting the dead downstairs while she’s about to give birth to a baby in the middle of a runner invasion. She’d be incapacitated with worry for him if her uterus weren’t ripping itself apart.
If she wasn’t scanning the room for weapons in case they aren’t safe, after all.
If she wasn’t terrified to give birth in the first place, even without a literal clusterfuck only feet away.
She can’t make it through labor or survive what comes next without him. Maybe that’s selling herself short, considering she used to have plans on how to do everything alone, but things are different, and she can’t go back now.
He can take care of himself. That much she knows for certain. She repeats that like a silent mantra in between crashes down below and mind-numbing contractions. She tries to be quiet.Bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood, but a scream erupts despite her efforts, and she slides down the wall until the tile cools her skin.
Labor with Emma has been nonexistent. They got her out via C-section before that ever began. She isn’t prepared for this. Had no idea what to expect, and the reality of it is so much worse than anything she could have conjured up in her head.
Tears swell as her muscles spasm, and she starts to believe she isn’t capable of surviving this, runners or not. Her whole body is being torn to shreds before they even find her. There’s no escape. The burning pressure between her legs grows heavier and more persistent, her spine might have been ripped out for all she knows, and it’s all she can do not smash her own head into the wall until she’s unconscious.
She needs to be here for Emma. For this baby. For Wyatt. Abandoning them isn’t an option.
“Get your knife ready,” she says to Emma as the growls of the dead get louder.
Her daughter is almost an adult by now, and she’s two steps ahead of that request, already gripping the handle of her blade in preparation for a possible attack.
Addison checks the bullets in the shotgun, but the weapon sticks when she cocks it. She tries again and fails a second time, snarling out a frustrated, pained curse at the damn gun that picked the worst time to jam.
Before Addison can come up with a new plan, the bathroom door rattles on its hinges, and another contraction hits her like a semi-truck.
Emma shoves her back against the wood, trying to keep it from collapsing.
They’re here. They made it up the steps and down the hall, and that has to mean that Wyatt…
No, she refuses to complete that thought or allow what that means to sink in. She won’t entertain the idea of this world forcing them apart, she’ll be useless if she does. If ever there was a time to bring back those compartmentalization skills, it’s now.
The space is small enough to brace her back against the tub and shove her feet at the door, so that’s what she does. The lock is flimsy, and the wood is thin. The whole thing jumps against her feet and Emma’s shoulders as they try to keep the runners from breaking through. The very real worry that this baby is about to slide out of her at any minute is an afterthought. For now.
There’s no use keeping quiet at this point, so she doesn’t bother trying. Agony flows freely from her lips as the wood cracks and her body shifts and changes to make room for a new life.
“If they get in, you keep fighting no matter what. No matter what’s happening to me. Do you understand?” she tells Emma.
“Yes. Yes, I understand. No matter what.”
No matter what happens, is what Wyatt said to her a minute ago before he left, and now she’s quite possibly about to meet her own demise.
It’ll be fast if she’s lucky, but she rarely ever is.
Maybe she’ll see him again when it’s over.
