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She blinks, her chest heaving, fighting a massive contraction. Her gaze finally locks onto mine.
“It feels like I’m splitting in half,” she gasps, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
“I know.” I smooth the damp hair back from her temples, my voice dropping into a low, commanding rhythm. “It sucks. But the pain has an expiration date, Nova. It stops the second he takes his first breath. You just have to cross the finish line.”
She stares at me, gripping the logic like a lifeline. She knows I understand. She knows I went through this exact same hell in a sweltering hospital room at eighteen, entirely alone.
She isn’t alone.
“I can’t do it,” Nova sobs, her chin tipping up. “Silas, I can’t.”
“You can.” Silas leans over her thigh, pressing a kiss to her sweat-slicked knee, his voice shaking violently. “You’re the toughest fucking woman on this planet, little fugitive. You break out of steel chains for a living. You can do this.”
“He’s coming!” Maggie barks from the foot of the bed. “Next contraction, you push like you’re trying to kick a door down. You understand me?”
Nova groans, a deep, vibrating sound building in the back of her throat.
Teddy shifts his grip, wrapping his thick arm around her calf, bracing her weight against his torso. “Here we go, sweetheart. Deep breath. Now.”
Nova bears down.
A jagged, ear-piercing scream tears out of her lungs. The sound bounces off the metal walls of the trailer, raw and animalistic. She bears down, her muscles locking tight with the effort.
I swap the washcloth, pressing a fresh, ice-cold rag to her neck.
“Keep going,” Maggie orders, her hands positioned to catch. “Don’t stop the pressure. The head is out.”
Nova collapses back against the pillows, gasping for oxygen, her face drained of color.
“I’m done,” she wheezes. “Leave him halfway. He can live there.”
“One more push, Nova,” Wren says gently from the opposite side of the bed, wiping a stray tear from her own cheek. “Just the shoulders.”
Nova shakes her head frantically, her fingers digging deep crescents into Silas’s forearm. “It burns.”
I lean down, putting my face inches from hers.
“Do not flinch, Nova,” I command, projecting the exact same unyielding authority I use when facing a barrage of flying steel. “You take the pain and you use it. Push.”
Her eyes flare with a sudden spark of defiance. She sucks in a massive breath, her chest expanding.
She pushes.
A final, deafening cry rips through the room, blending with the chaotic, desperate coaching from the two men holding her up. The air is full of the scent of blood, sweat, and amniotic fluid.
“Got him!” Maggie announces triumphantly.
The tension in the room shatters.
Nova slumps boneless against the mattress, her chest heaving in shallow, rapid pants.
A second later, a high-pitched, furious wail cuts through the silence. The sound hits me right in the center of the chest.
Maggie moves efficiently, wiping the screaming, slippery newborn down with a towel, clamping the cord. She wraps the tiny, furious bundle in a soft white blanket.
“Healthy baby boy,” Maggie declares, a warm, exhausted smile softening her lined face.
She steps forward, placing the wailing infant directly onto Nova’s bare chest.
