“I’m all right,” I whisper in a rush, looking away.
“The fuck you are,” he seethes. I’ve never seen Cole so angry like this before. I swear if this was an alternative, paranormal universe, his eyes would burst out with raging flames. I realize then that he smells like gasoline. “They’re fucking dead.”
I can hear the sounds of flesh pounding against flesh. I can hear the metal shelves and whatever else being moved around and my heart starts pounding in my throat.
“Is that Julian out there?” I question, my voice a stutter as I try to fight the waves of pain. “Is that him fighting those bastards by himself?”
Cole doesn’t say anything. Instead, with a grim look on his face, he looks past my shoulder and frowns at Kristine who’s whimpering on the floor.
“Is she giving birth?” he mumbles in shock. “What the fuck?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question since I woke up this morning.”
Kristine’s face scrunched up in agony as the pool of blood grows larger.
This is not good. It’s too much blood, too much. Her face is pale. She really looks like she’s about to pass out. I quickly turn back to her.
“Now is not the time to be a midwife, Mia,” Cole says worriedly, but he quickly gets into action, going around me in a crouched position, but he still looks like he’s listening intently for something.
“Unfortunately, babies don’t follow rules, Cole.”
“I need to get you out of here, now!” I ignore him. “Before the cops get here. I’m pretty sure they’re on their fucking way right now.”
“Yeah, well, this baby is well on its way, so help me, Cole.”
I grab the extra sheet I took and try to wring it clean, dislodging most of the dust. Anxiety grips my throat at the harsh, unsanitary conditions but still, I quickly wrap the sheet in way to receive the baby and then widen Kristine’s legs some more. She protests but manages to keep them wide. “Hold her head up, Cole.”
He does but he’s not happy about any of this. “Didn’t you hear me? I have to get you out.”
“Hold her head and hold her hand!”
“No,” Kristine moans. “Just leave me here… ah!”
That one scream escapes her lips with a helpless kind of torture that makes my heart stop, but the baby’s head is almost out.
“One more pu—”
She pushes and on instinct, I pull. And just like that, an incredibly tiny baby is born… with the cord wrapped around her neck.
Oh God.
“Fuck!” Cole whispers harshly, but I don’t have time to ask him what he knows about nuchal cord.
With an urgency that steals my breath away, fear slamming me every which way, I quickly work to unwrap the umbilical cord from around the baby’s neck with numb, blood coated fingers.
But still, she’s not crying or making a sound. She sounds almost... no!
In that moment, my memory chooses to take me back to a time I flipped through a Obstetrics & Gynecology textbook when I sat next to Nancy at one of her doctor’s appointments a year ago
In that moment, I shove fear down as far as possible. Everything blurs and drowns into the background. The shouting, the cursing, the fighting, Kristine’s cries, the tumultuous waves of agony crashing into my body from my head to the rest of my body, it all blurs as I focus on the child in my arms, covered in blood.
It’s a premature baby.
The baby can’t breathe.
The cord wasn’t that tightly wrapped around her neck so maybe the blood supply wasn’t completely cut off?
But maybe it’s a stillborn?
No! There’s just no way…
“Mia, what’s happening?” Cole questions.
I ignore them.
“Why isn’t there any crying?” Kristine wails, her voice weak and hoarse from crying and screaming. “Is my baby dead?”
I don’t answer, having no choice but to cut the chord with the one of the knives as far from the baby as possible. These blades are not sanitary at all, but what else can I do?
“Oh my god, Mia, is my baby dead?”
Silence.
“Goddamn it, Mia, tell me! What’s wrong?”
I ignore her. Quickly, I put two fingers on the baby’s chest and start performing infant CPR, being careful not to apply a lot of pressure because I can just as easily crush the baby’s chest without even meaning to.
I can hear Kristine scream hysterically, asking questions but I ignore her. I don’t have an airbag suitable for a baby or even for an adult for that matter, so I have no choice but to blow in the baby’s mouth like she’s drowning.
Don’t die.
Please don’t die.
Everything else in my life has been death and darkness, please God, not this baby.
My heart is beating furiously, an urgency to it that makes my eyes well up with tears.
Just then, the baby gasps, her tiny lips parting with the first breath and then… she starts crying.
“Oh my God,” Kristine cries.
For a moment, just one moment, everything holds still. The universe aligns and I think I see its beauty. The bright light. The brilliance of the stars in the sky. The miracle of life… but the truth is, life is ugly, made so when I see the blood still pouring out of Kristine like a fucking river.
“You need to take her to the hospital right now,” I say in a rush, wrapping the baby up in the sheet, less dusty than before.
“Mia—”
“They might both catch an infection and Kristine will bleed out. You need to take them, now.”
“I have to take you out of here. I fucking promised,” Cole barks, the authority in his voice not to be missed. I look up at him and my God, I see clearly why he and Julian are best friends now. They’re both sexily alpha and so damn strong. On another day, I would have liked this show, but right now, I have to convince him to do this.
“I know,” I whisper then look at Kristine with a smile on my face. “You have a beautiful baby girl, K. Well done.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s a girl?”
It’s clear she didn’t know. I have no idea if she even had proper prenatal care but none of this will mean a damn thing if Cole doesn’t rush them both out of here.
“It’s a girl, K,” I nod, relief making sweat dot my brow.
“What am I going to do with a girl?”
“Keep her alive, for starters.”
Running on nothing but pure adrenaline, I quickly get up and grab another sheet ready to double cover Kristine who’s covered in so much blood, the other sheet is soaked. Cole can’t carry her into a hospital looking like that, it will raise too many questions that I’m sure none of us can answer without feeling the wight of the trauma sustained from this one day.
Making contact with the sheet, I grab it but as I turn around, I catch something so horrible in the corner of my eye, it makes my stomach sink.
Both Sean and fucking Shane are beating Julian up. With a metal bar and then I hear a pop.
Chapter Sixteen
Mia
“No!” I scream, panic and fear mocking me as I look at them. Julian looks up and our gazes immediately clash. I stare at him in horror, my chest squeezing in terrible gut-wrenching agony.