“Where is the goddamn ambulance?” Mum hisses.
I whimper, gripping Mum’s hand, thinking she’s going to leave. “Mum.”
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetie. I promise,” she assures me.
“It hurts so much,” I cry out.
“I’ll call them back,” Myles quickly offers as he pulls out his phone.
“No, I’ll step out and call them,” Max argues.
“No, Max, stay here,” Myles orders, glowering at his brother. “Lily needs you.”
Max forces a wide smile at me before turning back to Myles. “I’d rather call the ambulance. I’ll be more persuasive than you. You’re a pushover.”
“No, you’ll put them off from coming here,” Myles amends. “It’s best you leave it to the adults.”
Myles walks out without waiting for him to reply. Dejected, Max turns back to the room. “Well, I guess I’ll go keep everyone informed and make sure no one is eating the food.”
“You can’t leave. You can’t,” I plead.
“Fuck!” he hisses, sitting on the edge of the sofa.
Mum strokes my hair out of my face. “Sweet, sweet, girl,” she soothes.
I lean into her, clutching her cardigan. My shoulders shake with my sobs. “It’s meant to be a happy day. It’s meant to be a day where the magic happens. I’m so, so, so stupid.”
“You aren’t stupid.”
“Mum,” I cry, my stomach tightening. “Something is wrong. It hurts so much.”
Maddox kneels down in front of me, gripping my knees. “I’ve been here before, Lil, and I promise you, it does go away. Remember, I told you about all the screaming Amelia did? Well, it stopped after.”
“Maddox, I need Jaxon,” I plead through pants. “I can’t do this without him.”
“You can, Lily. You’ve got us.”
Sobs burn my chest. “It’s not the same. I can’t… I can’t do this without him.”
“Yes, Lily, you can. You can do anything when you put your mind to it. You are one of the strongest people I know. And I need you to be strong right now. I need you to be strong a little while longer. Jaxon is going to be okay. If he’s never died from Landon landing a punch to the temple, no accident is going to take him out.”
I nod, squeezing Mum’s hand as my entire body tenses. This one lasts a little longer, and my head begins to throb from straining. “I don’t know h-how to be strong.”
He clucks his tongue. “Lily, you’ve been strong since the very moment you were born. With everything you endured, you had no other choice. I may not remember much from when we were little, but what I do remember is that you always amazed me. Then I got older and understood what the nightmares were, what your episodes were about, and I swear to you, Lily, I swear I promised to do everything in my power to protect you, that you would no longer need to be brave, that you no longer had to be strong. I wanted you to just live a life where those things never played a part of your life again. And I know I fucked up last year—fuck do I know it—but I’m telling you, Lily, we’ll get you through this too. You’ll get through it.”
I sit forward through my discomfort, gripping his hands on my knees. “Maddox, I can’t lose him.”
He reaches up, pressing his lips to my forehead. “You won’t, but if you do, you’ve got us. You’ve got your baby.”
“It’s all my fault.”
“It’s not.”
I firmly shake my head. “It is. I had a dream, Maddox. I knew something bad was going to happen, I could feel it, but I ignored it because I saw the snow, because it’s Christmas Day, and because I wanted to make this day perfect for him.”
“It’s just a dream,” he soothes. “Just a dream.”
“You d-don’t understand,” I wheeze, clenching my eyes shut as a wave of pain hits me, keeping me prisoner in my own head as I tried to breathe through it. “S-she, she was there, Maddox. In my dream. I-I think it was a warning that something bad was going to happen to Jaxon and to my baby.”
“No, sweetie, no,” Mum rushes out. “Everything is going to be fine.”
My breath hitches. “He told me he’ll get our baby back. He told me. He was warning me.”
“Baby, it’s just a dream.”
I clench my eyes shut as the dream plays out in my mind, and Jaxon’s warning comes back.
‘When the time comes, don’t wait.’
‘But I need you to promise me that when the baby comes, you’ll tell me.’
“I have to call him. My phone,” I rush out, trying to get up, but Mum lightly pushes me back down.
“What’s going on?” Dad calls, pulling the phone away from his ear.
“I need my phone. I dropped it.”
Myles walks in, holding the phone. “I’ve got it.”
He passes it to me, and I dial Jaxon’s number as Mum asks, “How long are they going to be?”
“They are going to be a while. The gritter hasn’t gotten to all the main roads yet so they are finding it hard to get through some roads.”
“Shit,” she hisses.
Jaxon’s voicemail answers. “You’ve reached Jaxon Hayes. Please leave your name and number after the beep.”
Beep.
I swallow past my fear as I leave him a message. “Jaxon, it’s Lily. Reid, he called me. He said…” I close my eyes, letting the tears fall. “You need to be okay. You need to come home. Our baby is coming. She or he is coming, and I need you to be here. I need you to be okay. I love you, Jaxon. I love you so much. My—”
“To rerecord your message, press one, otherwise, please hang up.”
I hang up, and tears fall onto the screen as I stare down at the picture of Jaxon and I cuddled together on our honeymoon. “This can’t be how we end.”
Max slides his arse onto the sofa next to me and takes my hand. “It’s not, because us Carter’s, we get our happily ever after. We fucking deserve them. You more than any of us fuckers. I can’t believe we get ours after everything we went through, and you don’t.”
“He’s right, Lily,” Malik rumbles. “I’m not religious, though I’m also not an atheist.”
“Why not just say you’re agnostic?” Max mutters.
Malik gives him a death glare, but his expression softens when he turns back to me. “But if there is a higher being, I can’t see them being this cruel. Not to you. And I know, I know, we aren’t guaranteed happiness, but, girl, however it works, however it happens, whether it’s luck, God, or just life, you’ve done everything to deserve a happy ending.”
“I’m scared. I’m so scared,” I choke out.
“I know you are. But we aren’t. We aren’t worried one little bit. Not about Jaxon, not about the labour, and not about the ambulance turning up before Max passes out from watching you give birth. We aren’t worried about any of it. Does that help?”
The part about Max seems like a lie.
But it does help that they aren’t worried. Just a little.
“A little,” I reply softly.