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“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Lucas shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You did great.”
“My body didn’t do its job,” I sobbed. “If I’d been healthier, then maybe we would’ve had more time with him. I didn’t see the signs…”
“You can’t blame yourself, Nad,” Lucas insisted. “Sometimes babies die, and it’s part of life. It’s the worst part, but this is a process of death.”
I stroked the little hairs on the top of Dean’s perfect little head, and I realized that as much grief I felt from losing him, I felt so much more love. Nothing could have prepared me for how deeply I loved these boys.
“I’ll always remember you, baby boy,” I whispered.
I kissed the top of my baby boy’s head, and that deep love I felt for him intensified. It was so overwhelming that I wasn’t sure it was all my own, as if my love had quadrupled.
I realized then that it wasn’t all mine. It was mine, it was Lucas’s, it was Marcus’s, and it was Dean’s. Though Dean wasn’t in this body, I could still feel him here in this room.
“He’s not just a memory,” I realized, looking up to Lucas. “He’s an energy. Even though I know people live on after death, I always thought they moved on without us. It doesn’t work that way, though. We can still have our loved ones with us at any time. We can spiritually reach out to them. It’s not going to be the same, but they can still be here. Not just in memory, but in spirit.”
Lucas seemed comforted by my realization, because he completely relaxed beside me. “You’re right. We’ll always be a family—not the three of us, but the four of us.”
“No matter where he goes after this, he’s a part of our life now,” I agreed.
I shuddered to think of everything we had lost. We hadn’t just lost an infant—we’d lost a toddler, a kid, a teenager. We lost birthdays and Halloweens. We lost all the hugs and kisses, and everything in between. We’d never get to see him fall in love, attend his wedding, or have children of his own. We’d never get to see him grow close to Marcus and be brothers, like they deserved to be.
But none of that made his existence meaningless. We’d had thirty wonderful weeks with him, and we would always be his parents. As much as this hurt, I would still go through it all over again… just to hold him in this moment, and to be with him for the short while we had.
“It was worth it,” I told Lucas. “I want to honor him and throw him a celebration.”
Lucas stroked Dean’s cheek with the back of his hand. “We will. Our baby boy will get the proper sendoff he deserves.”
Lucas and I snuggled with Dean for a long time while the others cleaned up. Blood soaked the sheets, but Verla worked around us to change the bedding and mattress liner. I barely noticed any of it as I took in these precious moments with our baby boy.
After Luana checked over Marcus and took his vitals, she wheeled his incubator to the side of the bed so the four of us could be together. I wanted to hold him so badly, and though he was close, he still seemed so far away. His incubator was merely a see-through box, with only holes for our hands to touch him. He was hooked up to all kinds of tubes and looked so fragile.
Onyx helped me into a clean robe and pulled a fresh blanket over us just before I heard multiple pairs of footsteps outside the room. I lay in Lucas’s arms, with Dean wrapped against us both.
“Are you up for visitors?” Verla asked.
“Yes,” I said. “They can come in.”
Verla opened the door and welcomed the others inside. Everyone was here, except Miles.
“The perimeter is clear, and the Executors have all been eliminated,” Professor Warren told Verla in a low voice.
“The reaper woman showed up and got rid of all the Executors, though she left before we could explain what was happening here,” Mandy added. “She saved us, and we’re safe now. Miles suffered an injury to his arm. He’s out of it, but he’s in bed resting.”
The others remained quiet, and the atmosphere was melancholy. I was certain they’d all heard the news already.
Grant’s eyes locked on Dean, and tears flowed down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry. It shouldn’t have ended up like this.”
Lucas sniffled, holding back tears. “It’s okay, you guys. Dean’s still here with us.”
Chloe and Talia stood side-by-side, and the end of their Wands began to glow. Chloe shot Luana a questioning glance. It was obvious by her expression that Luana had much to tell us that she hadn’t yet been able to communicate. Luana nodded kindly.
“Luana says there’s nothing you could have done,” Chloe said, conveying for the doctor. “Dean died in utero, and that’s what triggered labor. After you were poisoned, it seems like your body was unable to filter all of it out naturally, and some of it went to your womb. Dean absorbed the poison in your body, so that Marcus could live—he saved his brother. You couldn’t have detected this or known it was going to happen. This was beyond even Luana’s power to fix.”
Grant began to sob. "I can't believe this. I gave you that rotten ginger, and it caused all of this. I took your baby's life."
"No,” Chloe said quickly, interpreting for Luana. “That can't have been it. Dean was a supernatural child, and for him to choose to take the poison in Marcus's place, it had to be a magical poison that he absorbed willingly. Otherwise, it would've affected both twins."
