Page 45 of Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines 2)

“Are you fucking telling me that she has to deliverthe baby knowing that … is that what you’re saying?” Calisto demanded.

“Yes.”

“I can’t,” Emma mumbled.

The sympathetic, watery eyes of the young femaledoctor didn’t help Emma. It only broke her heart a little more. There wasnothing the woman could do to help, and she didn’t know how to say it.

“I can’t do that,” Emma repeated.

“You can,” the doctor whispered. “If you don’t push,your body will do it for you. It’s nature’s way of delivering a baby when a motheris weak. One way or another, the baby will come.”

Emma reached out for something to hold. She foundCalisto’s arm and her fingers dug in. He didn’t tell her to stop, but hebrushed more hair from her face, letting his thumb and fingers linger on herfevered skin.

The pain was intense, far worse than it had been. Shehad ignored the strange twinges that morning when she was trying to use thebathroom, and the ones from the day before when she talked them over with herdoctor.

Normal, he’d said.

He said they were fucking normal.

“Please don’t make me do this,” Emma mumbled.

She didn’t want to deliver a baby that would only die.

She didn’t want to leave a hospital with empty arms.

“Please,” Emma breathed.

“I’m sorry.” The doctor jerked a hand at a nurse. “Thegas, get it. It’ll help.”

Emma didn’t bother to fight when they put the mask onher. The disorientation was back, locking her into a bubble.

She didn’t have to feel there.

She didn’t have to see or think.

It was so much better than pain.

“I’m broken,” she said under the mask.

Something was wrong with her.

Emma turned to find Calisto watching her. Wetnessreflected back in his eyes, and that killed her a little bit more. He wasn’tsupposed to be there, but he was.

“Not broken,” he told her.

She didn’t believe him.

He’d been smaller than her palm. His limbs werethinner than her pinky. He never made a sound, although the doctor said that heprobably couldn’t at his gestation. Red-pink skin all over, and almosttranslucent in spots. He had ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. He breathedfor less than forty seconds before he stopped.

The doctor had handed over the baby in a white towel.At first, Emma hadn’t wanted to look at the child. What would it look like,after all?

It looked like a baby.

Her baby.

His little chest moved up and down. She was scared totouch him, he was so small.

But he was alive.