Page 248 of Mile High Ruin

Vadim lowers his mouth to my hair. “Breathe.”

“I’m breathing.”

“Slower.”

“I’m in labor, not doing yoga.” I almost call him an unbearable man, but the contraction gets worse and I grab his shirt instead, twisting the fabric in my fist while he holds me still and murmurs things I don’t fully hear.

I remember the hospital entrance. The car stops, and the doors open, and soon I’m being led away by the hospital staff.

“Don’t leave,” I say, because fear has stripped away anything that might have sounded like pride.

“I’m not leaving,” Vadim says.

“You have to stay where I can see you.”

“I will.”

My fingers tighten around his. “Promise me.”

He bends closer, his face pale in a way I have never seen before. “I promise.”

Another contraction builds before I can answer, and I turn toward him because there’s nowhere else for the fear to go. “It’s too early,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“What if she’s not ready?”

His jaw tightens, but his voice stays steady. “Then we help her to get ready.”

I close my eyes because that’s not a promise any man can make, not even Vadim, but it is enough to hold on to for the next few seconds.

Then they’re moving me, and the ceiling begins passing overhead in bright white panels while people ask questions I can barely answer. How many weeks. When did my water break. Is there bleeding. When did contractions start. Any medication. Any allergy. Any complications. When was my last scan.

I answer what I can. Vadim answers some of the rest because he has clearly memorized more of my pregnancy than I realized during the short time he has known about it. I’m too scared to resent the fact that he knows things when I need him to know them.

When they check the baby’s heartbeat, everyone becomes too quiet for a few seconds, and those few seconds are worse than the pain.

“What?” I ask immediately. “What is it?”

The doctor tells me the baby is distressed, but not in a way that makes them panic yet, which is the kind of sentence people say when they’re trying very hard not to terrify someone who is already terrified.

Vadim’s hand tightens around mine.

I turn my head toward him. “You’re scared.”

“Yes.”

Another contraction comes before I can say anything else, and I hold on to him because there’s nowhere else for the fear to go. His hand is in mine, his other palm smoothing my hair back from my damp forehead, and he keeps saying my name in a low voice, not as an order this time, not as a warning, but like he’s trying to keep me anchored to the room.

I remember the doctors deciding they can’t stop the labor.

I remember the room changing after that, more people coming in, a neonatal team waiting nearby, someone explaining that because the baby is premature they may need to take him immediately after delivery, and I shake my head before they even finish because I don’t want him taken anywhere.

“No,” I say.

The doctor speaks gently. “Sloane, if he needs support, we have to help him right away.”

“No.”