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“Like hell, I will. I’m leaving this place,” she said, full of fire. But she was straining too. She was going to have our baby any moment. “You were going to tell everyone. Now everyone knows. Sky knows.”
“None of that matters. You’re mine.”
“You’re just going to end up leaving me like Hallow has.”
“Angel, wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”
Our baby skidded into Jassica’s hands. All hunched over, covered in goo and looking like an alien, he didn’t cry. I noted the absence. Jassica explained he was early. Mary went to cleaning him a bit. Somehow the girl had everything ready to cut the cord. She tried to hand the scissors to me. I passed because my hands were shaking. Jassica stopped her all together, telling her it was better to wait a minute. I took a quick turn holding our baby before I laid him on Eve’s chest. He was beautiful, but he was too small. That’s when I noticed Eve was out cold. I took the baby back as Jassica checked her pulse. Holding my breath, I waited. She had one. Mary cut the cord.
The paramedics finally rushed in. They got Eve on a stretcher, and I followed them out to the ambulance, bringing the bundle, our baby. During the ambulance ride Eve started convulsing. Holding our baby on the bumpy ride, I felt helpless. But once we hit a big enough pothole, he did cry softly, a sign of life.
The EMTs shouted out questions I didn’t know answers to. How far along was she? I did the math in my head. Around thirty-four weeks, I answered, knowing that’s how they counted it. They asked about her doctor and medical conditions. I just didn’t know. I understood Eve said something about her doctor keeping an eye on her blood pressure and her sugar. That they were letting her carry the baby as long as she could.
They said something about resuscitation, scaring me to death.
At the hospital things got worse. At a breakneck speed medics swept Eve away. They took our baby from my arms to check him out too. I was left alone to worry.
I made the same bargains with God I had before, finding Sky in the cabin. I’d give anything if Eve would make it. “I promise this time. Give me one more chance.” But I knew Eve had been something I’d promised to give up before, so Sky would live. She was being taken from me now. I deserved it, but she did not.
My phone rang off the hook, and my texts blew up as everyone wanted to hear about Eve and the baby. I had no news. I only took Pagan’s call. I found out who cleaned out the safe. Sky. Pagan explained that she’d been blackmailed by Ralph to give the Mob intel on me. He didn’t have to tell me how it came about. I knew about the original proposition. He then told me, Sky’s twins weren’t mine. Just a coincidence. The babies belonged to Ralph Getty all along. Of course. Otherwise, Sky would have no reason to give them a thing.
“What do they have on us?”
“Not much from what I can tell. Enough to land us all in jail, almost certainly. But the rest of it’s been scattered around Royal Road from what I can tell. We’re going to have to question her.”
I told Pagan to leave Sky be for now. She just gave birth, after all. I couldn’t think about it as I worried for Eve.
Eventually, a doctor found me. He told me about the baby first. Just like Sky’s baby, he was in the NICU, but moderately preterm. He had a low birth weight. The doctor threw out words I recognized like IV, feeding tube, respiratory support, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it all. He took me to see the baby, explaining he wouldn’t need any of it for long. A nurse said, our baby was over four pounds, like that was a good thing. In a clear box, the boy was clean, covered with stickers and tubes that connected him to machines. Bo had not had all this. Regardless, they thought he’d be okay.
I should’ve known when they asked me to sit down, worse news was on the way. Sitting beside the baby’s box, they explained to me that Eve had something called eclampsia. She wasn’t okay. Firstly, they were trying to control her seizures. If they couldn’t, they’d put her into a medically controlled coma to keep her from going into a real coma or dying.
I didn’t take the news well. “How did this happen?”
They explained again, her preeclampsia resulted in new convulsions so turned into eclampsia. The other risks were coma and death. They had to repeat it three times for me and I still didn’t understand how she could die from being pregnant. Apparently, Eve knew the risks the whole time. She had mentioned it. I felt like a fool for playing around and not doing what I wanted in the beginning and talking to her doctor myself. I couldn’t even see her. She was in the ICU. I had to wait.
Later in the evening I got word that Hallow had left Royal Road. I figured he would. But I never thought Sky would leave too. Gunn saw them leave out together. He tried to stop them. Pagan figured they skipped town together. They also took the baby. I reckoned Sky didn’t want the mob to get him.
“Send a crew after them,” I said. I couldn’t go. Eve needed me.
Chapter 30
Eve
Weeks Later
I eventually woke up and was fine. That’s what I thought anyhow.
Kingpin broke the news carefully. I’d been in a coma for a whole week. I’d not noticed. I lived a whole life in my head during that time. My confusion faded quick. Or maybe it’d taken a while. Baffled by it all, I wasn’t sure of anything.
All I knew for certain was a beautiful baby boy was brought to me and placed in my weak arms. He looked nothing like the baby I dreamed of who was suspiciously covered in tattoos, piercings and had a tiny beard. I said as much.
“Sounds frightening. Maybe they weren’t dreams but nightmares,” Kingpin remarked, not really talking to me.
This baby, my real baby, was precious as a peach. No tats or beard. No black little painted nails.
Kingpin explained he’d come early. I remembered that much. I had him right on the floor of Royal Road. I worried for a minute about the cleanliness of the event until they reminded me it hadn’t just happened. Not only did my baby look clean as a whistle, but he also smelled fresh like baby lotion and powder.
Fortunately, the nurse took over enlightening me. I learned our baby spent time in the neonatal unit growing until he thrived on his own. As I counted fingers and toes, she listed out more details. I’d recovered, but I hadn’t wanted to come out of the slumber.
