The first contraction hit me and it wasn’t subtle in the way it said hello. My whole abdomen seized up with the pain and I moaned. Oh hell, if that was the beginning of labor, what was the end going to be like?
My hands shook. I refused to give birth on the floor, so I wrenched myself to my feet. Nausea rolled through me and I gagged. A second round of contractions shook my body. Wow that was fast. What little I had read about birth…I’d thought I’d have more time. But, then again, nothing about my pregnancy had been normal. Why should labor and delivery be?
“Mother.”
I think it must have been my use of her title rather than her first name that caught her attention. She stopped ranting and looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m in labor.”
The last place in the world where I wanted to be while having this baby was on The Bridge. But life had a way of slamming me around. I’d have to deal. No one was hurting my baby.
She walked to my side. “You’re going to give birth in the middle of an assault?”
“The women in our family never do anything easily.” It wasn’t the time to make jokes, but what the hell? Somebody had to lessen the tension. She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the exit to the room.
“I guess we’ve got to get you to the medical bay.”
A voice I recognized stopped me from moving any further. “This is going to be my ship.”
I whirled around as best I could in the midst of another contraction. My daughter wanted out and she wasn’t going to wait. Goosebumps broke out on my arms.
What was Cooper’s sister, Olivia, doing on the view screen?
“This is going to be my ship. Very soon.” She smiled. “I’m in charge now. I just want you all to know. The dolls. They’ve explained all of it to me. Things are changing. I’m the princess of the universe.” Oliva, with her vacant eyes and childlike voice smiled at the camera when she spoke. “I want you all to know now. Things are going to go boom.”
The world exploded around us and everything went black.
* * * *
I woke up with ears ringing and the baby wanting to be born. Right then. Next to me, my mother was out cold. If she was dead, I didn’t know. I panted and grabbed onto my stomach. I’d been ready for pain but no one had told me about the burning. My insides were on fire.
And I needed to push.
There was shouting in the distance. Whatever bomb Olivia had set on The Bridge must not have destroyed the whole thing or I’d never have woken up at all. The ship must have withstood the blast and still be upright in space.
I wiped sweat from my brow and screamed. I was going to die. There were no two ways about it. No one could ever be in so much pain and live through the experience. Something was wrong. The baby was stuck. Or dead. Or my body was exploding. And the burning. Holy shit. Mother fucker. I had to push. Except I couldn’t. I was going to die.
A man stood in front of me. I didn’t know who he was. One of my mother’s guards. He was shouting at me. I didn’t have a clue what he said. Olivia was back on the screen and there were shots of explosions going on all over the place. I didn’t even care. The world had become pushing. The baby. Pushing. Out. Out. Breathing. Screaming. Nothing. Pushing.
The man knelt in front of me. He was slightly balding. It was all I could see, the top of his head. And then the wailing.
She was there.
Sound returned. The racing beat of my heart and tears coming down my face. The man took her and I shouted something incoherent. Where was he taking her? But then she was in my arms, wrapped in the nameless man’s shirt. She wailed. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. And she was gorgeous.
She had dark hair, like Geoff, but her eyes were blue. Was that true of all babies? I couldn’t remember. Her little round face and the way her chin jutted out just so…and she looked at me like she could see me.
I was picked up, with her in my arms. The man who had helped us—I needed to ask his name, except only the baby existed in the world. Someone picked up my mother.
The baby didn’t have a name. She needed one. Even if we were all about to be destroyed by Cooper’s sister. I had to name her.
She blinked up at me and it came to me like it always was, even though that made no sense, like she’d had the name forever.
Diana…
My daughter. My heart felt like it would explode. What was happening? Could I keep her safe? She was so beautiful. Did I keep thinking that? Her little pink cheeks…Ten fingers, ten toes.
Chapter 6
You didn’t know pain…
Five years later
THE sun set over Chamblais and I ducked in to get out of the night air. I wasn’t on patrol so I didn’t have to do anything but go see my daughter and see to it we made it through another night. My mother sat on the floor passing a cup to Diana for her to drink. Rita’s arms had never worked correctly again after the explosion on The Bridge.
Diana turned around and smiled at me. I treasured her grins since I never got to hear her voice anymore. She’d quit speaking a little over a year earlier. I couldn’t blame her. It was better to be quiet—safer, easier most days. Her sweet, beloved face—so like Geoff’s with his high cheekbones and gently shaped nose which somehow still made her look feminine, even though they never did on him. My eyes stared back at me and over the years the shape of her face matched mine, too. My mother laid claim to her ears as being just like her own.
Rita and I would never be close. But she loved Diana—the child she had planned on dealing with—and that went a long way toward making me okay with having to spend way too much time in Rita’s company.
I squatted down, pushing Diana’s dark hair off her face when I did. My mother nodded at me. “How is it out there?”
“Desolate. No sign of Olivia’s crazy army today.”
It always felt wrong to call Olivia nuts in the face of my mother who had, in her time, been ruthless and power hungry to the point of madness, too. But my days of arguing with Rita were over. She was a sad shell of herself now.
Whether Olivia was a mad genius or just crazy, there was something wrong with her mind and she wasn’t as Cooper had always explained her. She wasn’t simple. Olivia was fully capable and in control of most of the known universe now.
She’d been fooling everyone for years.
And when she’d blown up the black hole with Ochoa’s stash of nuclear weapons, I’d lost any sympathy I’d ever had for the woman. She might be Cooper’s sister but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t hate her…My father had made it through. He must have with the timing involved. But no one would ever be following. Not again.
I rubbed at my eyes. From the last ship we’d been able to steal, I’d stared out into space, the then-infant Diana in my arms, and watched as the black hole hadn’t opened. I’d wanted to die and only Diana had kept me alive, kept me moving, kept me focused. Had my father seen Olivia’s transmissions before they’d gone through? I’d always insisted on thinking they’d made it all the way back to Earth unharmed. Nolan, C.J., Geoff, Dane, Wes, and Cooper. All of them together, with the Artemis, somewhere better than here.
My father said Earth was habitable and that there were other people there. Maybe they’d be able to have a real life. They’d always think of me…and the baby whose name they’d never know…but by now they’d have moved on. Five years was a long time, although like my father, thanks to the time distortion, they might not even know how much time passed here versus there. Oh hell, Wes was with them. They’d know to the minute.
Diana raised her arms and I hoisted her up. “Anything happening here?”
My stomach clenched and I ignored the pain. With all the rebelling I’d done for the Nomads over the years, I’d been spoiled and never known it. I’d never gone hungry and outside of battles, I’d never been afraid. We’d lost more than we’d won but we’d never starved.
It made me physically ill when I let myself think about my daughter and how she’d expe
rienced both hunger and terror already in her short five years. If I’d known, I would have run after them, jumped on the Artemis and not looked back. If I could have known I’d never have to worry about my mom coming after us.
Rita shook her head and stumbled to her feet. Lately, she was paler every time I looked at her. If she knew she was sick, she wasn’t saying anything. Maybe she just didn’t focus on it. Who would help her get better anyway?
“Quiet today. Some of the scouts moved through. They left a few blankets and took two of the guns.”
I nodded. Those trades were typical. Our little hidey-hole consisted of three cabins and a plot of land we’d taken by force on a planet so far on the outskirts of civilization, Olivia didn’t pay it much attention.
She wanted all the women in the universe on Ochoa with her and if they didn’t want to come she had them killed. Her soldiers stayed in line and did as she asked. Olivia promised them if they did so, they’d have sex—lots of it—with as many women on Ochoa as they wanted. From what I’d heard, nightmare stories from the few who got away, the once leather-clad land of the rich was a dirty den of violence and terror with Olivia sitting on the throne, her fingers on the triggers to the nuclear weapons.
I shuddered. She used them. Often.
Her father and brothers were reported missing, Cooper among that list because no one knew he’d gone through a black hole pissed at me.
Diana tipped my chin until I looked at her. Dark eyes too old for a child so young sought my gaze and I gave it to her.
“Did you have a good day, baby?”
In answer, she wrapped her arms around my neck. We had to get up early. With my mother no longer able, or willing, to lead, all eyes fell on me. We weren’t rebels anymore, we were really a bunch of men and women trying to survive. Thirty of us left in the world. The mountains would be a better choice for the winter months coming up. The year before, we’d discovered that while the higher altitudes on Chamblais got more snow, it was better to be up high than in the valleys where the winds scooped up so much dust we could barely breathe.
I’d decided tomorrow was the day we were all leaving.
The cabins that would have to support us for four months were ready to go.
“I’m going to take Di for a walk.” I called over my shoulder to my mother who had gone silent again. She talked to my daughter and other than that not much at all. The little we communicated for the few minutes when I came for Diana was as much as we ever did.
Although really, what was there to say?
She’d kidnapped my husbands, forced my hand time and again, and stuck a bomb near my heart. The longer we went without truth telling, the better.
“Do you want to stay up or do you want to walk?” I asked Diana and she shook her head. She didn’t want down. I’d tried to force her to speak for a while, to not acknowledge that I understood what little communication she gave, only that had backfired in her shutting down completely. This was better. Oh hell, what did I know? I was arguably the worst mother ever.
I pulled a piece of beef jerky from my pocket and handed it to her. That was all I had left and all I would have until we got to the mountains. The signals had come in that they’d managed to freeze some meat for us to get through the winter.
Holt and Montgomery were amazingly loyal fighters. They’d both lost their wife to Ochoa and had their son to protect. We all helped each other. All together we had five children other than Diana. She was the only girl.
Diana took the jerky and started to eat. After a moment she pointed skyward. I laughed. “It’s not night yet. It’s still early.”
I told her stories at night and, starting around three in the afternoon if we were lucky enough to be together, she asked me for them in the ways she did without speaking. I was running out of material, but she didn’t seem to mind hearing them over and over again.
My daughter made a pout and I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Fine. I’ll tell you one now, but it means you’re only getting one later. I don’t want you batting those eyes at me and trying to get two more stories.”
She grinned and I made my way over to a log where she liked me to sit with her. “If I do this, you have to be good tomorrow and work on writing your letters for Rita. I know how you get around her. But if you can’t read, you’re going to regret it when you’re older.”
Diana nodded. She was usually pretty good at doing what she was told—in all things but speaking.
Would I go my whole life without ever hearing her voice again?
Tears I didn’t get to shed flooded me inside and I pushed them away. She wanted a story. One thing at a time, one breath at a time. That was all I could do.
The best thing that ever happened to me was having my mind erased. The version of myself that had existed before then would never have been able to manage this.
I knew how to survive for both Diana and me. I would do so for as long as I had to.
“So there was this one time, years before you were born, when Uncle Nolan and I were hunting. I know that sounds insane, but Uncle Nolan liked to do it. He’d never tell me why; he’s not big on sharing his feelings…”
She’d never have the family she should have—my own father and uncles hadn’t been peaches, they’d been too warped by my mom to be loving, but at least I’d had them—and I tried to keep hers alive to her in stories.
“He liked to go and mommy was feeling sort of adventurous I guess.” Regret number 4000, not hunting with Nolan enough. “We touched down here, actually. This planet didn’t have any industry to it; we didn’t want to disrupt operations. The Nobles stayed away mostly. Anyway, Uncle Nolan and I took a shuttle and came down here so he could try to hunt down our dinners for the next five months. But Mommy, as you know, is not a great hunter. If it was up to me to really do it for all of us, we’d starve. Nothing much has changed in that respect. Anyway, every time Nolan saw some game he wanted, I’d do something, not on purpose, and scare the animals off. I’d sneeze. Achoo. And they’d run away. Or I’d trip on something. Splat.”
Diana giggled and I stopped to enjoy the sound. If I had no other reasons to tell her my stories from before Olivia destroyed everything, I would for the laughter alone. The sound moved through me, made me think we could survive.
“By the end of the day, Uncle Nolan was so frustrated he cut the whole trip short and brought us back to the Artemis.”
The Artemis. I missed her, too. My ugly ship.
Diana touched the side of my face before she kissed me there. I had to be careful. She was incredibly tuned to other people’s emotions. Sadness struck at her, as best I could tell since she wouldn’t tell me, and she’d internalize it where the emotions didn’t belong, at least not to her.
It had been my own breakdown after I’d been temporarily taken by one of Olivia’s guards that had finally made her go silent in the first place. When I’d escaped and gotten back to Rita and Diana, I’d let myself sob. Diana had seen me and she’d never spoken again.
Worst. Mother. Ever.
“I love you.” I kissed her back. Her cheeks were cold and soft. We should get back inside. The nights were already starting to feel like winter. We were right to plan to leave tomorrow.
I took her hand, this time making her walk by simply not giving her a choice otherwise, and headed to the cabin we shared with five others. Two of the other kids, Jackson and Troy, were playing on the floor. Diana ran to them and sat down, joining in their game with a toy truck. The other kids never commented on her silence. She was one of them, whether she spoke or not.
“Do you need a minute?”
Tara, Jackson’s mother, walked up next to me, placing her hand on mine. Tara was beautiful, every year more so. Her dark skin, slender figure, and kind brown eyes were always flawless-looking. Or maybe it was just I knew her heart now and so she looked gorgeous to me. I’d never had girlfriends before Olivia destroyed everything. There had been Farrah, but I never did find out what happened to her. We’d all been compe
ting, even when we weren’t. These days we helped each other survive.
“Do I look haggard?” I ran a hand though my hair.
“You look like you spent the day dealing with the water supply, came home to your mother who is very frail, and your wonderful daughter who still hasn’t said a word. You look like you never complain or ask for any help you don’t desperately need. Go take a minute. Use the shower for more than two seconds. Take a breath. I’ll watch her. Nothing will happen that I can’t handle.”
Tara had been the captain of her ship and two of her husbands were still with us. She’d lost the other three, including Jackson’s biological father, during the first explosive days of Olivia’s reign. She knew better than anyone you couldn’t make guarantees for anything. But it had been days since we’d seen a soldier. I could probably take a small breath.
When I bathed, I usually made Diana sit on the floor of the bath area so I could hear her the whole time. An actual shower by myself?
“Thanks.” I nodded and meant it. “I’ll owe you one.”
“You owe me fifty.” She winked.
“Diana,” I called to her. “Mommy’s going to shower.”
My daughter looked up and nodded before going back to the game. I was glad she didn’t mind being separated from me for temporary spurts of time. Rita made her very comfortable, which was weird since she’d never made me feel safe for a day in my life and was why Diana and I weren’t with my husbands now. Of course, I’d never have gotten pregnant with her if I hadn’t been so desperate to foil my mother to begin with. It was all a giant mess and I had no time to worry about it when I had to keep us fed.
I made my way to the bathing area and stepped inside. It wasn’t much, but at least it worked, which was going to be more than the ones we’d built in the mountains. There, I suspected, we’d be boiling water or pouring the cold version over our heads.
Yeah…we’d never really known pain before.
The room wasn’t much. It consisted of a small shower, a sink, and a toilet. I was smaller than I’d been even before I got pregnant. My ribs showed easily, I could count them if I wanted to, and the change to what had always been a curvy figure was so striking, I could barely look at myself. If I’d been made to be naturally slender, that would be one thing and I would have owned it proudly. As I was, I just looked starved.
Rescued By Their Wife (Wings of Artemis Book 2) Page 7