by April Lust
Seconds later, I blissfully drifted off to sleep.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
I looked up to see a little girl standing in front of me. She had long brown hair combed into pigtails and bright, clear skin with green eyes. Charlie’s eyes.
“I didn’t think you would look like that,” I said, surprising myself. “I didn’t think you’d have his eyes!”
The girl giggled. “Well, he’s my daddy,” she said, seeming to know exactly what I was talking about. “Mommy, you’re going to be all better soon.” She came closer and sat on my lap. She felt so real – the weight of her, the slightly sweet scent coming from her hair. “I can’t wait to meet you!”
I giggled. “That’s a funny thing to say,” I replied. “We’ve already met. We’re here, aren’t we?”
The little girl laughed again. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled herself close. “Mommy, I won’t let you be sad anymore,” she said. “I won’t let you be sad the way you were with him.” Her little voice turned into a growl and I realized she was talking about Jack.
“No, he’s not coming anywhere near us,” I said. “And I promise, you’re never going to be afraid of anyone like that.” I looked into her green eyes. The resemblance to Charlie was astounding – almost like he was staring right at me. “He’s going away for a long time, and you’re always going to tell your parents everything.”
The little girl giggled. “Why everything, Mommy?”
A lump formed in my throat and I looked to the sky so the tears forming in my eyes wouldn’t have a chance to drip down my cheeks. “Because,” I said, “when I was younger, I really hurt my parents. I wasn’t honest with them. And if I had been honest with them, everything would be different now.”
“Don’t be sad,” the little girl said. She squeezed her arms around my neck. “You can always tell them you’re sorry.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can,” I said. “But I promise, I’ll always be a good mother to you. Even if it’s just the two of us.” I smiled at her.
“I know you didn’t want me, Mommy,” the little girl said. “But that’s okay. I know I’m wanted now.”
I stared at her. “That’s not true,” I said quickly. “You were always, always wanted.” I smiled and a tear fell down my cheek. “I promise.”
“It’s time to wake up, Mommy,” the little girl said. She smiled at me and winked. “I’ll see you soon.”
When I came to, there was a sharp pressure in my abdomen. Dr. Collins and Hannah were back, and the lights in the delivery room were bright and sharp.
Hannah grinned at me. “You were out for three hours,” she said. “Can you believe that?”
I blinked at her. “Where’s my baby?” I asked drowsily. “Is she here yet?”
Hannah shook her head. “You’re almost ready to go,” she said. “You’re fully dilated. Dr. Collins’s going to tell you when you can start pushing. Right now we’re just timing your contractions.”
I watched as my belly grew hard under the hospital gown. I frowned. “Is that supposed to happen?” I shifted on the bed. “It feels so weird!”
Hannah laughed. She patted me on the head. “You’re fine,” she said. “Dr. Collins?”
“I want you to count to thirty, and then you can push,” Dr. Collins said. He nodded and held out a stopwatch. “Can you count with me?”
“I feel like I have to use the bathroom,” I moaned. “I feel like I have to push now.” I gritted my teeth and pushed hard until the air went rushing out of my lungs. “It really hurts,” I added, grabbing fistfuls of the sheet between my fingers. “Fuck!”
“Not yet,” Dr. Collins warned. “You want to save your strength.” He reached out and touched my stomach, gently prodding me.
I shifted away from his touch – it didn’t hurt, exactly, but my whole body was uncomfortable and tense. “Gah,” I cried. Another contraction gripped me and I hunched over, pressing my chin to my chest. I was sure I looked horrible – I could feel the skin on my face was flushed and hot – but I no longer cared. Hannah pushed my sweaty hair away from the back of my neck and held a cool cloth over my forehead as I pushed again, this time straining so hard my eyeballs began to ache. “It hurts!”
“I know,” Hannah said soothingly.
“And push!” Dr. Collins said quickly. “Come on!” He knelt down at the foot of the bed, between my spread legs. A sharp tearing sensation struck me between the legs and I cried out, moaning and thrashing. It felt like I was being burned all over, from over my belly to between my legs and back again.
“I’m trying!” I growled through gritted teeth. I flopped back against the mattress. As a sharp contraction gripped my belly, I arched my back.
“I’m going to hold a mirror down in front of you,” Dr. Collins said. “You can watch that for the crowning.” He put a hand on my abdomen and pushed. “Should be any second now.” I watched in horror as he lowered a hand mirror between my legs, focusing on the swollen, puffy labia. “Push!” Dr. Collins cried. “You’re almost there!”
“God!” I strained, closing my eyes and pushed once more. The burning sensation intensified and I felt a sharp tearing in my lower belly. Something huge shot out of my body and I cried out. “I did it!”
“That was the head,” Dr. Collins said soothingly. “Just one more push, now.”
Grabbing Hannah’s hand, I squeezed her fingers and pushed hard. I cried out as I felt something pass between my legs. Then there was a cry.
“My baby,” I cried weakly. “I want to see my baby, please.”
Hannah rushed over to Dr. Collins. I was barely conscious as the two of them leaned their heads together, talking seriously. After a moment of being ignored, the panic began to set in. I struggled to raise my head, to see the baby in Dr. Collins’s arms, anything. But I was feeling so weak that I could barely keep my eyes open, much less focus on sitting up and looking at my obstetrician. There was no sound in the room aside from bleeps and blips – my stomach went cold when I realized that my ears should be filled with the sounds of a baby sobbing. Why isn’t she making noise? I thought. What’s wrong with her?
“Help, please, I want to see my baby!”
Still, nothing. I felt weaker than ever and while most of the pain was gone, I still felt an odd pressure on my belly. Dr. Collins wrapped the infant in a white blanket and handed her away to another nurse.
“You’re bleeding badly,” he said. “I’m going to take you in for an emergency operation.”
Hannah leaned over and placed a tube under my nose. “Count backwards from ten,” she said.
“No!” I cried. “No! Where the hell is my baby? What’s going on? What’s wrong with me? Help!” I grabbed Hannah’s hand and pulled her face close to mine, until I could see the white of her eyes shining with fear. “What’s going on? Help me please!”
“Just hold on,” Hannah soothed. “Nicolette, I need you to hold on.”
That was the last thing I heard before everything around me went black.
Chapter 27
Charlie
Some bitch of a nurse shoved me back into a bed before the cops arrived. I heard them, though, talking right outside my room as the sadistic nurse plugged another IV into my tortured veins and started pumping me full of fluid.
“You need to stay in bed this time,” she chastised me. “If you get up and start walking around again, we’ll be forced to sedate you.”
I groaned. “I need to see Nicolette,” I growled. “She’s been gone for hours! Did she give birth? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” the nurse replied. “I’ll find out as soon as I can. But you need to stay here and rest.”
When the cops walked in the door five minutes later, I almost jumped out of bed again. There were two of them – one short and fat, the other tall and skinny. It was just like the movies.
“Y’all in a buddy cop movie together?” I raised my eyebrows. “This don’t seem like the best place to film.”
/> The shorter cop rolled his eyes. “You Charlie Waters?”
I nodded. “Last time I checked, anyway.”
“I’m Officer Lloyd, and this is Officer Wells.”
“Pleased.” I rolled my eyes. “So, you here about Jack Duncan or what?”
Lloyd nodded. “Right,” he said. He pulled out a little notepad from his pocket and started flipping through the pages. “Johnson Duncan. Twenty-seven years old. That right?”
I burst out laughing. It hurt my ribs and jarred my leg, but I didn’t care. It felt fucking good to laugh after being through something so goddamned harrowing. “His real name is Johnson? You’re shitting me.”
Lloyd didn’t laugh. “But he goes by Jack, that right?”
I nodded. “I’ve only known him as Jack,” I replied. “Never even knew he had a real name.”
“And you are?”
“You already know who I am,” I said uneasily. “Charlie Waters. Y’all said my name when you walked through the door.”
Lloyd and Wells exchanged a glance. “Yeah, we just wanna know if you have any other aliases,” Lloyd said. “You know. Like nicknames.”
Of course they would think I was a fucking crook, too.
“Just Charlie,” I said. “Some people call me Waters. But that’s my real last name. You can look on my birth certificate and everything.”
“You’re a real smartass,” Lloyd snapped. “Especially for someone laid up like that.” He whistled. “What the fuck did you do, anyway?”
My hands balled themselves into fists and I had to remind myself that it was a felony to assault an officer. “I helped his girlfriend escape,” I said. “Nicolette McDonald. She’s in the hospital, too. She’s giving birth.” I raised my eyebrows. “To my baby.”
Lloyd looked down at his notes. “But she was Johnson’s girlfriend, correct?”
I snorted. “Shit, not for a long time now. She ran away about eight months ago,” I said, fudging the date slightly in my head. “He used to beat the shit out of her. He was really abusive, a real monster.”
“And why did you let him?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why’d you let him beat her?” Lloyd stepped forward, tapping the notepad with the tip of his pen. “Why didn’t you step in, be a real white knight about it?”
“I didn’t know for a long time. Jack was the president of this motorcycle club, the Steel Gods. I was involved with them. He took me in, so I didn’t really like to question his judgment about his personal life. I always thought things weren’t as bad as that.”
Lloyd nodded slowly. “And you’re still involved with that club?”
“No, sir. Quit a few weeks back. And I haven’t ridden with them in seven or so months.”
Lloyd nodded. “Anything else you can tell me about Johnson?”
“He pushes drugs. Heroin, coke, tons of pot. Pretty much everything. There’s a warehouse back in Carlsbad that’s full of that shit. You might want to write that down.”
Lloyd snorted. “And this your way of trying to get that asshole off the streets?”
I shrugged. “Does it have to be that obvious?” I pointed to my wounded wrist and leg. “He’s the fuckin’ reason why I’m like this, Lloyd. He’s the one who put me here. And if he’d gotten his hands on Nicolette before you showed up, he would have killed her.” I sniffed. “He’s been bragging about doing that shit since she first left.”
Lloyd nodded. He looked over at Wells, then sat down heavily in the plastic chair that was next to my hospital bed. “I think we got enough here,” he said drily. “Look, there’s one more thing. How’d you and Nicolette wind up together?”
“She ran off, and he told me to go get her,” I said flatly. “I didn’t know what he was thinkin’ about doing. He just told me his girlfriend had left and he wanted her back. She moved out to Durango, Colorado, and tried to start a new life there. I ran into her and we hit it off. That’s how we hooked up. After I fell in love with her, I quit the Gods.” I looked into Lloyd’s flat eyes, hoping my embellishments were enough to make up for the obvious lack of truth there. I knew there was no way he’d believe me if I told him everything: how I’d tried to drag Nicolette back to California, how she’d basically seduced me to change my mind, and – worst of all – how long it had taken me to fall in love with her.
Lloyd nodded. He closed his notebook with a little slap, then tucked it into his pocket. “All right,” he said. “Wells, come on. We’re going.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you gonna take Jack away?”
Lloyd snorted. “Like we’d let that asshole go free,” he said. “We should have enough to charge him with assault. He beat the shit out of you, kid. You’d be dead if you hadn’t made it to the hospital.”
When the cops were gone, I flopped back against the mattress in frustration. I knew a lot of time had gone by, likely hours. It was starting to get dark outside and I hadn’t heard anything about Nicolette’s condition. I wondered if she was okay – I had no idea how long it took to give birth, but considering the baby wasn’t even fully grown, I couldn’t believe it was that hard.
I started gettin’ real restless by the time the moon and stars were out. The nurses changed shifts and now some girl named Kendall was checking in on me every hour, checking my blood pressure and giving me medicine. I’d resisted at first; I’d always had a weakness for painkillers, and I didn’t wanna be out of it when Nicolette finally showed up with our kid. But after a while, the pain in my leg got too bad to ignore.
“That’s a bad break,” Kendall said. She handed me a little paper cup with pills, then waited for me to swallow before handing me the water. “You’re lucky you got here in time.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That’s the damndest thing. I don’t even remember that.”
Kendall perked up. She was a youngish nurse, with a pile of frizzy red hair piled on top of her pale head. “You know, there was another guy involved,” she said. “Maybe he knows something.”
I sighed. “Yeah, Jack Duncan,” I said. “And he’s an asshole. An asshole who’s probably busy being arrested in the hallway as we speak. I wouldn’t ask him shit, honey. He’s not really known for being nice to the ladies.”
Kendall’s eyebrows went up and she looked surprised.
She darted out into the hallway, as if she couldn’t live another second without witnessing King Asshole himself. When she walked back into the room, she was frowning. “That’s not funny,” she complained. “Trying to trick me like that!”
“What?” I rolled my eyes. “He’s the bad guy, kid. He’s the real deal. And hopefully, he’s going upriver for a long time yet.”
Kendall shook her head. “No,” she said. “I mean, that’s not the guy who was in the truck with you and your wife. This guy’s older, like a dad,” she explained. “He’s in the next room. You want me to talk to him?”
“Hold up,” I said. “There was someone else? You fuckin’ sure about that?”
Kendall nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She swished out of the room, swinging her little arms.
I frowned, shifting on the bed and groaning. The pain medicine was just starting to take hold and I felt myself falling into the familiar opiate haze. It felt good, like being in the arms of an old friend. I closed my eyes and let myself drift away on the ocean of numbing fog. Nicolette, I thought as I slipped away from consciousness. I’ll be waiting for you.
When I woke up, it was fully dark outside. Owls hooted outside of the hospital window. I wasn’t used to seeing clear night skies like that. Even on the old farm where I’d lived outside of Carlsbad had too much light pollution to really see anything properly. And ever since Nicolette and I had hidden out in St. George, I hadn’t spent much time outside at night. She’d always been paranoid that something real bad was gonna happen the second I stepped away.
I didn’t want to tell her I’d been just as worried.
The door to my room swung open, a bright yellow tria
ngle of light appearing on the floor of my room. Kendall sauntered in, carrying a clipboard. “You’re awake,” she said, sounding surprised. “Everything okay? You need more medicine?”
“I really want to see Nicolette,” I said slowly. The words tasted foreign and blocky in my mouth. Talking had always been hard on painkillers. “Can I see her?”
“She’s given birth,” Kendall said. “But she’s resting right now. She had to have an emergency operation. Would you like to see the child?”
I nodded. “Oh, god,” I said. “Is she okay? Please tell me she’s okay.”
Kendall nodded. “She should be fine. But the doctor hasn’t made a final call yet; it’s too early to tell.” I must have looked distraught because the nurse put a hand on my shoulder and patted. “You can wait with your daughter if you’d like.”