by Pam Godwin
He lifted it above my head. A medallion fell from his grip and caught on a length of silver chain, dangling over my face. I grabbed it, cradling it in my palm for a closer look. My breath caught.
The medallion was about two inches in diameter and cast out of silver. Embedded in the metal was the turquoise stone Jesse had given me, a black bead from Roark’s rosary, and one of Michio’s fangs.
My ribs tightened, and my hands shook. I licked my lips, working my throat to find my voice. “You made this?”
“I had one of Link’s guys make it. Lift your head.”
Michio fastened it around my neck and leaned back, watching me with boundless devotion etching his face.
I held it against my chest, the length of the chain placing it directly over my heart. “I love it. I…” The backs of my eyes pricked, and I cursed my damned pregnancy hormones for turning me into such a whimpering mess. “You guys have given me so much.”
Jesse kissed my neck beneath my ear. “We feel the same way about you, darlin’.”
A sweet, comfortable silence fell, broken when Roark sat up and grinned. “We should call her Betty.”
Jesse scrubbed a hand over his face. “You call every woman you see a betty.”
“Then it’ll be easy for me to remember.”
There was a good chance we wouldn’t be agreeing on a name, but I got a kick out of listening to them joke about it.
“How about Bertha?” Jesse asked.
He sounded so serious, but I knew he was fucking with us.
Michio frowned. “You want Evie to give birth to a Bertha? I suppose it’s kinder than just cutting through the crap and naming her Placenta or Vagina.”
Roark closed his eyes. “Anyone who names their child that should be punished with terrible torture in unquenchable fire.” He rolled to his chest, staring at my belly. “Let’s just call her Schartzmugel and be done with it.”
Jesse tucked an arm beneath his head, his eyes smiling. “Hi, my name is Schartzmugel, and I’m here to save the world.”
I rubbed my temples. “I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.”
Roark lowered his head and kissed my hip bone. “We want ye to choose the name. We’ll love anything ye pick.”
“Okay.”
I ran my fingers through his hair, the strands soft and gentle, so unlike the tangled dreads from our life on the road. It was symbolic, really, of how easy and orderly our routine had become. Living in the dam, with electricity and haircuts and a bed, it felt…normal. Like pre-plague, feel-good normal. I wanted to grab onto this moment in time, hold it for them, and leave it with them after I was gone. But I couldn’t stop the future or the pain it would bring them. All I could do was give them my approval to take whatever path they needed to find this feel-good normal again.
“Promise me something.” I waited for them to look at me. “I’ve spent a lot of time in my head, trying to figure out what to say to you, how to make it better after—”
“Evie.” Jesse growled, his expression stony.
Beside me, Roark and Michio stiffened.
“Just listen. When I die, promise me that when other women—”
“We’re not talking about this.” Roark slid off the bed, stark nude, and strode toward the door.
“We have to talk about it.” I crawled to my knees, facing him. “For my peace of mind. Please!”
Roark stopped and shoved his hand through his hair, seemingly trying to rein in his emotions. “You’re going to live. That’s all there is to it.”
My chest tightened.
Warm hands slid around my hips and pulled me back. When I turned, Michio stroked a finger down my cheek, the desolate look in his brown eyes squeezing my lungs.
His lips compressed, as if holding back something, then parted with a shuddering breath. “I’m trying to fix this. I’m trying…I just…I don’t know what’s broken.”
He’d spent months in the lab, studying my blood work and DNA. So many tests, and they all came back healthy. I was healthy.
My eyes burned as I cupped his face and rested my forehead against his. “There’s nothing to fix. This is supposed to happen.”
“Bullshit.” Jesse rose to his knees on the mattress, hands clenched at his sides. “We’re going to defeat this.”
“How? You can’t fight it with an arrow or a sword. You can’t tie a rope around me and pull me away from it.” My voice rose, shaky and thick with sudden tears. “It’s coming, this…this…whatever this is that decides what will happen. It’s conspicuous and ugly and inescapable, and dammit, I don’t want it to take you with me.”
I couldn’t leave knowing they would become so lost in grief that they couldn’t find their way back.
Silence blanketed the room. The sound of misery.
A hot trail of tears dripped down my cheek, and I swiped at it, staining my fingers in red. Ugh. I couldn’t even cry like normal people. I went a lifetime without crying, and now this? Blubbering all the time and making a damned mess.
No more tears. I refused to let a single drop of negative energy steal what time I had left.
“I just want you to be happy.” I drew in a calming breath. “Maybe I should leave a letter like Joel did. His words strengthened me through some dark and lonely times.”
“We won’t be alone.” Roark returned to the bed and wrapped his body around my back. “And we den’ want a letter.”
“We want you.” Michio pulled his gaze from me, shared a look with the others, and returned to my face. “We have you here and would rather hear it now…” His jaw tightened, and he looked away.
Jesse gripped the back of Michio’s neck with a firm squeeze. His earlier tension loosened from his muscles, his eyes lidded with a wretched kind of resolve. “We’ll listen. What do you want us to promise?”
I slid out of Roark’s embrace so that I could see all of their faces. We sat in a tight circle on the bed, leaning toward the center, toward each other, our breaths mingling and our bond coursing like a current of energy around us.
As I moved my hands to my belly, they followed suit, their fingers curling around mine as I spoke. “Promise me you won’t struggle alone. Whether you find another woman or several women, remain as open to love as you are in this moment. But don’t let her or them rip apart the bond you’ve created between you. Schartzmugel needs her fathers together and united.”
“Bloody hell, love.” Roark hooked his arm around my back and pulled me against his side. “Before we met ye, we were resigned to be single and lonely.”
Michio gripped my hand, head down and gaze on the bedding. “But we didn’t just find you.” He lifted his eyes and looked at Jesse and Roark.
They’d found each other. Closeness and trust that could only be shared between brothers, best friends, lovers. My heart beat slow and steady through my veins, comforted, content.
“We promise we won’t be alone.” Jesse’s eyes were hard with conviction, his voice rough with emotion. “These guys are hard to get rid of.”
“Yeah, they are.” I smiled with trembling lips. “I have one more request.”
Every moment I’d spent with them over the years had been a gift. Jesse’s angry glares when I first met him in the mountains, Roark’s flirting and frustrating celibacy in the bunker, my captivity on Malta under Michio’s constant care, all of those interactions were gifts. No matter what we were doing, I cherished every second of their company. And now those seconds were slipping free from my grip. It made me greedy, desperate, for more of their time.
“No more parting ways in the morning to spend long hours in the lab or gardening or training soldiers. Spend the next two months with me. The four of us. In bed or running the tunnels. Eating, talking, laughing, touching, I don’t care what we do, I just want to do it together.”
Their somber, thoughtful gazes caressed my face, and my fingers trembled, aching to strangle my fate. Each beat of my heart felt like a leap toward the final one, when I would no longer stare into the
ir eyes or feel their breaths on my neck.
Fingers entwined, Michio carried my hand to his lips. “You didn’t need to ask.”
For the next two months, they gave me the most valuable gift of all. We spent every second together, and time flowed in a river of smiling, bickering, fucking, kissing inseparable intimacy. Not a moment was wasted.
It was the best two months of my life. And probably theirs as well. Jesse and Roark strengthened in speed, and when their fangs came in, so did their cravings. Sips of my blood quenched them, but they also drew from each other. Their blood would sustain them, and maybe the vials I’d been saving could be used to create a vaccine or cure. I hoped.
At the end of August, Shea gave birth to her baby. When he inhaled his first breath, the air didn’t kill him. Either the nymph virus was gone or recovered nymphs were able to pass along their immunity. He had ten fingers and toes and perfect, healthy human organs. With his thick black hair and huge eyes, he looked just like Paul. She named him Eddie.
My guardians didn’t hold him, their demeanors guarded, hesitant, and their eyes full of dread, as if his arrival was a harbinger of the darkness that was to come. That night, they fucked me gently yet with so much trembling desperation it scared me. They were scared. It was like they knew.
The next morning, I woke with an overwhelming urge to watch the sunrise, so on our way to breakfast, we stopped in the garden at the bottom of the dam.
Crowds still gathered in the thousands around the canyon, a revolving congregation of people coming and going, searching for a glimpse of me and my massive belly when I made my daily trips to the surface. The sheet-metal walls around the garden provided privacy from all the eyes peering through the barricades around the dam, but the open rafters allowed sunlight to nourish the vibrancy of greenery within.
The gardener, Ronnie, worked on the pipe system in the far corner. Darwin darted over to him with enthusiastic sniffs and licks, while the four of us walked through the rows of plants. Rich, shimmering hues of green exploded beneath the golden breath of dawn. Beyond the garden’s metal supports, the sun peered over a red-rock bluff, casting the sky in a fiery glow and warming my skin. It felt like the beginning of life.
As the shimmering rays chased away the shadows, my guardians stood strong and glorious under the strengthening twilight. Mother Nature’s most beautiful creations. Just looking at them made me lightheaded. The deep jade pools of Roark’s eyes. The reddish hues of Jesse’s strong, whiskered jaw. The symmetrical angles of Michio’s sculpted face. But none of that was as beautiful as the souls beneath their perfect forms. How lucky I was to have loved them.
We reached the center of the garden when a fist of pain clamped my stomach. I shouted out, stumbling forward, shocked by the violence of it. My cervix had been dilating normally, and I wasn’t due for another week. Fuck, why did this hurt so badly? My previous births had been gradual, small cramping, before building into active labor. This…this was too sudden. Too violent. Something was wrong.
Jesse and Roark grabbed my arms, their eyes wide with terror.
Michio put his worried face in mine. “Breathe, Evie. Slow and deep.”
But the next contraction was already bearing down on me, cutting my breath and robbing the strength from my body. The pressure between my legs hurt worse than anything I remembered, and the need to push overpowered all thought.
I couldn’t resist it, could feel her stretching, breaching, trying to wrench her way out of me. “I need to push!”
The contractions hit me one right after another, each stronger, longer, and closer together than the last. My legs cramped, and nausea gripped my body. I needed to sit. Fuck, I needed to push. But Jesse and Roark held me up, attempting to shuffle out of the garden and into the dam.
“Wait.” Michio grabbed my shorts and yanked them down, crouching as he touched between my legs. He looked up, his shock clear in his wide eyes. “Send for the obstetricians.”
“We need to take her to them.” The fear straining Jesse’s voice punched a different kind of pain through my insides. “She needs to be in the room with all the equipment.”
Another contraction slammed into me, rocking me against Jesse, and a gush of wet warmth ran down my legs.
“She’s already crowning.” The urgency in Michio’s voice sent chills down my spine. “I…I could pick her up and speed there, but I’m afraid the velocity—”
“Fuck no!” I screamed.
I would not give birth while being carried through a tunnel at a hundred miles per hour.
“Put her on the ground,” Michio said, his eyes stony and focused.
“Ronnie!” Roark shouted for the gardener, his hands digging into my arm as he crouched with Jesse and eased me onto my back.
The moment the cold concrete touched my spine, I started pushing. I couldn’t help it. The increasing pressure in my back, the unbearable pain in my abdomen, the suddenness of the contractions, it was all too much. Too much fear, too much confusion, too much pain. And not enough time. I was already at the bottom of the cliff. There was nowhere left to fall. No escape. This was happening. I grasped Roark’s arm. Oh God, I wasn’t ready.
I would never be ready.
But I had no choice. My body was already contracting and pressing, driving her out.
Roark’s head swung around and jerked to a stop. “Ronnie, get the doctors. Go!” Then he roared, “Run like your arse is on fire!”
Ronnie’s speeding footsteps echoed through the garden and faded into the dam. A second later, Darwin approached in a flurry of clicking toenails, his wet nose sliding across my neck and his tongue lapping at my face.
Jesse guided him back and grabbed my fingers. “We’re right here, darlin’. Squeeze my hand as hard as you need to.”
I tried not to hold the tension in my face as I bore down and focused on pushing where it mattered. I screamed and grunted, clutching Jesse’s hand and scraping my nails across Roark’s leg. Shit, it hurt like a motherfucker. My shrieking protests were delirious, and every frenzied thump of my heart flooded me with adrenaline and uncertainty.
Michio knelt between my legs, yanked off his shirt, and wiped what must’ve been the top of her head. Without removing his eyes from my spread legs, he thrust an impatient hand toward Jesse and Roark. “Your shirts.”
He tossed the one in his hand, the fabric soaked in blood, as he grabbed the others from Jesse and Roark.
Panic rose, shaking my limbs. “Why am I bleeding?”
Was the baby’s life in danger? Was she stuck in the birth canal? What if she died with me? I tried to claw my way out of my mounting fears, but the tension in my guardians postures escalated my blood pressure and sealed up my throat.
“What’s wrong?” Jesse leaned toward Michio, his eyes wild with terror as he stared between my legs. “Oh God. Jesus, fuck.” His voice rasped with horror. “Why is there so much blood?”
Michio lowered his face between my legs, his fingers moving around the baby’s head inside me. “Sudden and rapid contractions, vaginal bleeding, abdominal pain, all indicators of placental abruption.” Panic clipped the edge of his rushed voice. “Keep pushing, Evie. We need her out.”
I crunched my body and pushed with all my might, howling and shaking, stopping only when I needed to breathe through the unbearable pain.
Roark raised my hand to his mouth, his lips moving silently against my fingers as he prayed.
Another surge of contractions powered through me, ripping a scream from my throat. My muscles locked up, and frantic desperation thundered against my ribs. As my fingers spasmed in the strong hands that held me, I sought their eyes, needing their strength. But I only saw more pain, their expressions contorted in a heartbreaking visage of anguish.
My chest tightened, aching to take away their torment. “I’m fine. It’s just labor pains.” I huffed between pushes. “Almost over.”
Jesse brought his face to mine, squeezing my hand to his chest and smoothing down my hair with his oth
er. “I love you.” His voice cracked. “God, I love you so much. You’ll get through this.”
Roark glanced over his shoulder, his hand falling to my face, his thumb stroking my jaw. “Where the feck are they?” He turned back to me, agony rutting deep grooves around his eyes. “You’re brilliant, love. Strong and beautiful. I’m so fecking proud of ye.”
I gave him a grateful smile and looked at Michio. “Is she…” A wave of dizziness and chills shuddered through me, weakening my body. “Is she going to be okay?”
Michio kept his attention on his hands, his arms flexing between my legs. “I need her out now! You’re losing too much blood.” His tone sharpened, spiked with imperative. “Push, Evie. Push!”
The unmistakable stench of dread sweltered the air. Jesse’s grip on my hand clenched harder. Michio’s expression grew tighter. And Roark’s chest heaved as he caressed my face.
With each push, I felt my blood, my energy, and my life flowing from my body. She was taking it with her, leaving a burst of yellow and orange across my vision. The sky overhead glowed with the arrival of dawn, swirling around us and chasing away the chill. I was floating, up, up, up into the sky, carried on the translucent rays of light. Every sunrise was different, but this one was far brighter, stronger, and more luminous than all its predecessors.
This was the first light of the future.
An urgent voice echoed on the surface of my awareness. I reached for it, tried to feel it, embrace it, and crashed back to the concrete floor in the garden.
My body was a block of ice, freezing my nerve-endings and weighing down my limbs. No energy. No strength. The garden was losing its vibrancy, the edges swallowed by thickening shadows.
“Evie.” Jesse’s agonized face filled my view, tears sheening his eyes, and his voice so strained his words garbled. “Keep your eyes open. Look at me.”
“The baby?” I whispered, or at least I thought I did. I tried to see around him, couldn’t lift my head.