by Callie Hart
“I believe you have some news for me,” she says sleepily.
I take her good hand, frowning. “I do?”
She raises her eyebrows, looking down at my stomach. “For as long as I’ve known you, I’ve never seen your belly poking out through your scrubs before, Romera. The honeymoon phase is a real thing people go through when they’re happy and in love, but I doubt you’ve just suddenly gained a beer belly overnight, have you?”
I pull a rueful face, sighing. She’s way more observant than I’ve given her credit for. I assumed with everything going on she wouldn’t notice my baby bump, but the thing is growing daily it appears, and Pip has sharp eyes. I fold my hands over my stomach, still not really used to the concept that there is a life growing inside me yet. It’s hard to forget, what with the way my body is changing constantly, and how often I throw up, but I still the idea of it is…weird. “I was going to tell you,” I say. “I was going to, but…”
“But I’ve been a nightmare to deal with, and you were worried how I would react to the news that you were chaining yourself to a man I don’t approve of for the next eighteen years?”
“Well. Yeah.”
She smiles softly. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and think on this. I’m going to be in your corner, no matter what. And come on… the two of your have stood at hell’s gates together on more than one occasion, and Zeth has thrown himself on the fire time and time again to protect you. It may have taken me some time, but I can see how dedicated he is to you. I’m not going to stand in the way of that. Not anymore.”
“I, for one, am glad to hear that,” a deep male voice says. Pippa and I both turn and look at the same time, and Michael’s standing in the doorway, fiddling with the his cufflink. He looks like a GQ model, posing effortlessly for a shoot, entirely out of place under the hospital’s grim strip lighting. Pippa shifts in her bed, trying to sit up, but I growl at her.
“Don’t even think about it, Newan. If you undo any of Dr. Gaffin’s work by fidgeting, I’m gonna be pissed, and so is he.”
“Okay if I come in?” Michael asks.
I look at Pippa. For a startling second, I can’t remember if she’s ever met him before, but then I remember the fiasco that went down here at the hospital, when Agent Lowell showed up here and all hell broke loose. She’s met him all right. I just have no idea if she’s going to be okay with seeing him again now.
She shrugs one shoulder. “Sure. So long as you don’t plan on shooting anyone while you’re here.”
“I’ll endeavor to do my best.” From Michael, that’s a fairly non-committal response. He’s smiling broadly as he enters the room, though. “You haven’t been home in nearly twenty-four hours,” he says, rebuking me. “I don’t wanna have to tell tales on you, girl. You’d better be heading home soon, otherwise your boyfriend’s going to string me up.”
“Come on. Let her hang out with me a little longer. He’ll never know,” Pippa says, smirking.
“Oh, he’ll know,” Michael says.
I nod, sighing. “Yep. Zeth always knows.”
Pippa groans. “All right. I suppose I’ve kept you here long enough. And you do need to make sure you’re resting properly now. I suppose I’ll forgive you if you need to go home.”
It’s funny how so many people are making decisions about what’s best for me these days. I am tired, though. Exhausted would be a better way of describing my current physical state. I get up, trying not to give away just how exhausted I am as I stretch. “Okay, okay, I’ll head down and get my purse.” I’m halfway between the bed and the door when a nurse appears, her cheeks red, her brow marked with perspiration.
“Elevators are out. Internal phone lines appear to be down as well. Dr. Patel’s been looking for you for a consult, Dr. Romera. Can you spare five minutes?”
I look to Michael.
He shakes his head, a wan smile pulling at his mouth. “Five minutes. Don’t make me come looking for you,” he says. He sits down on the chair beside Pippa’s bed, making a shooing motion with his hand. I’d have thought he’d have come with me and waited out front in the car, but whatever. Pippa doesn’t look even remotely fazed at her new visitor. She grins at me sleepily.
“A baby, Sloane.” She beams. “You’re having a baby.”
******
The nurse waits for me to catch up with her. She stands by the entrance to the stairwell, breathing hard, like she really has been running all over the hospital looking for me. To the right, I see the elevator doors roll open and Dr. Patel emerges, talking to one of his first year residents.
“Oh, look. The elevators are back up and running. And Dr. Patel—”
Something sharp jabs me in the neck, just below my ear. I stop speaking, slowly turning my head to face the nurse, who is now holding a scalpel to my throat. She looks frantic, her eyes alight with panic. “Just come with me. Don’t make a sound. Don’t breathe a word. Follow me and everything will be fine.”
I don’t recognize her. She’s not one of St. Peter’s regular nurses, but we frequently have temp men and women come in to fill spots on the trauma and ICU floors if we happen to be short staffed for any reason. I didn’t even think twice when she told me I was needed. It didn’t occur to me that she might not actually be a nurse.
I slowly hold out my hands, trying to calm my own breathing. “Whoa. Hold on. If I follow you into that stairwell, you and I both know something bad is going to happen.”
The woman looks up and down the hallway, panic all over her face. “If you don’t come with me now, something bad is going to happen. My son. They have my son. They told me I had twenty minutes to bring you to them. That was half an hour ago. Please.”
Fuck. I have no idea who the people that this woman’s child are, but I can see from the look of sheer terror in her eyes that she believes they are bad people. She wholeheartedly believes they will hurt her son, if they haven’t already done so, and she’s ready to act drastically in order to get me to comply with her. She digs the scalpel deeper into my flesh, until I feel the bright, stinging pain of the blade breaking my skin.
The corridor is teeming with people. We’re stood in the corner of the hallway, my back to the other doctors and nurses who are passing us by, and no one can see the instrument the woman is holding up against my carotid artery. Not yet. If I stand here another moment, there’s every chance someone will catch what she’s doing and raise the alarm.
I don’t have another moment, though. This woman is a mother. I haven’t understood what a powerful, overwhelming thing that is until recently. My child isn’t even born yet and I already know I will kill for him if I have to. I already know I would act the same way this woman is acting if someone took him away from me. If I don’t do what she’s asking of me and right now, she’s going to plunge that scalpel into my body, and she’s going to drag my bleeding body into the stairwell come hell or high water.
“All right, all right, I’m coming. I’m coming. Just…stay calm, okay? You’re right. Everything’s going to be okay.” My entire body is on fire with adrenalin, though. I don’t really believe that anything is going to be okay. I’m freaking the hell out. Michael was just with me three seconds ago. Three seconds! If I’d only told her I didn’t have time for the consult…
That’s not in my nature, though. A short consult on the way out of the door is fairly standard at St. Peter’s, and sometimes the second pair of eyes are crucial to diagnosing a patient. Dr. Patel’s helped me out more times than I can count, so of course I was going to do the same for him. Now here I am, being shoved down a flight of stairs with a very sharp surgical implement being driven into the small of my back. “Who are they?” I ask. “What do they look like? What do they want?”
“I don’t know,” the woman hisses. “I didn’t hang around to ask questions. They showed me they had my son and I asked them what the hell they wanted me to do to keep him safe. I wasn’t really thinking straight.” She stumbles, tripping as she tr
ies to hurry down the steps, and almost knocks me over. One misplaced foot would be all it takes. If I fall and I land on my stomach…
It doesn’t even bear thinking about. A cold shiver skates down my spine. “Where are we going?” I know what a stupid question it is. I just want to make her talk. I want to make her give me something to go on. I have my cell phone in my pocket, and I’m about to try and dial Michael. Without looking at the screen. Because my boyfriend is a little crazy sometimes, and because we live the life we do, this is something he’s actually made me practice. Michael’s speed dial no. 2 on my cell. I find the home button on the device and then I do my best to remember where to touch the screen in order to make a call. This would be a hell of a lot easier if the damn thing had actual buttons.
“Just keep moving.” The woman pushes me again, driving the point of the scalpel a little deeper into my lower back. I hiss with pain as I hurry down. Down, down, down. Our footsteps sounds like machine gun fire as we both race towards the ground floor. I physically can’t go any quicker, but the woman at my back continues to urge me on, faster, faster, faster.
I’m seriously worried right now, but I swear to god, if she pushes me one more time…
We hit the ground floor. At this point, I’m expecting her to open the emergency exit, out into the parking lot, and I’m already making plans. I’ll hit her square in the jaw. I’ll knock her the hell out. I’ll wheel on her, grab hold of that damn scalpel and I’ll hold it against her neck, see how she fucking likes it. I’m disappointed when she doesn’t hit the push bar on the emergency exit, though. She continues around the corner, into the darkness, where a different exit waits for us: the one that leads to the subterranean parking level.
Shit.
Has my call to Michael connected? If it has, will he think I’ve pocket dialed him? Will he have already hung up? God knows, but the second I walk through this door, I know what’s going to happen. The walls down there are lead lined or something. There’s absolutely no cell reception whatsoever. It’s commonly known in the hospital. We’re always being warned not to go down there late at night on our own. A woman was attacked last year by a psych patient and no one found her until the next morning. Ever since then it’s constantly jammed down our throats: the underground parking level is not safe.
I have two options. Option one: I shout out, tell Michael where I am and what’s going on. Hope that the call connected, that he’s still listening, and that he can hear me. If I do that, I’ll give away the fact that I’m carrying my cell phone with me, and it will likely be confiscated, though. Option two: I keep quiet, wait this out, and then when I get a chance I can try and make another call to let Michael know what’s happening. I have to make a split decision, and it’s not an easy one. I go for option two. I have to in the end. The woman behind me dressed in nurse’s scrubs shoves me forward, whimpering under her breath, and that’s it. I’m traveling down more steps, down, beyond the bowels of the hospital.
The underground parking level is well lit, but the edges of the vast space are still dark and shadowy. How many cars are parked down here? Ten? Fifteen? The external, ground floor lot is huge and nearly always has free spaces, so this parking lot is often forgotten about. There isn’t a soul in sight.
Until…
On the far side of the lot, a little boy is running while a man in a black felt coat chases him up and down. For a second I think the little boy is trying to escape, then I realize the man in the long black coat has his arms outstretched, the fingers of both hands extended, and every time he catches up with the little boy he tickles him, lifting him off the ground. The little boy howls with delight as he’s swung high above the stranger’s head.
“Oh, god,” the woman behind me whispers. “Oh, god, please. Please, please, please.”
The tall guy carrying the little boy puts the child down when he notices us approaching. He reaches into his jacket, drawing a gun from a holster. He doesn’t lift it or aim it at us; he merely holds it in his hand at his side—threat enough. We get closer. The little boy notices his mother coming and squeals, running to her. She falls to her knees, crying openly, her hands moving quickly all over his little body as she checks to see if he’s hurt. If I were going to run, now would be the time. Where would I go, though? The exit to the parking complex is a good three hundred feet away. If I tried to turn tail and run back the way I came, it would be ridiculously easy for the guy with the gun to shoot me.
Our eyes meet, and I see how serious he is about this. Deadly serious. He shakes his head slowly, a menacing smile spreading across his face. “I wouldn’t. Just in case,” he says slowly. “I’ve been told to take you alive, Ms. Romera, but accidents can happen. Especially when people are dashing about like headless chickens.”
“You do realize how stupid this is, right?” I snap.
He tilts his head on an angle, pouting. “Why? Because of your boyfriend, the great and all-powerful Zeth Mayfair? I mean, yeah. Under normal circumstances, I’d say kidnapping you would be a very bad idea. But…” He holds one finger up. “Rumor has it your other half is out of town, Sloane. And while the cat’s away…” He smile expands, moving from menacing, to wicked, to positively evil. “I’m sure you know the rest…”
EIGHT
ZETH
2 YEARS AGO
St. Peter’s is packed. It’s New Year’s Eve, and the hospital’s waiting room is overflowing with drunk, fucked-up frat boys, in varying states of consciousness. Some are asleep in their chairs, mouths hanging open, snoring, while a few other others, the green around the gills ones, are visibly fighting their need to puke. Sitting across from me, a girl wearing pink stilettos and a matching pink sequin dress is holding a bag of frozen peas to her bloodied nose, while her wasted friend apologizes repeatedly for hitting her in the face with her purse.
The nursing staff are literally running from one end of the building to the other, harried expressions on their faces, beads of sweat on their brows. The woman in scrubs at the reception desk is a picture of calm, though. She carries a tablet from patient to patient, asking them questions, grading their level of need as she goes. As she passes me, she places a hand on my shoulder.
“How you doin’, honey? The headache getting any worse?”
I give her a bland smile. “About the same. Just...y’know. Throbbing.”
She nods, and I can read her mind perfectly: Go home, take some aspirin and go to sleep, you jerk. You’re cluttering up my E.R. She suggested as much when I checked myself three hours ago with a mild migraine, but I’d politely smiled and sat myself down, telling her I didn’t mind waiting.
And here I’ve sat. Waiting.
The nurse with the tablet moves on, and I look up to find that the two girls sitting opposite me are staring at me. Not even hiding the fact. They look me up and down, head to toe, conducting some assessment of their own. “You’re here for a headache?” the one wearing pink sequins asks.
I angle my head to one side. “Problem?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve, dude. Drink a few beers and get over it.”
“Yeah,” her friend agrees. “Drink some water, and then drink some beers. You’ll be fine in half an hour. Geez.” They’re both looking at me like I’m failing at life. The girl who apparently broke her friend’s nose stops frowning and gives me a non-too-subtle smile. “You are super hot by the way. Do you have a girlfriend?”
Oh lord. I look away, watching a balding guy smashing his fist into the vending machine, the top of his head growing redder and redder as he struggles to make the machine comply.
“Hey, I asked you a question. Do. You. Have. A. Girlfriend.”
I slowly turn my gaze back to the girl. “No. I do not have a girlfriend.” My response is clipped. Cold. It’s the kind of tone that speaks volumes to most normal, sane, intelligent people. It’s the kind of tone that says, run for your fucking lives. These girls aren’t smart enough to register this, however.
“Why not? Are you one of those a
ssholes who dates a bunch of women at the same time?”
“No.”
“Then spill. Are you gay?”
“No.”
They roll their eyes in unison. “There’s no need to say no like that.”
“How did I say it?”
“Like you’re a fucking homophobe or something.”
“I’m not a homophobe. I’ve slept with men before.”
This stops them both in their tracks. Their eyes double in size. “Are you for real?” Sequins drops her bag of frozen peas on the floor.
“Yes, I am for real.”
“That is the…hottest…thing…I have ever fucking heard,” she whispers. “I can’t even…fucking…” Her eyes roll up to the ceiling, like she’s beseeching whatever god she believes in for assistance.
I don’t smile. I shrug my shoulders, eyes scanning the waiting room. “People are people. You either wanna fuck them or you don’t.”
They don’t say anything else. My eyes rove from the set of double doors at the far end of the E.R. to the entrance, studying the faces of the female doctors who breeze and out of the space. A minute passes. Two. When I turn back, the girls, who I’ve frankly forgotten about, are staring at me with their mouths open. Still staring at me. I get the feeling they haven’t looked away since I spoke last.
They share a brief, loaded look, and then the one on the left says, “Have you ever been with two girls at once before?” in a secretive, suggestive manner, her voice lowered.
I rock my head back, and I laugh. I can’t fucking help myself. The sound of my amusement booms over the chatter and drunken shouting filling the E.R. Have I ever slept with two girls at once? Have I ever…
If only these two knew the depths of my depravity, they wouldn’t be fucking talking to me right now. They’d be asking for an armed guard for their protection. My insane reaction to their poorly veiled offer must be incredibly offensive to them, because they get to their feet, wobbling on their ridiculous fucking heels.