35. Chapter 35 – Olivia
Chapter 35 – Olivia
I watched on in sick fascination and horror as Maddox raced down the hall, taking on the gang of Hell Eaters that had Tamen and me cornered at the stairwell. He looked so damn good, racing to help like a man on a mission, but one look at his black eyes as he found me around the chaos, and I shivered in realization.
Maddox wasn’t there, staring back at me. His psycho was in control, and I was fucking here for it. In a way, I had always wanted to know that side of him; the man that did the dismembering before he showed up on my doorstep with boxes filled with the only parts left of the men who wanted to kill me.
My psycho.
The psycho that looked like he would not stop until every man between us lay at his feet.
I tried to focus on him and how he and Tamen both almost effortlessly worked through the crowd of ten men, spilling blood and tearing chunks out of them with their bare hands. But my contractions were nearly on top of each other, and I sank to my knees against the wall, closing my eyes and trying to close out the noise and smell of death around me as I fought my body’s urges to bring life into the world. It seemed insane to birth a baby surrounded by such death, but the harder I tried to stop the pain, the stronger it came.
“Madd.” I gasped, clawing at the concrete floor as a scream ripped from my lips. “She’s coming!”
A sinister laugh echoed over me, and I looked up in time to see Damon moving over me, blood spilling from his face in multiple spots. “My daughter wants to meet her daddy!” He jeered and my eyes flicked to his hand, where a knife caught the reflection of the dingy light hanging in the hallway’s ceiling.
“No.” I cried, backing away on my hands and falling to my ass as he got even closer to me, waving his knife in my direction. “Please!”
Even as I threw myself backward, his knife still moved too fast for me to avoid and the tip sliced through the gown and into the flesh of my chest, leaving a searing pain in its wake.
“Storm!” Maddox bellowed, and I clutched the wound as his hands wrapped around Damon’s neck from behind. It happened in slow motion, but the fear was paralyzing as I stared up at the two men fighting, eager for it to be over before it even started. Maddox had both hands wrapped around Damon’s neck, his fingers dug into the flesh and making it dimple like at any moment, they would pierce through the skin and embed themselves inside. But Damon would not go down without a fight, and I watched in horror as he spun the knife around in his hand and then arched it behind him, and directly into Maddox’s stomach.
“No!” I screamed in despair as Damon pulled the knife free and tried to plunge it in again, but Maddox twisted his wrists, and a deafening cracking sound echoed from Damon’s open lips seconds before his eyes glassed over and his body went limp. I shook like a leaf on the ground, paralyzed with my eyes trained on the two men standing over me, waiting for it all to end.
Maddox huffed, throwing Damon’s body to the side like he was nothing more than a bag of trash as he fell to his knees in front of me. “Move your hands.” He demanded, but I just stared at him with eyes wide and my body frozen, watching the red ooze of blood stain his white shirt from the wound in his abdomen. “Storm!” He bellowed, placing both hands on the sides of my face and forcing me to look at him. “Move your hands so I can see the wound.”
“Your—” I stammered, letting him pull my hands away and trembling when I saw how much blood coated my fingers over the dry blood of the doctor, “Your wound.” I pulled at his shirt and revealed the nasty gash right in his side beneath his rib cage that poured blood out. “Oh my god, Maddox.”
“Shh,” He hushed, pulling my hands away from his stomach as he put pressure on the slice in my chest. “Stop, we need to get you to the hospital.”
“You’re bleeding more than me.” I got back into motion, pushing him back as Tamen hovered behind him, staring at us with that penetrative stare I had come to hate in the last few days. “God, Maddox, he stabbed you!”
“The baby,” Maddox ignored me and, as if on cue, as soon as his free hand touched my stomach through the gown, another wave of agony cut through the adrenaline and hit me like a brick wall. “We’re not going to make it, are we?”
I trembled, pressing my head back into the wall as realization dawned on me. I wasn’t making it to the hospital before our daughter was born. “No.”
“Okay.” He nodded and took a deep breath, before forcing a smile to his lips as I trembled in his embrace. “Tamen, she needs a bed. Somewhere far away from this.”
“This way.” The Englishman nodded curtly and started walking away down the hall as Maddox lifted me into his arms as I groaned an animalistic cry of pain.
“I have to push.” I hissed, fighting the urge but giving into it like my body was in control and I no longer had a say. “God, it hurts Madd.”
“Shh,” He kissed my temple, running through the hallway to a lower floor and into a room behind Tamen. It was a bedroom, and it looked clean enough, as Dane’s mysterious brother cleared his things off the bed and paced in the corner as Maddox laid me down in the center of the queen-sized bed as another urge to push took over. “You’ve got this, Storm.” Maddox crawled up on the bed next to me and snapped his fingers at Tamen. “Towels. Blankets. Whatever you can find for this wound and for the baby.”
“Yeah,” Tamen nodded, rubbing his hands over his face as he moved toward the door. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“Now, Tamen!” Maddox roared as I dug my nails into his neck and pushed again. “That’s it, baby. Just listen to your body and let it work for you. Remember what we learned in those videos, use the contractions to do the work for you.”
“It’s too early.” I gasped when the contraction ended and I could breathe again, “She’s not due yet.”
“She’s going to be just fine,” He laid his forehead against mine and took a deep breath, so I’d mimic him in the moment of relief. “We’re having a daughter.”
Sobs wracked my body as grief of the entire situation overwhelmed me. “It’s not supposed to be like this.” I cried harder. “What if something is wrong with her?”
“We’ll figure it out when she’s born.” He stated firmly, reminding me of the task at hand. “Let’s get her out and we can go from there.”
“Ow.” I cried, laying my head back against the pillow and arching into the pain as the same overwhelming feeling of bearing down overcame me. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” I whimpered and then did as Maddox said and used the contraction to work with me instead of against me.
And then I fucking pushed.
I curled my chin to my chest and silently put all of my energy into the push and felt my daughter be born as Maddox encouraged me and talked us both through it all.
As soon as she was born, it felt as if the pain had just stopped. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, watching as Maddox scooped her up in his arms, tipping her on her side and rubbing his massive hand over her back.
“Madd.” I whispered as our daughter remained silent and still, cradled in his hands that just murdered numerous men to save us both. “Madd.” I sat up higher and stared at her, holding my breath, waiting for her to take her first one. “Madd.”
Tamen rushed back into the room, with an arm full of towels, and Dane followed him, but they both froze, staring at the unmoving infant in Maddox’s arms. “Maddox.” Dane walked forward, sliding his hand into mine and squeezing it tight as we all stared at her. “What do you need?”
“I don’t know.” Maddox replied, rubbing his hand up and down our daughter’s back, concentrated and fixated on her limp body as Tamen handed him towels to wrap her up in. “She needs to breathe. She just needs to breathe.” The three of them worked together silently as I felt like my heart stopped in my chest, unwilling to beat until I knew if hers did.
I couldn’t breathe again until I knew she did.
God, she was so tiny. Too tiny.
“Maddox.” I whispered, almost silently. As if that one word was the only one I knew anymore. The only word that would get me what I needed most.
Dane took a towel and rolled it up, pressing it to my chest over the wound and kneeled on the bed beside me, supporting my body against his as Maddox started patting her on the back, rolled over face down in his hand as he progressively increased the pressure he put into each pat.
And then—her arms flailed at her side and a piercing cry echoed from her new lungs, making us all draw a breath for the first time.
Collectively, all three men gasped and their shoulders sagged in relief as I reached for my daughter, taking her as Maddox cradled her against my chest. “Oh, my god.” I cried, staring down at my beautiful daughter for the first time and feeling so incredibly unworthy of her as she screamed bloody murder, swinging her fists wildly as her bottom lip trembled with indignation. “Hi, baby.”
“Holy fuck.” Tamen stared at her, frozen still at the side of the bed. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
“Fuck off.” Maddox shoved him away toward the door and blocked my exposed body with his hulking frame. “Go get my truck.”
“Yeah,” Tamen moved in a daze, with eyes wide like saucers as he left the room, lighting up a cigarette as he walked out. “Got it.”
I looked up at Maddox as he leaned down to kiss my forehead and ran his fingers over our daughter’s furrowed brow. “You’re incredible, Storm. I’ve never been so in awe of someone as I am of you.”
“I can’t believe she’s here.” I whispered, looking back down at our daughter, “I can’t believe I just gave birth in a room filled with serial killers.”
Dane snorted and took Maddox’s hand to hold the towel against my collarbone. “You’re lucky you just gave birth to my first niece, or I might take offence at such a ridiculous and childish title.”
I smiled and then froze. “Peyton.” I stared up at him questioningly. “Is she—is she alive?”
He gave me a small grin, but it was weak as he nodded. “She’s alive. But she hasn’t woken up since they took her to surgery.” Not once had I ever seen Dane look so broken as he spoke those words, and my heart ached for my sister and her lost husband. “They said it takes time sometimes.”
I turned my face to Maddox, “I need to see her.” Panic overwhelmed me as I felt her absence in the room like a fire against the soles of my feet. “I have to go to her.”
Maddox nodded his head, kissing mine again. “Let’s go, but we’re going to get you seen and treated first.”
“Madd, no!” I brushed him off and then winced as another wave of pain hit my stomach when I moved. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.” He stated firmly, “I won’t waiver on this, Storm. You and our daughter need to be checked out, and then you can go to her.”
“He’s right.” Dane nodded solemnly, “You’ll do Peyton no good if you’re hurt when she wakes up. You know how she worries.”
I deflated a bit, knowing they were both right, but hated every bit of it.
My daughter sniffled and rooted her face around against my chest, reminding me of the most important person in my life suddenly, and I nodded, looking down at her. “Okay. We’ll all get checked out, and then we’ll go see Auntie Pey.”
When we stepped outside of the brick building, Maddox’s truck was idling at the curb right behind Dane’s discarded sports car where he left it. I nestled our baby into the space between my chest and Maddox’s as he carried us through the frigid night air, but something caught my eye from above.
“Madd, look.” I nodded up, pausing the convoy of men from loading us into the truck even though it was colder than a witch’s tit outside. The sight above deserved to be seen, even if for just a few seconds.
“The northern lights.” Maddox replied, looking up at the bold pink and green hues floating in the star-covered sky above us. Even with the city’s light pollution, the glow was visible to the naked eye. “They said it’s the first time in a century that they have been so directly visible over Boston.”
“It’s magical.” I stared in awe, having never seen them before in person. “We were meant to see this right now, I think.” I looked at him and gave him a soft smile. “With the dawn they’ll be gone, but right now, at this exact place, they shined like they were meant for us.”
“Maybe they were.” He smiled back, kissing my forehead before tucking me into the truck as gently as he could. “Maybe they’re just for her.”
“Maybe.” I wondered, staring down at our sweet daughter, who was sleeping with her plump lips mashed up and adorably snoring softly. “Maybe everything good that happens is for her. Because she deserves it.”
“You both do.” He replied firmly before shutting the door, encasing us in the truck and driving us away from the building of horrors that almost killed us all.