Chapter 14 Carmen Royal #2
Then the first cramp hit. At first, it was just enough to make me pause, it wasn’t sharp or dramatic.
It was just a tightening feeling low in my stomach that made me stop in the middle of stirring the sauce and brace one hand on the edge of the stove.
I stood there waiting for it to pass, with my other hand moving up and down over my belly.
The baby had been moving a lot lately, and I had already had enough weird little sensations these past few weeks that I tried not to let every single one send me into a panic. So, I waited and just breathed.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Okay.”
The cramp eased off and I picked the spoon back up and kept stirring.
Maybe two minutes later, it came again even harder.
That one made me suck in a breath through my teeth and grab the edge of the counter instead.
The sauce bubbled low on the burner, with the smell of garlic still in the air, and my music still playing through the kitchen speakers, and all of it sudden I felt too far away from what was happening in my body.
I stayed still until that one passed too, but my breathing had changed by then and was even shorter and higher in my chest. I looked down at my stomach and rubbed it again.
“Don’t do this,” I whispered.
One of the maids who had been putting something away on the far side of the kitchen looked up. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said fast. “I’m okay.”
But I wasn’t though. The next cramp came quicker than I wanted it to.
That one made me bend forward a little over the island, while I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t the kind of pain that made you scream.
It was deep, low, and insistent. My mouth started to get dry, and I stood there breathing through it until it finally eased off enough for me to straighten up.
I slowly sat down on one of the stools at the island, with one hand on my stomach, and the other reaching for my phone.
I called Dom first and the first ring went upstairs.
That was what made my stomach drop. One of his regular phones was still in the bedroom because he had left all of those there before he took the private jet out.
I could almost hear it in my head, buzzing somewhere up on the nightstand while I sat in the kitchen trying not to panic.
I ended the call fast and pulled up one of his encrypted numbers instead and it went straight to voicemail.
I tried the other one and nothing. I tried again, and my fingers already starting to shake.
“Come on, come on.” I mumbled and still no answer.
“He’s in the air,” I told myself out loud because hearing it in my own voice made it feel like it might be true enough to calm me down. “He’s probably in the air.”
Then another cramp hit, and this one made tears come to my eyes before I could stop them.
I stood up too fast from the stool and hurried toward the downstairs bathroom with my phone still in one hand, and still holding my belly.
The maid had started coming toward me now, and I could hear her saying my name behind me, but her voice sounded far away just like everything else did.
The only thing I could hear clearly was my own breathing.
I got into the bathroom, locked the door, and yanked my leggings down only to see some blood and it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to make every part of my body go cold.
For a second I just stared at it and felt like I couldn’t breathe or think.
I couldn’t make my hands move. I just stood there looking at that blood like if I stared long enough, it would disappear and I could pretend I had imagined it.
“Oh my God.” I gasped.
The words came barely a whisper and then panic hit me all at once. I jerked my leggings back up with clumsy, shaking hands and unlocked the door so fast I almost dropped the phone. The maid was standing right there, and the second she saw my face, hers changed too.
“What happened?”
“I’m bleeding.”
Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh my God.”
I was already calling my doctor before she even finished reacting. The nurse answered and I gave my name and she immediately transferred me, and by the time the doctor got on the phone, I was crying so hard my words were tripping over each other.
“Carmen, calm down,” she said told me with concern in her voice.
“I’m bleeding.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know,” I said, pressing my hand harder against my stomach while another cramp started coming through me. “Not a lot but…” I bent forward, allowing my free hand to catch the wall. “Oh my God.”
“I need you to go to the hospital right now.”
“Okay.”
“Right now, Carmen. Not in an hour… Now.”
“Okay.”
The second I hung up, everything in the house started moving fast like my head was spinning.
The maid ran toward the front hall screaming for a driver.
One of the shadows came in from outside already reaching for his phone.
Another one appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
Somebody turned the stove off. Somebody else was asking if I needed help, but I couldn’t even answer because all I could focus on was the pressure in my stomach and the terror growing in my chest.
I called O’Shynn next and it went straight to voicemail. “Pick up,” I whispered. “Please pick up.” I waited and still nothing. I left and voicemail and sent a text and still nothing.
I ran upstairs anyway because I needed my purse, my charger, and anything to make me feel like I had some control over what was happening.
The second I stepped into the bedroom, the bed I had made earlier was still smooth and neat, with the sheets fresh, the pillows fluffed up, and seeing all of it hit me in such a stupid, ugly way because it made Dom’s absence feel bigger.
I needed him, right then. In that second and he wasn’t there but I wasn’t upset.
The nursery door was cracked open too and seeing that room from where I stood almost took my legs out from under me. “No,” I whispered, with tears spilling harder now. “Not my baby. Please, not my baby.”
I grabbed my purse and charger and went back downstairs almost stumbling over my own feet because I was moving too fast. The driver was already waiting out front with the truck running, and the shadows had taken positions like they were escorting a head of state instead of a pregnant woman trying not to lose her mind.
As soon as I got in the backseat, the truck pulled off. I looked down at my stomach and kept one hand there the whole time. “Please,” I whispered over and over again under my breath. “Please be okay. Please be okay.”
Outside the windows, Miami looked blurry through my tears. Everything still going on normally while my whole world felt like it was cracking open in the back of that truck. I tried Dom again, and nothing. I tried another encrypted line and same results.
I tried O’Shynn one more time and got her voicemail again, and that somehow made me cry harder because if Dom wasn’t reaching back and O’Shynn wasn’t answering, then I felt alone in a way that was making the fear ten times worse.
Then my phone rang and it was Keondra. I almost ignored it because I didn’t want to hear anybody else’s voice if it wasn’t Dom’s, but something made me answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” she said, and she sounded normal at first. “I was just checking on you. I don’t know why, I just—” She stopped because she heard me. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m bleeding,” I cried.
“What?!”
“I’m on my way to the hospital.”
“Oh my God,” she gasped with her voice rising immediately. “What hospital?”
I told her which one and se said, “I’m coming,” so fast I barely had time to breathe between it.
“I’m coming right now.” The second the call ended, I leaned back against the seat and cried harder than I had been trying to let myself cry this whole time because saying it out loud made it real in a way it hadn’t been before.
I was bleeding, my baby was inside me, Dom was gone, and I had no idea what was happening.
By the time the truck pulled into the emergency entrance, I was shaking so bad I could barely get the seatbelt off.
The lights outside the hospital looked too bright and too damn harsh and to be honest, I was starting to hate hospitals.
Everything smelled like rain and concrete and exhaust from the cars lined up out front.
People were moving in and out of the emergency entrance, nurses were pushing wheelchairs, security guards were standing near the doors, and other people were smoking off to the side with tired faces and their arms crossed over their chest.
The second the truck came to a stop, one of the shadows jumped out and opened my door and before I could even get all the way out, I saw Keondra.
She was already there. Standing right near the emergency entrance in leggings, slides, and a hoodie thrown over her clothes like she had left the house in a rush.
Her hair was pulled back messy, and she looked like she had panic in her eyes when she saw me.
“Oh my God,” she said, hurrying toward me. “Carmen.”
The second she reached me; she grabbed my arm. “You okay? Is the bleeding bad? Oh my God.”
I started crying harder as another came rolling through me. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Keondra’s whole face changed into survival mode. “Come on.”
She kept one hand on my back while one of the shadows hurried ahead to get somebody from inside. For a second, standing there under those bright hospital lights with my stomach hurting and tears all over my face, I was so grateful to see somebody I knew that I almost broke down all over again.
“I called Dique,” Keondra said while we walked inside. “I don’t know where he at, but I called him. I told him I was coming here.”