Chapter 38
BILLY
Idon’t remember getting here.
I don’t remember hallways or doors or people shouting, the hands grabbing at me, trying to pull me back, telling me I was bleeding everywhere and I needed help.
All I remember is the sound she made when she went down, a soft, broken gasp that didn’t belong to something living.
A sound that ended too fast, ended her.
Now she lies on the metal table, limp as a body that’s already been surrendered to the earth, and something inside me fractures so loudly I’m amazed the entire room isn’t deafened by it.
There is blood everywhere.
Her blood.
It stains the sheets, the floor, the hands of the people who rush around her like frantic ghosts. They shout numbers at each other, call for tools, bark orders I can’t process. The room pulses with panic, and all of it funnels straight into my bones until I feel like I’m going to rip myself apart.
Someone tries to push me back again.
I shove them off.
My voice doesn’t sound human when I say, “Don’t touch me. I’m not leaving her.” It’s a bark that tears out of me from the monster I lock inside, something I only ever call on for my most brutal tasks.
It’s my youngest brother who steps in front of me, Tolly’s hands raised like he actually thinks he can calm me.
His face is tight with fear, panic in his eyes.
He’s soft, he’s always been soft, even when he’s a complete and utter fuckhead, he’s still fucking delicate.
It’s actually the thing I admire the most about him.
His ability to emotionally connect, without all the savagery that comes with it when I try.
“Billy,” he says quietly, like he’s trying to speak to something wild. “You need to let them work-”
“I am letting them work.” My voice cracks, splintering like glass behind my gritted teeth. “I’m not leaving.”
His silver eyes flick to my back, to the damp shirt I threw on when we got here, currently gluing itself to the fresh wounds carved into my spine. They burn and throb and sting with every breath. But none of it matters. Not compared to her.
Because she’s not moving.
Her chest barely rises. Her lips are losing their pretty red colour. Hair sticks to her face with sweat and blood, and she looks… too still. Too quiet. Like she isn’t here anymore.
Her soul drifting above her body, floating upwards, heading towards the veil that separates life from death.
Doctor Jay is too calm when he leans over her, voice calm and steady, “Her blood pressure is crashing. Get the transfusion started.”
My eyes are fixed on her chest, on the large curve of her belly. I don’t even hear it when something drops to the floor, the metallic clatter vibrating up through the souls of my feet.
But I do hear one sentence that drives a spike straight through my spine, “Baby’s heart rate is falling.”
My own heart stutters, stops, my lungs seize like I’ve been strangled.
The baby.
Our baby.
Our impossible, fragile, cursed and blessed miracle.
I lurch forward, and Gore grabs me to keep me from shoving everyone aside.
“What’s happening?” I choke out, Gore’s huge hands impossibly tight over my shoulders, Rune and Tolly holding my arms behind my back, dragging us all back a few more steps.
No one answers me.
They’re too busy fighting the clock.
“She’s haemorrhaging-”
“Call for more hands-”
“We’re losing time-”
“We need to get the baby out, now-”
The words fly like daggers, each one cutting something different inside me.
Then one of the medics looks up at me with eyes that have seen war, death, sacrifice, and she says the one thing I never wanted to hear in my entire life. “Either she delivers now or we lose them both.”
The world stops turning.
Everything inside me stops moving.
And I think my body might actually fall apart from the inside out.
But I force myself to stand there.
To breathe.
To stay.
Because if she dies, I die.
And if the baby dies, I don’t know what part of me will be left.
They push a curtain around her waist. Preparing tools I don’t want to look at. They speak in urgent, clipped tones. And she still hasn’t woken up.
I reach out, desperate to touch any part of her not crowded by hands and equipment, but Bram steps between us all, a young woman at his side. “Amaranthine says we need to move a few more steps back, to keep it clean, to avoid infection.”
It’s the only reason I allow my brothers to pull me back, my feet like lead, unable to lift themselves.
“Penelope…” Her name comes out like a prayer I’ve never believed in, a whispered crackle into the heavens.
She doesn’t move. Her breathing becomes shallow. Erratic. Barely there.
And something inside me, some feral, cursed thing, howls silently, wanting to tear the world apart because this wasn’t supposed to happen.
I was supposed to protect her.
I swore I would protect her.
All I’ve done since she arrived here is let her down.
And now my Pair might die on a cold table because she paid the price for my father’s cruelty and my own monstrous love.
Gore grips my shoulder, grounding me before I can sink into the madness clawing up my throat.
“They’ll save her,” he tells me, but his voice shakes, and that tells me everything.
The medic snaps, “We’re losing the baby!”
The room explodes into motion, tools flying into hands, bodies moving with terrifying speed.
My vision blurs.
Everything sounds like buzzing.
My knees buckle, but I stay standing because falling would mean abandoning her, and I’ll never do that again.
Someone lifts a syringe.
Someone else presses something to her stomach.
My breath stops as the medic’s voice cuts through the chaos, “Starting the incision.”
And I am forced to watch, helpless, trembling, half-mad, as the woman I love more than life itself is cut open to save the tiny heartbeat the world hasn’t even heard yet.
I don’t blink.
I don’t breathe.
I don’t pray.
I just stand, drowning in silent, soul-tearing terror, whispering her name over and over, like it might anchor her to the world if I chant it long enough.
“Penelope, Penelope, Penelope.”
Because if she leaves me now, I will burn the world and everyone in it to ash.