51 - Run
Logan
“Faster.”
“Speed up.”
“Fucking floor it.”
Clarke pivots, staring at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.
“We’re in central London. Not to mention in the middle of a fucking traffic jam. How exactly do you expect me to floor anything?”
I throw my hands in the air, letting out a low grunt of frustration. Barely ten minutes ago we’d been dealing with Dominic Delaney, whose face visibly paled as I stood before him in a pair of metal knuckledusters.
“I told you I’d be your fucking problem, kid,” I snarled, cracking said knuckles.
His face the perfect picture of fear; pupils so dilated they swallow his irises, skin so slick with sweat he’s glistening beneath the light, every muscle defined and trembling.
The wet patch bleeding into the denim only confirms his terror.
Everyone seems to piss themselves around us.
Don’t blame him though, he comes from this world and will be aware of the torturous scenarios people are forced to endure at their bitter end.
I dipped my chin to my chest, glaring at him from beneath the shadows.
“I’m going to make you a deal,” I said, lips curving into a sinister smile when a shimmer of hope flashed through his eyes. “Don’t get too excited. I won’t spare your pathetic life. Nothing will stop the inevitable. You are going to die today.”
Dominic’s eyes bulged, straining as if they might burst from his skull.
“If you agree to the deal, you’ll be spared some of the pain I intend to inflict.”
“Cox. What the fuck?”
I whirled around to Clarke.
“Shut up, Winters. My kill. My rules.”
Surprisingly my best friend did shut up, although it might have had something to do with Scar’s intimidating gaze directed at him.
“See, my fiancée, bless her huge, sympathetic heart, doesn’t want me to let you suffer. I want nothing more, but Cordelia is important to me. So fucking important that I won’t have her hating me for executing my revenge.”
A gruff rumble sounded from deep in my throat. I crossed my arms over my chest and widened my stance.
“So, we’re going to make a home movie.” Raising my chin so I could stare down my nose at the fucker, I said. “If we have a deal, blink once.”
And he did.
I tilted my head.
“Glorious.” I twist my neck and glance behind me, acknowledging Marco. “He needs to be able to speak for this,” I said cryptically.
So, at last the seething madness reigning power over my mind and body has finally subsided, soothed by the infliction of retribution. An itch that had to be scratched.
Only the calm didn’t last long. Awaiting me were several voice messages, all of varying degrees of panic.
Ezio: Answer idiota! On route to hospital.
Ezio: Her waters have broken. Put the cleaver down!
Ezio: Going into labour. I love you amigo, but I draw the line at delivering your fucking kid!
Ezio: Bambino’s imminent!
I’ve never moved so fast in my entire life. How fucking stupid of me. All of us had our phones on silent whilst we recorded Dominic’s last disgustingly heartfelt words. Done purely to give my girl much needed closure. But it meant that we were completely off the grid; unreachable.
Fuck.
Fear gnarls my blackened heart, twisting around until It’s wound so tight I swear it will stop dead in my chest. Cordelia’s not due for another five weeks. She shouldn’t be going into labour–not now!
I swipe my hand down the line of tension gripping my jaw, spreading the concoction of blood and sweat over my fingertips. It coats the skin in a way that fulfils my morbid depravity. The depths of my tortured soul.
“Why are there so many cars on the road?” I hiss through clenched teeth.
Clarke gives me another ‘are you fucking serious look.
“Because we’re in central London,” he repeats in an irritatingly calm monotone. “On a Saturday night.”
I tap my fingers against my thigh to stop myself sticking them in my mouth because: even I have boundaries and resist the urge to snap at him.
For once, he’s not being his dickhead self.
He’s just telling me like it is, which is somehow even more aggravating.
My eyes land on the illuminated digits displayed on the dashboard, for the fourteenth time since I’ve been sitting here.
Not that I’m counting or anything. I swallow hard, thumb grazing the screen of my iPhone to activate the screen saver in case a notification pops through.
On, off, on, off, on.
“Will you knock it off?” Clarke barks, clawing at his scalp. “You’re making me anxious and that isn’t an easy feat.”
I snort, tapping the glass again. Cordelia beams at me from behind the screen, her sweet face radiating joy, even though it was taken minutes after I’d dragged her to the top of the wheel to face her fear of heights.
One of her most admirable traits is her courageousness.
Her desire to strive through whatever life throws her way and still come out with a smile on her face.
She’s practical. Sometimes too much, but way more level-headed than me.
I raise my eyes to the windscreen. The stark white lights of the blue mini one space ahead, sears into my eyeballs forcing me to squint. Rolling my shoulders back to ease the screaming tension doesn’t work. Time is ticking.
And I refuse to waste any more of it.
Clarke startles as I reach for the passenger door handle and swing it open into the oncoming vehicles.
“Fuck this. I’m out.”
His eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly get lost in his hairline.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m done with this,” I say, gesturing to the shit-show situation we’re stuck in. “I’ll run the rest. I need to be with my girl.”
Clarke’s top lip curls, his eyes wide in disbelief. “Cox. You can’t go running the streets like that. You look like you’ve just killed someone.”
“I have just killed someone,” I remind him dutifully. He drags his hand down his face because he’s not swaying my decision.
My feet hit the pavement with a thud. The space between Clarke’s precious Lambo and the approaching cars is negligible but I manage to squeeze through the gap. Good job I’m appropriately lean for the occasion.
I take off at a jog, zipping between vehicles blasting their horns at me.
Once I’m safely on the path, I swing around and flip them my middle finger just for shits and giggles.
The hospital is about a ten-minute run, five if I’m fast. On the way there I drop Ezio a call, wincing at the feminine cries in the background.
“Where the fuck are you?” He demands.
“Running.”
“Running? What the–”
“To the hospital, you tool,” I add, before he can finish trash-talking me.
The wail of a siren fighting its way through the London rush hour has bile rising in my throat.
With the uncertainty surging through my veins, I haven’t quite got the same handle on my breathing as my usual morning jog.
My steps feel clumsy against the uneven pavement I’m trying to navigate without stumbling over my own feet. “She okay?”
“Trying to crush my hand as we speak. Is it a known fact that pregnant women gain inhuman strength during labour?”
I laugh. “Must be all the hormones. Two minutes.”
My phone sinks back into my pocket. The last jaunt requires me to take a shortcut through the public park.
I get some weird looks cast my way which I mostly ignore.
People have valid reasons for staring. It’s not every day you see a guy running in shorts and a t-shirt looking like he’s just stepped out of a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
When the hospital building comes into view, I let the air rush from my lungs, easing the fire in my throat. The complex is huge, spread out over four extensive department buildings. I scour the signage to find the one that matches Ezio’s text. Then I sprint the rest of the distance.
I barrel through the front doors nearly colliding with a guy who’s got his eyes glued to a clipboard. The receptionist, a doughy brunette bolts upright. Stepping from behind the transparent divider she takes one look at my blood-stained clothes and waddles over to make a fuss.
“Oh, my goodness. Let me get a doctor,” she shrieks.
I shove my hands up, urging her to calm down and stop making such a scene. I’m used to people staring but this is ridiculous.
“I’m fine,” I insist. “My wife’s giving birth. Where’s the delivery suite?”
“Oi Cox!”
A sharp whistle follows my name cutting through the receptionist’s verbal vomit. Swinging around I find Ezio standing at the end of a long corridor. I offer the woman a hasty thank you before I’m once again taking off at pace. Ezio falls in line beside me.
“You’ve missed it.”
I stop dead.
“I haven’t?”
He throws me a smarmy grin over his shoulder. “Nope. But it was worth it to see your face.”
Mother fucker.
“If I wasn’t in such a rush, I’d fucking end you I swear,” I growl, easily catching up to him. He laughs, clearly entertained.
Cordelia’s tortured screams threaten to perforate my eardrums when we get in earshot.
The sound rips something open in my chest. It’s like someone’s torn out my heart and stomped it into the dirt.
And it takes me straight back to the memory of us both, in that isolated room as we waited to be told the future of our children.
“Logan!”
The second my name pours from her lips I forget everything.
All I can think about is getting to her, kissing her, holding her, and helping her in every way that’s humanly possible.
The past is the past, and though it still hurts beyond what words can describe, what matters is the here and now. And right now, my girl needs me.
“I’m here!” I holler back, flying through the open door.
I’m not prepared for what I see. Don’t get me wrong I’ve seen Cordelia’s vagina plenty of times but spread wide open with what looks like an alien lifeform being squeezed out? That wasn’t on the agenda today. So much blood.
Least I’ll blend in.
Two other people occupy the room. A female nurse looks up from where she’s doing observations. The other, the one with their hands fishing around between my fiancée’s legs like a racoon in a dumpster, glances at me. It takes everything in me not to rugby tackle him to the floor. Yes, him.
I rush to her side and grasp her clammy hand in mine. She squeezes it. Hard. Ezio wasn’t kidding.
Her blue eyes snap to mine and she glares at me. She fucking glares. Through the agony of pushing a watermelon out of a pinhole.
That’s my girl.
“It’s about fucking time!”
I blink. Taken aback by the resentment in her tone. She’s going to hold this over my head for years; I just know it. I wipe the smirk from my face and lean in to press a kiss to her head.
“Evening, Mr Cox. My name’s Lydia and this is Ben. Your wife is doing really well.” I don’t bother to correct her on the status. She’ll be my wife soon enough. Lydia gently strokes Cordelia’s hair whilst offering her the gas and air, which she sucks on greedily.
“Alright Cordelia.” My gaze slides up to the male midwife. Ben. What a generic name. A similar age to me, too; tall, dark hair, hooded eyes. I try my best not to give him the stink eye for touching my girl.
Don’t be a prick, Logan. He’s a medical professional.
“I’m going to need you to push now,” Ben says.
“Need more pain relief,” she howls, arching her back off the bed.
“We don’t have time for that, sweetie. He’s practically here,” Lydia replies. “Just a few more pushes.”
Her eyes grow wide in panic, so I grab our interlocked fingers with my other hand and squeeze.
“I got you, vixen. You can do this. You’re gonna be a mama.” Tears flow as I speak all the words of encouragement I can think of. I’m so unbelievably proud of her. “We’re going to be parents. A real family.”
Something shifts in her crystalline eyes. A family is all she’s ever wanted. With a sheer burst of determination, she grits her teeth together and pushes. And screams; a sound so wild it twists my stomach. As if she’s giving birth to a demon.
The shrill cry of our baby boy melts my insides. This time I let the tears fall, whilst I stare, in absolute awe and fascination at my blue-eyed boy.