Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mal
I stood over Bunny’s body with a cold pit in my chest.
She was perfectly healthy the last few times I examined her. So what happened?
Regret slithered through my circulation as I grieved over Bunny’s sheet-covered body. The operating room was empty, and with no one to see me cry, I allowed myself to weep for my dead friend.
This wasn’t my first time losing a patient. But this one fucking hurt. Most days, Barbara Reed had been the only spark of light in this miserable old church.
Wiping away my tears, I tugged the sheet back to see her face.
Sweet, bubbly Barbara looked at peace with her eyes closed. Even though I knew her death had been nothing but agony, because I was the only one here who seemed to administer pain medication without a second thought.
My throat swelled with emotion when my gaze caught on the tuft of yellow hair poking out from her gown’s collar.
She’d snuck her dolly into the delivery room with her.
Something critical snapped inside me.
“He needs to die,” the voice of the mad thing rasped in my ear.
“I’m not a murderer.”
“Don’t give me that bleeding heart bullshit. Let me take over for a while. I’ll do it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to ignore it. Hearing voices wasn’t unheard of, especially knowing it was a side effect of the Treatment. But this voice… It wasn’t my subconscious. It wasn’t me.
“I am you. A better you. And I’m here to stay. Might as well get used to it, Doc.”
The voice went quiet when my attention slipped to Barbara’s belly, still heavy with child.
What I saw chilled me to my marrow.
Dark green veins covered her belly, spreading out from what was obviously an injection site. Not just any injection.
There was a raised, blackened pockmark—the telling sign that the patient had received an injection of my father’s Treatment.
I clenched my fists as I processed this new information.
Bunny hadn’t died from childbirth.
She’d died from the fucking Treatment. The stress of it must have sent her into early labor, and her body couldn’t handle it.
There weren’t words to describe the unadulterated fury that consumed me. Like a hurricane sweeping through me and leaving nothing but the wreckage of the man I once was in its wake.
Malcolm Rook II wasn’t a man anymore. He was a monster, worse than the one whispering violent promises in my ear.
“Now, can he die?”
“Yes.”
It was as if my cruel thoughts about my father summoned the wretch. The surgery doors opened, and I knew it was him without having to turn around.
“You did this,” I muttered in a husky voice I barely recognized.
“Women die in childbirth all the time, Son.”
My fingers twisted in the sheet covering her.
“There’s no depth you won’t sink to, is there?
You’d think you would have stopped at raping and impregnating an eighteen-year-old SA survivor, but then you had to go and inject her with that fucking drug, after you swore not to touch her or any other patient again.
“But you couldn’t resist, could you? You had to give her the injection. You wanted to see its effects on a pregnant woman.”
“Technically speaking, I gave the injection to the fetus. I wanted your new brother or sister to be strong.”
I ripped off the sheet, throwing it to the floor so he could stare his sin in the face. “Strong? Does this look strong to you?”
“It doesn’t work on weak subjects.”
I whipped around, seething. “What made you think that a six-month fetus was strong enough to handle it?”
He shrugged. “I thought he might. And if he died, then good riddance. I don’t need another weak child spoiling the bloodline.”
I took a step toward him with every intention of finishing what I couldn’t before.
Rook’s eyes widened, and his face drained of blood. This time, I’d spare no compassion. “Mal, the baby.”
“Is dead because of you.”
“No, look!” He pointed, and I snapped my attention back to Barbara’s belly.
It was moving.
Big bulges appeared all over, like something was pressing against her from the inside. A bump in the impression of a tiny foot thrust out so far, so quickly, I thought her skin might snap.
Bunny’s eyes fluttered open.
I found myself staring at a woman who was very much alive, even though moments ago I’d confirmed she was gone.
“Get the surgery team in here!” I roared. “We need to perform a C-section, now!”
Rook slammed the emergency call button.
I grasped Bunny’s hand, crouching beside her with tears in my eyes. “I’m going to get that thing out of you. I promise.”
“It hurts…” Bunny's lower lip trembled as she stared up at me from the surgery table, tears streaming down her ghost-pale face.
It wasn't possible. She had been gone. Was this a miracle or something darker at play?
"Everything is going to be okay."
“Stop making her promises you can't keep, Doc,” the mad thing chastised in my ear. This time, I wasn't listening. I had a patient to save.
"Dr. Rook..." Bunny's paper-thin voice could barely be heard over the chaos of the operating room as my team prepared for surgery.
I hunched over the table, bringing my ear close to her mouth.
"Will you take care of the baby when I'm gone?
You'll be a good big brother. And give the baby my Joanie to play with. "
Weakly, she tried to reach for the doll stuffed down the front of her gown, but I took her hand in both of mine and clutched it to my chest with the most reassuring smile I could force to my face. "You're going to be fine. I'm going to make sure you can watch after the baby yourself."
Since I was the primary surgeon for St. Bart's, the operation room was outfitted with a record player and a select few records.
Listening to music calmed me while I worked, even though Rook hated it.
In an effort to keep Bunny conscious, I instructed a nurse to bring over a few of the records we had on hand.
"Look, Bunny. Two of your favorite Lesley albums. Which one do you want?"
She stared at them like they were ancient alien artifacts instead of her beloved Lesley Gore. "How about ‘It's My Party’? It's the Ed Sullivan Show recording, I know that's one of your favorites.”
Bunny stuck her lower lip out in a pout. Her all-time favorite was “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows,” but that one was in my bell tower office. Her chin bobbed with the tiniest of nods, and I handed it to the nurse who started the record.
I jumped into action, raising my arms, allowing Nurse Marisela to quickly dress me in my surgery scrubs, while another tied a cloth mask around my face. When they moved to dress my father, who was still standing beside the O.R. doors, I spat, "Not him."
"You have to let me help, Mal—"
"I don't have to let you do shit." I took a scalpel off the surgery cart as a nurse wheeled it past and pointed it at him. "If Bunny didn't need me, I'd slit your throat right now. Fuck off."
"At least let me stay and watch the birth of my child."
Glaring daggers at him, I foisted all my attention back to my patient. “You take one step closer, and I’ll gut you.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
“Fuck you. I’m only letting you stay because I don’t have time to throw you out.”
The surgery room was alive with the whir of equipment as I shouted demands at the nursing staff, ordering oxygen and pain killers for Bunny, while I helped in erecting the wall of fabric that would prevent her from seeing the mutated child I was about to pull from her stomach.
“Why are you bothering with all this shit for the mother? Forget her!” Rook snarled from the door. “Save my baby!”
“You’re not believing this shit, are you?”
“Not for a second,” I mentally responded to the voice.
He didn’t care about the baby because it was his child. I knew firsthand that he’d lost that instinct months ago. All he cared about was getting his hands on his experiment so he could take it down to his lab and study the results.
Over my dead fucking body.