Chapter 23 #2
“Or a brother. We aren’t exactly sure yet. You were telling me you had some name suggestions, want to give me the—” She cuts herself off with another wince, followed by a hand flying to her mouth as she searches the room in a panic.
Wyatt knows the universal signal for vomit and dives for the trash can across the room. Makes it back just in time to shove it in front of her before she loses everything she’d eaten that day.
She lets out an awful, keening noise, her body lurching with dry heaves. The nausea only confirms that this is happening now. Right fucking now. He ain’t no doctor, but if he were a betting man, he’d say there’s gonna be a baby in her arms in an hour or less.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Addison curses, sliding to the ground where she shoves the coffee table out of the way with impressive strength to kneel with her head on the rug. “My spine is being ripped out of my fucking back, goddamn it.”
Considering she told Emma not to be afraid, this may not be the description she’d want to go with, but hey, as far as he’s concerned, she can say whatever the hell she wants.
He gets down beside her to rub where she’s sore, hoping he won’t make it worse. She leans into him like a cat, groaning in relief. For a brief moment, everything is fine again, and then she gasps and flails for the trash can a second time.
After the third round, she looks him dead in the eyes and grabs him by the shirt. “I need the tylenol. I wanna hold the bottle.”
He sends Emma for it, and soon Addison is clutching the bottle as if she can absorb the medicine through the plastic.
“I think you can take some,” he offers. “It’s safe.”
“Can I, though? Can I really?”
“Yes. Really. It’s not gonna make much of a dent, but it’s better than nothing.”
Oh, that was the wrong thing to say, judging by the glare he receives, but she dry swallows three pills anyway before curling into herself like a kidney bean, begging him to rub her back while she shivers.
All the research in the world never prepared him for the emotional toll of watching the woman he loves in so much pain.
All at once, Addison can’t be still. She changes positions every few seconds, searching for relief that won’t come. When she doesn’t have her head in the trash can, any breaks have lessened so quickly that she hardly has time to recover before the next wave hits.
She collapses against him, curling her fingers around his shirt and muffling a scream into his chest. He can feel every muscle tense and release over and over again as he tries to hold her together, his own tears dropping onto the crown of her head.
When she’s granted a short reprieve, she turns over until her back presses against his chest. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“I’m so scared. I feel out of control, not safe, and I know that’s stupid, but…and then when she’s here, she’ll be real, and I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready.”
“Let me keep you safe,” he says, echoing what she told him so long ago, when they were stuffed up in the attic, and he’d been out of his mind.
She soothed him then, made everything awful seem right again, and he can only hope to offer her a fraction of that, knowing he won’t come close.
“I know you’re afraid, but you’ll get through this.
You will. And when she’s here, we’ll keep her safe, too. Together.”
“Talk to me about the mountains in Seattle,” she says suddenly, pushing her face into his neck where tears wet his skin. “Did we get all the cows up there yet?”
They play this silly game sometimes, talking about how they’ll move their whole farm across the country and settle atop the western peaks. He nestles his chin atop her head, rubbing slow strokes from shoulder to elbow. “Sure did. All four of the dogs helped.”
“Four now? Nice.”
“We got more goats, too. I keep trying to make cheese, and it comes out terrible every time.”
She huffs, shivering as her body tenses again. “Double the chickens by now?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you remember any of those breathing lessons you read? I could use a few of those skills.”
Thankfully, he does. “Focus on one thing. Anything you want. Got something?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“In through your nose, out through your mouth, five fast breaths, then one long and slow one. Like this.”
They keep time together through the next contraction, even if that last slow breath turns into a curse and a half scream.
He’s grateful that she isn’t pushing him away. This is where he’s supposed to be, with her in his arms and little crescent moons from her nails in the skin of his hand.
A crash from the kitchen caps off her next cry, making them all jump, followed by a splinter of wood that sends a chill down his spine.
He leaves Addison on the floor and grabs the shotgun against the wall just in time to find the dead breaking in.
“Runners trying to get inside!” he yells. How it happened is a mystery they’ll have to worry about later.
With Addison unable to walk, he hands the gun to Emma and lifts her into his arms, carrying her upstairs to the bathroom.
“Stay here. Don’t come out, no matter what happens. Understand?” he tells her.
“No! Don’t leave. Wyatt, please, you said you wouldn’t leave. I can’t do this without you.”
“I have to. If they can get through that door, then they can get up here. I’m not letting anything happen to you.
Any of you.” He pushes a swift kiss to her lips, shoves the shotgun in her hands, and then he’s gone, leaving Addison on the floor with a baby about to make its way into this world any minute.
He’s been through some hard shit in his life, but walking away from her takes the top spot. Her screams filter through the walls, tugging him in one direction while necessity pulls him in the opposite.
His pistol is in their bedroom, and he snatches it from the corner, determined to end this threat so he can sprint back upstairs before their baby is born.
Their baby. He can’t miss it. He has to be there. This can’t happen without him.
The runners have other plans, though. They’re already through the door by the time he gets downstairs. Their aggression has only increased over the years, mutating into something that hardly resembles the first few he saw up in Alaska.
He gets a bullet through one right away, but he’s no match for three in closer quarters. He runs for the dining room, sliding across the old wooden table. A dead man slams chest-first into the edge, and it gives him a moment to aim and get the next rotten forehead in his crosshairs.
Addison’s cries catch him off guard, and he misses. Then he watches in horror as two of them veer away for the new sound calling like a siren, while the last lunges straight for him.
It’s stronger than he expected and so much larger than Wyatt.
He’s forced him up against the wall with a thunk, all snapping teeth and rotten breath inches from his face.
His gun falls to the ground, and it’s all Wyatt can do to keep the monster at arm’s length, losing another centimeter each second until the drip of saliva falls on his collarbone.
He can’t go out like this.
He has to be here for his daughters and his wife. They’re the family he’s wished for but never thought he’d find, and he won’t let anything take that away.
There’s a thump, thump, thump coming from upstairs, and he musters a last ounce of strength from somewhere deep in his gut and shoves the runner away with a kick to the stomach. Grabs a candlestick from the shelf and bludgeons the softened skull until the body finally drops to the ground.
He doesn’t pause to catch his breath before rushing upstairs again, his heart shattering and seizing when Addison calls out his name like it’s the last thing she’ll ever say.
When he rounds the corner, two runners have already forced their way past the bathroom door.