Chapter 24
Addison has always been decent at compartmentalizing pain and emotions. She could suffer abuse from Vincent in the morning, then cook dinner that evening as if nothing had happened.
Focusing on what’s important when there’s nothing she can do about the rest of it has always been her go-to coping mechanism, but if there’s one thing she cannot do at the moment, it’s ignore the whole body misery she’s enduring in this bathroom.
Wyatt is gone, fighting the dead downstairs while she’s about to give birth to a baby in the middle of a runner invasion. She’d be incapacitated with worry for him if her uterus weren’t ripping itself apart.
If she wasn’t scanning the room for weapons in case they aren’t safe, after all.
If she wasn’t terrified to give birth in the first place, even without a literal clusterfuck only feet away.
She can’t make it through labor or survive what comes next without him. Maybe that’s selling herself short, considering she used to have plans on how to do everything alone, but things are different, and she can’t go back now.
He can take care of himself. That much she knows for certain.
She repeats that like a silent mantra in between crashes down below and mind-numbing contractions.
She tries to be quiet. Bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood, but a scream erupts despite her efforts, and she slides down the wall until the tile cools her skin.
Labor with Emma has been nonexistent. They got her out via C-section before that ever began. She isn’t prepared for this. Had no idea what to expect, and the reality of it is so much worse than anything she could have conjured up in her head.
Tears swell as her muscles spasm, and she starts to believe she isn’t capable of surviving this, runners or not.
Her whole body is being torn to shreds before they even find her.
There’s no escape. The burning pressure between her legs grows heavier and more persistent, her spine might have been ripped out for all she knows, and it’s all she can do not smash her own head into the wall until she’s unconscious.
She needs to be here for Emma. For this baby. For Wyatt. Abandoning them isn’t an option.
“Get your knife ready,” she says to Emma as the growls of the dead get louder.
Her daughter is almost an adult by now, and she’s two steps ahead of that request, already gripping the handle of her blade in preparation for a possible attack.
Addison checks the bullets in the shotgun, but the weapon sticks when she cocks it. She tries again and fails a second time, snarling out a frustrated, pained curse at the damn gun that picked the worst time to jam.
Before Addison can come up with a new plan, the bathroom door rattles on its hinges, and another contraction hits her like a semi-truck.
Emma shoves her back against the wood, trying to keep it from collapsing.
They’re here. They made it up the steps and down the hall, and that has to mean that Wyatt…
No, she refuses to complete that thought or allow what that means to sink in. She won’t entertain the idea of this world forcing them apart, she’ll be useless if she does. If ever there was a time to bring back those compartmentalization skills, it’s now.
The space is small enough to brace her back against the tub and shove her feet at the door, so that’s what she does.
The lock is flimsy, and the wood is thin.
The whole thing jumps against her feet and Emma’s shoulders as they try to keep the runners from breaking through.
The very real worry that this baby is about to slide out of her at any minute is an afterthought. For now.
There’s no use keeping quiet at this point, so she doesn’t bother trying. Agony flows freely from her lips as the wood cracks and her body shifts and changes to make room for a new life.
“If they get in, you keep fighting no matter what. No matter what’s happening to me. Do you understand?” she tells Emma.
“Yes. Yes, I understand. No matter what.”
No matter what happens, is what Wyatt said to her a minute ago before he left, and now she’s quite possibly about to meet her own demise.
It’ll be fast if she’s lucky, but she rarely ever is.
Maybe she’ll see him again when it’s over.
Emma can make it alone…she’s so much stronger now…
A contraction rips through her, and her feet slip, offering enough give on the door to let decaying hands creep around the frame.
She calls out Wyatt’s name in a last-ditch effort, wrenching herself upward when she thought she couldn’t to grab the curtain rod off the shower.
It’s got a pointed end, and she shoves it through the first rotten head to get close enough. She’s only got one weapon, though, and can’t pull it free. Emma already stabbed another through the eyeball, and more just keep coming.
Addison can’t do anything but crumble as the baby pushes on her pelvis, determined to be born despite the danger all around her. She won’t even get to see this world before being taken out of it. This can’t be how it ends.
Another runner lunges straight for her until the stink of its breath puffs heavy on her nose. She leans back and braces for impact, but then it’s pulled away again, as if in slow motion, and tossed out into the hall, where Wyatt slams its head against an exposed picture hook.
He’s covered in blood and gore and looks like he went ten rounds in a boxing ring, but he’s alive. He’s here. Rushing toward her in a panic, hands roaming her body in search of injuries, one resting on her stomach and the other cupping her face.
“That’s all of ‘em. Are you okay? Bitten? Emma, are you okay? Shit, they were fast. So damn angry, I’ve never seen…the baby, how’s the baby? Talk to me?” He’s rambling, much like she would be if she weren’t experiencing something the size of a melon trying to exit her body.
“We’re okay,” she groans. “The baby’s coming. Now. Right now.”
Here, in this bathroom covered in crimson with a dead body at her feet, is not where she wants to bring a life into the world. She struggles to stand, only to need Wyatt to catch her when her legs give out.
“I can’t be here when it happens. Please, anywhere else. Anywhere.”
She could have ten seconds left or ten minutes for all she knows, but there has to be some attempt at finding a place to birth this baby that doesn’t involve a rotten corpse being the first thing she sees.
He helps her hobble out of the bathroom and down the hall into their room. She makes it two more steps before collapsing to the ground. She’s not getting any further than this.
Her legs give out, her arms fail, and she sags against Wyatt. Can’t gulp the next breath fast enough before she feels strangled, and all at once she’s pushing before she even knows what she’s done. Instead of feeling worse, there is a moment of unexpected relief.
Somehow, she’s shifted to the floor with a nice view of the popcorn ceiling. Her other daughter is on the bed behind her, watching this all play out with the widest eyes Addison’s ever seen.
“I’m gonna look, okay?” Wyatt says.
She only nods. At this point, a complete stranger could wander in off the street and take a peek, and she wouldn’t give a single shit.
“I can see her, she’s right there,” Wyatt gasps, beaming at her with an awestruck smile.
Her reply is not nearly as excited, and she screams it at him like a banshee on fire. “I know she’s right there, I can fucking feel it!”
The baby being right there has to mean this will be over soon.
Any second now.
Any. Second. Now.
Fuck.
An offensive amount of additional seconds continue to pass, and it’s still not over.
“Wyatt, I can’t do this,” she cries, her face crinkling as the next wave levels her enough that breathing is a struggle. “I can’t.”
He grabs her hand, letting her squeeze until her knuckles whiten and she’s sure she’s given him an extra scar.
“You just stabbed a runner in the head with a shower curtain rod in the middle of labor. That’s the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.
If anyone can do this, it’s you. I’m right here. You’re not alone. You can do this.”
Exhaustion has her limp, and any ounce of effort she might have found feels so far away.
Wyatt looks at her like she could move mountains, though. She finds strength in the reverence in his eyes and the hope in his tone. Let’s him help her up into an imitation of a crunch for one last push, and then the baby’s first scream comes on the tail end of Addison’s last one.
She collapses backward against a fluffy pillow that Emma must have snuck under her head, and then all she sees is Wyatt with a baby in his arms, wiping what looks like strawberry jam off her pink body with a fresh towel.
Then he’s depositing that bundle right on her chest, the prettiest thing she’s ever seen. “You did it, sweetheart.”
Joyful, post-birth oxytocin replaces the tornado of pain and stress. She’ll feel like she got hit by a truck later, she’s certain of that, but at the moment, everything is pleasantly numb. All her nerves tingle in the best way, and her heart is fuller than she thought it could be.
“Emma, we were right the whole time. You have a sister.” Addison encourages her daughter to come closer.
“Are you okay?” Emma asks carefully.
“I’m better than okay. I promise. Everything’s fine now.”
Emma said she wasn’t scared, but she’s vibrating in silent horror. Her terror is no doubt fueled by the addition of the runners but encouraged by Addison’s screams in the throes of labor.
“She’s so small,” Emma whispers, one finger reaching out to touch the baby, checking to see if she’s real.
“You were this little once. Five pounds and not an ounce more.”
“I was?”
“You were.” Addison nods, pleased to see Emma’s worry begin to settle as she fixates on this new addition.
When she turns her head, Wyatt is watching them like he’s an outsider, mesmerized but not invited. He’d never voice such a thing, not in a million years, but she can see a trace of that longing in his gaze.
She had to make sure her first child wasn’t completely traumatized, but now all she wants is to reaffirm the connection she knows they share.
His attention flickers from the baby up to her face, and she offers him a slow smile, lashes fluttering in a soft blink that mimics all those cat-like ones he’s fond of giving her.
She cradles the baby with one hand and feathers her thumb across his fine-edged cheekbone with the other, encouraging his lips down to hers.
It’s a salty kiss that bonds them together all over again, peppered with a declaration he whispers against her mouth. “Love you so much. I’m so proud of you.”
They made it. They’re together. What felt like an impossible end is only the beginning.
* * *
Wyatt dumped the runners outside, installed a makeshift brace for both doors, and even ran her a bath so she could wash off the remnants of the day.
It’s late now, with nothing but the shimmer of moonlight dancing across the bedroom.
Emma is asleep on one side of her, and this little person in her arms just finished her second meal.
There’s a peace here that Addison never expected.
Not from the moment she found out she was pregnant, and even up until this very second, she doubted that reality would ever be so kind.
“I read those books too, you know.” She rubs a gentle hand over a tiny back until the baby burps. “Unbutton your shirt.”
Wyatt’s confused, but does as she asks without question, opening each button until all the scars that led him here lay bare.
“Lean back a little, put her right on your chest.” She offers him the half-sleeping baby, and that’s when he must remember that chapter about skin-to-skin contact and how important it is for the father to have these moments.
There’s something especially heartbreaking about seeing her innocent child, so untouched by this world, pressed gently to the raised bumps and lines inflicted on someone who’s already suffered through it.
Wyatt isn’t outwardly emotional if he can help it.
She’s seen him struggle to hide what’s in his heart so often she’s lost count, but this time he’s open to her from the start.
Every moment that he must have wished for acceptance or suffered alone.
Every second he thought he’d live the rest of his life on the outside looking in, it all flashes across his face only to be soothed by the sweetest embrace.
He cradles her in the same hands that have protected this family in such brutal ways. Her daughter’s chubby fingers clutch one of his, her hand too small to make it all the way around.
What an unexpected thing to see hope grow within these walls when so much outside of them is consumed by ash.
“I can’t stop staring at her. You did this. Made this whole person. She’s got your nose.”
“We made her together, don’t forget.” Addison smiles, leaning her head against his shoulder. “That little scowl when she’s hungry? She definitely gets that from you.”
He snorts, ducking his head with a half laugh and looking up through long lashes. Then he’s nuzzling against her forehead, dipping down to press a kiss to her hairline. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Tired, but okay. I wanna sleep, but I’m afraid to.”
“Why?”
“Because everything is so perfect. I don’t want to risk it not being real.”
“You’ll be right here when you wake up. We all will. Get some rest. I’ll be working on teaching her to say ‘Dada’ while you’re sleeping.”
“She’ll say mama first,” Addison teases.
“We’ll see about that…”
“Have you decided on a name yet?”
She pauses, rubbing the baby’s small hand between her fingers. “Gwen has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”
Wyatt’s attention flings up in surprise at her request that they name their child after the friend he lost in Alaska. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure.”
“Then I think it’s perfect.”
It’s been roughly six years since the news started reporting on a rabies-like virus in humans.
Five years and nine months since she was left to fend for herself in a little house in the woods, certain that she and Emma wouldn’t last long.
Five years, nine months, and two days…give or take a few, since she met her soulmate in the middle of a wasteland.
Three hours since she met their daughter.
“Sometimes I’m glad the world ended. Is that wrong?” she says, her eyes closing as she snuggles closer.
“No. Sometimes I am, too.”
‘If it hadn’t, I never would have met you,’ is what they both leave unsaid, though it rings loud and clear in the silence of the room.
They still have the dead to fight and blue-waved mountains to climb out in Seattle, but for the first time, Addison doesn’t dream of the far-off future, she dreams of the life she has now.