Chapter 37
CHAPTER
I’D NEVER FIRED a gun before. I wasn’t prepared for how loud the sound could be when you’re so close to it—or the power of the kickback. I stumbled backward, colliding with a large tree behind me. My eyes shut. I heard a scream of pain.
But it wasn’t Madison’s.
I opened my eyes to see Max standing behind Madison, his eyes wide. He gripped the right side of his rib cage with both hands. Inky black liquid oozed from his side as he fell to his knees.
“Max!” Madison cried.
I was too shocked to move. I shot someone. I shot Max. I shot the father of my baby.
I watched as Madison rushed to her husband’s side. She pulled his hands away from his wound, prompting a thicker river of blood to pour forth. I heard her curse as she placed his hands on the wound and told him to press down hard. Then she whirled her head around and glared at me.
As she stood back up, my eyes found the gun, lying next to me on the forest floor.
It had slipped out of my hand as I fell.
I picked it up and tried desperately to brace against the tree with my free hand.
I felt a surge of superhuman strength and got myself to standing.
I lifted the gun and pointed it at Madison again. “Don’t come any closer!”
Fury and resentment in her eyes, Madison raised her hands over her head and stood still.
Do it, Savannah. She’ll never leave you and your baby alone.
With trembling hands, I sucked in a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
Again, the blowback took my breath away, and I dropped the gun. Fuck! The bullet missed Madison, flying just above her head and hitting a tree trunk.
Madison pounced forward and snatched up the gun, pointing it right at my head again. I closed my eyes, waiting for her to pull the trigger and finally kill me like she’d been threatening to all night. When nothing happened, I opened my eyes.
Madison was still pointing the gun at me, smirking. “Nice try. No, really, I mean it—that was a good move. But not good enough. Enough of this. Get up, and start walking.”
“Don’t move!”
I saw a flash of confusion in Madison’s eyes at the sound of an unfamiliar voice coming from behind her.
All of a sudden, a thick beam of light broke through the trees, landing right in my face, blinding me. I opened my eyes to see Madison’s black silhouette, lit from behind.
“Put down the gun! Hands above your head!” the disembodied voice bellowed, through some kind of speaker.
Madison raised her other arm to grip the gun with both hands. Though I could see she was rattled by this sudden development, she didn’t take her eyes—or her aim—off me.
“Ma’am, I repeat—put the gun down, and put your hands above your head.”
Madison gripped the gun tighter, and didn’t move.
“Madison Clark! This is the police! We are not going to say it again—put down your weapon and surrender!”
“It’s Mrs. Hunter!” Madison screamed in frustration. She lunged behind me and pushed the barrel of the gun painfully into the back of my skull. Then she gave me a shove forward, forcing me to walk in the direction of the voice. “Don’t shoot! Pregnant woman coming out!” she yelled.
Madison gave me another hard shove in the small of my back. I held my belly with my right hand and held my left arm up, palm out, trying to block the blinding beams of the spotlight. For the first time, I noticed that the darkness around us was starting to lift; it was almost morning.
Madison and I trudged forward. As we passed the first large redwood I had hidden behind, I heard a series of clicks as several police officers cocked their guns.
“Stop right there! Put. The gun. Down.”
As my eyes adjusted to the glare, I made out two police cars and four officers. Three were crouched behind their open doors for cover, pointing their guns at us, while the fourth stood with one leg up on the door frame, speaking through a megaphone.
“This woman is in labor,” Madison announced. “We need to get her into the cabin now, before this baby comes. It’s almost time.”
“Put down your weapon and step away from her,” said the officer.
“This is my baby she’s about to give birth to. But she tried to run away with it. I couldn’t let her do that!” Madison shouted.
“Ma’am, I repeat—put the gun down and everything will be okay.”
“No! You’re just going to take my baby away from me!” Madison shrieked. “I’m telling you—back off, or we’re all going to be sorry.”
My insides exploded with pain again. I clutched my belly and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Madison!” yelled another voice, coming from the direction of the woods.
Max.
He was clutching his side. A dark, wet stain ran down the bottom half of his shirt and his pant leg. He was limping very slowly toward us.
“Madison … please … don’t hurt the baby,” he said breathlessly.
Madison kept the gun trained on me as I fell onto all fours on the forest ground, breathing heavily through my contraction.
“I’m not letting her get away, Max. If I let them take her to the hospital, we’ll never get Baby Charlie.”
“Madison … this has gone too far. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, okay? I don’t want you to shoot Savannah. And I don’t want the police to shoot you.”
A tear escaped each of Madison’s eyes. “Don’t talk like that, Max. We’re so close. We almost have everything we want. Everything we’ve been denied for so long. We’ve just got to stay strong, and finish this.”
“Honey, let’s be smart, okay? I think it’s too late. The police are here. It’s time to end this.”
Madison’s face fell. The gun lowered just a couple of inches as she turned her face toward Max, wearing a look of pure heartbreak. “What? Baby, don’t say that.”
“This baby is my son—that makes you his stepmother,” said Max in a soothing tone. “He’s ours, no matter what. So just put the gun down, and let them take Savannah to a hospital, so we can make sure Charlie is okay.”
Madison stared at him.
Still on all fours, tiny rocks cutting into the skin on my knees, I tried to keep breathing deeply, in and out. I didn’t dare move, in case Madison changed her mind and decided to shoot me.
The pressure inside me was growing intense. Despite the chilly forest air, I was dripping with sweat from the exertion of trying to hold this baby back as long as possible.
Madison looked down at me again. “But what are we going to do about her?” She waved her gun at me. “She’s always getting in the way! I just know once she has this baby, she’ll never let me near him. This baby should be ours, Max!”
“He will be, sweetheart. We’ll get the best lawyer there is, who will help us make sure Savannah has no choice but to give us plenty of time with the baby.
He’ll be our son, Madison—yours and mine.
” Max groaned and leaned his weight against a tree.
“But, honey, that will never happen if you don’t listen to the police officers and put the gun down.
They are not going to let you hurt Savannah.
We have to just end this peacefully and let her go to the hospital.
And me too, babe … I don’t know how much longer I can make it. ”
Madison’s eyes widened in fear. “Max—are you okay? Hold on, baby! Don’t leave me!”
Tears slid freely down Madison’s cheeks as she looked at her husband, pale as death in the early morning light. He clutched his rib cage, his face pinched tightly in pain.
I sent a silent prayer up into the grayish sky. Please, God, please let her listen to him. Please let this end.
Madison’s hands shook slightly, but still she held the gun pointed at me. Then I heard her whisper two words under her breath as she stared into my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
I knew in that moment that I would never forget how her face looked when she uttered those words.
It was like the whole world froze for just a moment as we looked intently into each other’s eyes.
My entire future hung in the balance, teetering like a seesaw—if it landed one way, I would get to have my baby safely, and Madison would go to jail.
If it landed the other way, she would shoot me—and whether or not my baby lived, I would never get to be its mother.
I held my breath.
Then, a red-hot fire ignited inside me, engulfing me in blinding pain. I screamed and fell over onto my side.
The next few minutes seemed to go by in slow motion.
Two officers advanced toward us, their guns raised at Madison, screaming orders at her.
Madison dropped the gun and held her arms up.
An officer ordered her to her knees, training his gun on her as his partner patted her down for more weapons, then cuffed her hands behind her back.
They led her away, toward the police vehicles.
“No! Max—you have to help my husband. Please! She shot him!” Madison craned her neck, trying to catch another glimpse of him.
As a fresh scream ripped out of my throat, a group of EMTs that I hadn’t noticed arrive ran over. Two of them lifted me onto a wheeled gurney while two others rushed over toward Max where he’d fallen to the ground, too weak to stand anymore.
I screamed and howled as they ran, wheeling my gurney toward the ambulance. One of the paramedics checked between my legs, and I vaguely heard her say something that included the words “baby’s head.”
The next thing I knew, they were changing direction, heading not toward the ambulance anymore, but back into the cabin. I barely got my dirty, cut, and bleeding feet into stirrups before the next contraction hit, and the EMT was yelling at me: “Push! Push!”
My whole world turned blood red. I felt myself teetering on the edge of consciousness—until I heard it.
The sound of my baby’s cry.