Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sadie
“ T hat…just sounds… so grim.” Em shudders comically with a puke face as I tell her what the nurses told us about forceps and ventouse deliveries. And I may have made a few sketches in her telephone pad to illustrate a few of the… finer details . Em is such an easy mark.
“For me, it was hearing all about episiotomies.” I’m a bitch, I know, but seeing her cringe has me in fits.
“BALALALALALALA,” she shouts, putting her fingers in her ears, “remember our agreement? Episiotomies are an urban legend designed by some sickos to freak people out. They never actually happen. End of story.”
I laugh. “They totally d- ”
“They. Never. Actually. Happen.” She gives me a meaningful glare, leaning forward against the reception desk. I hold my hands up, giggling at the look on her face and letting the subject drop. As she relaxes, she tips her head to one side. “So Leo’s just going to buy a room somewhere and run ante-natal classes from it?”
I snort. “Can you picture that? Leo talking about epidurals and hypnobirthing to a room full of horny preggos?” We both share a giggle. “But yeah, pretty much, he’s planning to buy somewhere and kind of donate it to the community. Classes, meetings, whatever.”
Em whistles. “He’s getting more generous by the day. I didn’t know that was even possible, but I guess Leo’s never done anything by halves, has he?”
It’s true. I wonder if this is impending fatherhood having an effect on him, or whether he’s more comfortable making these gestures now that he’s not being as discreet about his wealth anymore.
“Cock,” Gary says from my shoulder, making me jump. He’s been so still and quiet that I almost forgot he was there. I smile, loving how much he’s become part of the furniture of my life. I’m so used to the gentle clutch of his little talons and the light weight of him that I hardly notice them anymore.
“Same to you, too, you sewer mouthed little prick.” I tickle between his eyes affectionately, and he does the cute head snuggle thing he’s started liking, before flying onto the spiral staircase bannisters that lead up to the flat.
“Can you watch the front while I nip to the loo?” Em asks.
“Sure.” It’s not like it’s busy or anything. In fact, it’s unusually quiet for a Saturday, but that’s largely by design. Eli, Dean, and Leo have ducked out on a Top Secret Trip to help Dean pick out an engagement ring for Liaden in the next town over, which is so unbearably cute that my eyes prickle just thinking about it. And I don’t have another appointment for almost two hours.
I haven’t heard Dean’s plan on how he intends to propose, but I have no doubt it’ll be one for the books. Another happily-ever-after moment in their shiny new lives together.
My thoughts start to wander to how Leo might propose if he ever did, but I rope my daydreams in. If I think about it too much, I might start to want it too much, and then get disappointed if he doesn’t. Besides, it’s not as if we need to get married. What we have doesn’t need a piece of paper to glue us together.
But it still might be nice to have it anyway, someday. Maybe.
And that’s where I need to leave things in my mind, I think, and shake my head to clear it.
While Em’s gone, I look up pregnancy meditation YouTube videos because the specific ones the nurses talked about in class sound great. I might be working towards being more chill than I used to be, but I still get so anxious sometimes when I think about what’s ahead of me. The relentless sleep deprivation, having a tiny human rely totally on me for everything, endless crying and shitting and puking, school runs, the next eighteen years of worry about this little person walking around with my heart in their backpack…
My nugget, who’s apparently the size of a pineapple by now, nudges me from the inside, as if telling me to calm my tits. I smile, rubbing my bump and feeling them flutter against my palm. I’m going to miss this, feeling their little rolls and kicks from within. And at the same time, I also can’t wait to be able to give them a cuddle, kiss their tiny feet, breathe them in. I know it’ll be worth all of the things that unnerve me.
The bell above the door dings as someone walks in. I look up, and my heart sinks when I look at the man that enters. He looks to be in his early twenties and high off his arse on something too strong for him. The intoxicated make for lousy clients, and often get really shitty when we turn them away for not being in a position to make decisions they’ll have to live with forever. Not to mention that alcohol is a blood thinner. Common sense for us, and them, but they see it as an insult. I try not to scowl at the prospect of having to talk him round.
He’s tall and lanky, and his clothes are baggy and a little dirty. Looks like he’s been wearing them for weeks without laundering them, and I wonder if he’s a student who’s bitten off more than he can chew while experimenting with drugs. His skin is pale and waxy, and his eyes are fever-bright and blood shot. He fidgets, his gaze darting around the room like he’s looking for something. Or someone.
“Sorry, mate, we’re not taking walk-ins today,” I say, my tone pleasant but firm.
He jumps, trying to focus on me now that I’ve spoken to him. “Oh, that’s OK,” he croaks, and there’s a long pause while he just stares at me like I’m some weird life form he’s never seen before. “Can I…maybe make an appointment, then?”
I sigh. “I’m not sure that’s going to be doable - ”
“Next week, maybe?” He walks towards the counter, and I can smell his breath. There’s a definite tang of cheap alcohol there, along with the smell of bad digestion and something pungent I can’t identify. I wrinkle my nose. My gag reflex is still hair trigger these days, so I breathe slowly through my mouth just to be on the safe side.
I look towards the computer, clicking a few buttons so it at least looks like I’m checking for him instead of just rejecting him out of hand. “I’m sorry, we’re completely booked up for the next te-”
It happens so quickly that I’ve hardly blinked before he rushes behind the counter and puts me in a choke hold from behind, his arm across my throat. I make a strangled noise of surprise, starting to struggle, but then I feel something sharp poking into…
…into my bump.
I look down, straining as best I can, and I want to throw up out of sheer horror and rage.
He’s got a knife pressed against my belly, threatening my baby.
Oh, no, you fucking didn’t, you strung-out piece of shit…
“Where’s the safe?” he hisses in my ear.
He’s making like he’ll stab my unborn baby because he’s trying to fucking rob us?! Are you kidding me ?!
He jerks his arm back, choking me some more. My throat feels like it’s trapped under a log, and I cough tightly. “I mean it ,” he growls, before his eyes shoot towards the corridor, where a smiling Em appears. Her face falls and the colour drains out of her face as she takes in the scene in front of her. Her hands both go outwards, as if to pacify him. As if she’s drawing on all her superpowers of de-escalation and peacemaking in this one moment.
“OK,” she whispers, “let’s just…take it down a notch, OK? I want to help you. What is it that you need?” Her eyes are huge, but her voice is admirably steady, barely shaking at all.
His response is to jerk his arm again. If he does it much harder, he could literally snap my neck. My heart is racing, and the baby shifts and rolls fitfully, clearly wondering what the hell is going on and why Mummy is so stressed out. It just makes me angrier with this bastard grappling me. My kid isn’t even born yet and you’re already proving to them how awful the world can be. You lousy, heartless shithead .
My mind whirrs as I try to recall everything Omar taught us in krav maga. Because there’s no way I’m going to just stand here and allow anything to happen to my kid. Or to me.
“I want you to open the safe ,” he spits out, almost vibrating with intensity, “and I want you to hand over every fucking thing in it. And if you don’t…I’ll cut her. I swear to god.”
“Take me,” Em says instantly. I feel him freeze, and my own blood turns to ice water.
“Don’t you dare,” I order her through gritted teeth, but she ignores me.
“Let Sadie go, and take me instead. I won’t fight you. Just hold a knife to me instead. She’s pregnant . Let her go, point a knife at me, and she can go to the safe. OK?” He doesn’t respond, and I bare my teeth at her, trying to communicate to her that she needs to shut the fuck up right now. “Come on. She’s going to have a baby . Don’t hurt her.”
He exhales, and it’s an unpleasant, rattling sound. His breath makes my ear disgustingly damp. “I think you’re more likely to do as you’re fucking told if I keep hold of her ,” he says, almost smugly, and I yelp as he jabs the knife threateningly at my bump. This time it’s even sharper. And then wet.
He’s nicked me and drawn blood.
No. NO.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” Em bursts out, begging him for my life.
My mind goes very clear. I’m not going to let this continue a second longer.
If you’re ever grabbed from behind, Omar’s voice tells me in my memories, don’t pull, it doesn’t do any good and you could end up hurting yourself. Drop into a crouch instead.
It’s tricky because of my belly, but I manage it, hissing through my teeth at the sharp scratch of the knife point at my side. I don’t think it’s too deep, and I can’t worry about that now, because I need to get out of the grapple fast. Just like we practised in class, I jab my elbow into his crotch, making him shriek like a wildcat, before standing, grabbing his arm, and spinning my whole body around, pushing him to the floor.
I don’t do it as smoothly as I could while training because my unwieldy body is kind of in the way, but I still get the job done, gulping in some air before scrambling around the desk to get clear of him.
I almost make it. Almost . But not quite.
When he grabs at my ankle, the world jolts, and I just manage to get my arms out before I hit the floor. Pain radiates through my middle, and I reflexively struggle against his grip, but it’s so tight, and my baby is hurt, I fell and my baby is hurt …
There’s an angry squawk, and I look up just in time to see a flurry of green feathers as Gary flies in the man’s face, snapping his beak and cawing and flapping angrily. He’s like an extra from Hitchcock’s The Birds , and I want to cry as I watch him. The creep bats and swipes with his hands, even jabbing at the air with his knife, but Gary keeps coming at him, fierce and furious and refusing to quit protecting his mother no matter how many times he nearly gets hit.
My leg is free, but all I can manage to do is curl myself around my bump, holding onto it, struggling to breathe through the waves of sharp pain rolling through me.
The next time he tries to grab Gary to make him stop, he misses as Gary flies away, and there’s a smashing noise. Shards of pottery scatter all over the ground, along with soil and leaves, as Em breaks a plant pot over his head. He looks stunned for a second, and then he lays flat out, making throaty groaning noises.
“Sadie?!” Em shouts, and I vaguely make out her face as she leans over me, clutching one of my hands and gently shaking my shoulder, but she’s blurry. Everything’s blurry, and getting darker.
I try to say something, to ask her to get Leo and call for help for my little bean, who may be in danger, but the pain… Oh god, the pain in my side throbs again, excruciatingly this time, and however hard I fight to stay awake, the pull of the darkness is stronger and stronger and overwhelms me…