“No!” I scream, thrashing at Malia. My fingernails collide with her cheek as I launch myself toward her. Malia takes this opportunity to grab my wrists, irritation flaring in her gray eyes as droplets of blood from where I scratched her trail down her cheek. “Let me go! I want my husband.I won’t do this without my husband!” My foot finds her abdomen, and though she huffs in pain, she doesn’t let go of me.
Before I can crawl my way over her and toward the tunnel opening, the contraction peaks again, this time so painful, I find myself paralyzed in shock.
“This is what we agreed to,” she says, squeezing my wrists as I collapse backward underneath the pain in my abdomen. “This is what you agreed to.”
I frown, remembering the agreement that we came to. After their conversation, Nolan had informed me that Kendra hadbeen worried that if Nolan stayed with me and the child, he might back out on their agreement. He had argued with her vehemently, but she had said that she’d seen too many cases of such situations like this, too many people refusing to pay once they glimpsed their child’s face.
It hits me now that I’m not going to see my husband again. Possibly never. There had been a hope blooming inside me that perhaps once our son is grown, once he could take care of himself and be off in the world, Nolan might return to me.
Would he do that? Doing so would mean cutting off a relationship with the son he loved, the son he had raised. I’m not sure I even want him to choose me—not if it will crush our boy.
Just then, the contraction begins to subside, and I have the ability to breathe again.
“I didn’t get to tell him goodbye,” I whisper.
For the first time, emotion ripples across Malia’s face, her brow crinkling. “Yes. I’m sorry for that.”
“Does he know?”
She shakes her head. “No. Not yet. Though Kendra will tell him soon.”
I bite my lip, causing it to bleed as another surge of pain overcomes me. “You didn’t have to drug me, you know.”
Malia looks at me.
“I think you know that I did. But,” she adds, “if you would like help, I’ve accompanied several births. There are things we can do to ease the pain.”
“You have more sedatives?” I ask.
Malia shakes her head. “Nothing that’s safe at the moment. But I can feel.” She puts one hand on my back, the other on my belly. “I can monitor him as he moves downward. There are positions I can get you into. And if you’d like, I can put pressure on your hips, on your back. It doesn’t always help, but sometimes?—”
I let out a cry as another surge of pain rips through me.
“Yes. Whatever will help,” I say, barely conscious that I’m speaking the words at this point.
“Your labor has progressed quickly,” she says. “If you have the strength and can get onto your hands and knees?—”
I interrupt her. “That would have been easier had you not drugged me.”
If Malia is offended by my snapping at her, she doesn’t show it on her face. Instead, she grabs my hips and helps me rotate onto my hands and knees.
Together, we crawl over to a nearby boulder, where she has me drape my upper body across it for support.
“The next time a surge hits, you need to surrender to it,” she says.
But the surge is already building, every muscle in my body tensing and tightening in anticipation. I scream, the pain unbearable as blood vessels burst inside of my head.
“It’s temporary,” she says. “We can count through it if you would like?—”
But I can’t hear her anymore after that, not over the sound of my own screams.
Finally, the pain peaks, then begins to subside. Slowly, my muscles relax.
“Next time, you have to surrender,” she says.
But I don’t want to surrender to the pain. I’ve surrendered so often in my life. I’ve put up so little of a fight. I can’t bear the idea of letting this hurt me.
“It’s not like normal pain,” she whispers to me. “Pain indicates that something is wrong. But there is nothing wrong here. This is right. And your body knows what to do, even if you don’t.”
