Page 99 of Savage Reckoning

“Do you know where he is? I’ll let him know.”

I shake my head. “He’s due back next week…” But right now, as far as I know he could be anywhere in the northern hemisphere, though I suspect China, in advance of a US government trade delegation in a couple of months’ time. It’s Gabe’s job to identify and eliminate known threats so that when the politicians arrive there’s a sporting chance they’ll get out again alive.

The hop over to the Rothwell passes in a haze of pain. We land on the roof, where Ethan lifts me onto a trolley. Cristina trots alongside, having dashed across the courtyard to jump in with us moments before we took off.

The maternity wing here is one of the finest in the UK and probably the most expensive. I’m whisked into a private room, which has more in common with a five-star hotel than a clinical setting. All the requisite gadgetry is there, but discreetly unconcealed behind the state-of-the-art entertainment system.

Two midwives are on hand to cater to my every need. They examine me, declare me five centimetres dilated, and try to order Ethan out of the room.

“Fuck that, unless you want me to go?” He leans over my bed to take my hand.

I shake my head. “Gas and air…” I moan.

“Got that.”

Ethan thrusts the mouthpiece into my hand, and I take a long, satisfying suck. The heady, intoxicating rush almost knocks me out. It’s like being drunk but without all the messing about beforehand. The sensation deadens the pain, allowing me a few moments of lucidity before I need to take another swig.

“T-tell him… aargh!” I seize the Entonox again. “Please, tell Gabe…”

“It’s okay, we’re on it.” Cristina smooths back my hair. “Meanwhile, you’ve got us. Would you like me to send for Mrs McRae?”

I shake my head. My aunt is lovely, she truly is, but she does tend to be full of ‘traditional’ advice. I’m not in the market for slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails, even less a natural birth. I can see no point in being a child of the twenty-first century and not taking advantage of all that modern medicine can offer.

Bring on the epidural. And I hope they ordered in an extra crate of Entonox.

I think perhaps they did. Certainly, there seems to be no shortage of the stuff, and I make frequent use of it through the next eighteen hours. This labour might have got off the mark fast, but any hint that my baby might be in a hurry stopped. She, and my cervix, are taking their own sweet time, but at last the midwives seem to be getting excited. They peer eagerly under the raised covers, studying my nether regions, which feel to me to be splitting in half. I grasp Cristina’s fingers in mine and squeeze hard enough to bring tears to both our eyes.

“I can see the head,” one of the midwives squeals. “Won’t be long now, dearie.”

“On the next contraction, give one long, hard push,” the other advises. “I’ll tell you when.”

I’m panting, barely coherent. All I know is, this will be over soon. It has to be. My friends murmur encouragement, but I’m past hearing, past making sense of anything but the need to expel this child into the world. Gabriel and I made this little miracle by accident, but no child was more longed for, more welcome.

“I wish your daddy was here, little one. He wanted to be…” I whisper.

“Whoa. Someone trying to have baby without me?”

I’m hallucinating. It sounds like him, but I know for a fact Gabriel is on the other side of the world. Still, it’s a nice dream…

“Sweetheart, I love you.” He kisses my forehead.

It seems so real, I can almost taste him, smell him.

The bed dips just as the pain grips me again. This is it, the next contraction.

“Push, honey. Push now. Hard. Harder.” Gabriel’s tone is low, even, compelling.

It reaches me through the drugged, agonised haze, gives me focus. From somewhere, I dig deep and find what I need.

“She’s here, I have her…”

I swear I split apart. There’s a warm, wet rush, impossible stretching, a hoarse, raucous cry which I think must be me, then, relief.

I’m sobbing, barely conscious, when the squirming, slippery bundle lands on my chest. “Here she is. Our daughter. As beautiful as her mama.”

People are laughing, crying, clapping. I’m sobbing and grinning at the same time, deliriously happy and racked with emotional turmoil. The rational, medically trained part of me knows it’s only chemistry, hormones running rampant, but I’m still carried along on the blissful wave, in this precious moment to be captured in time and carried forever.

The high-pitched wail of a baby’s first cry bounces off the walls. I hug her to me, revel in her hot, sticky little body.

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