Page 82 of Captive Omega

“Didn’t seem like it. She seemed hot, then shivering.”

“Could be shock. And the blood?”

“Not a lot.”

“That’s okay. Bringing her here was the right thing to do. You said she fell?”

No white coats appear.

The clinic isn’t big. There’s one main hallway and we pass closed door after closed door with glass fronts. It’s the middle of the night, I remind myself. How many people are you expecting to be wandering around?

“… close to the fire,” Garrison is saying. “And she got up fast.”

“Dizziness?”

“No. She was pale, and she was swaying a little.”

“This way.” Sadie leads the way into a white room with a hospital bed, a big machine beside it, and the blinds drawn. “I’m going to do a quick check of your stats, Resa. Just like back at the house, so there’s no need to be tense or worried. First, I’d like to get you into a gown and confirm you aren’t still bleeding. Then we’ll do a scan, check everything is okay with the baby.”

I twist my fingers together. “And if everything is not okay?”

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it.” Her smile is reassuring. “But I have hope.”

I try to let it reassure me as the man and the woman, a nurse I think, in dark purple scrubs, help me into the bed.

Another nurse enters, carrying a pale blue hospital gown, the type with no back, and everyone except Sadie leaves the room as I change into it. My hands shake so badly that she does more of the work in helping me out of my clothes and into the gown than I do.

I try not to look at my panties when she tugs them off me, and I could cry when she says, “It’s okay, Resa. This is not an alarming amount of blood.”

Sadie folds up my clothes, placing them in a small white basket. I shiver, though the room isn’t particularly cold.

She checks my pupils with a little torch, my pulse, and presses lightly down on my belly, eyes flicking to mine. “Any pain?”

I shake my head.

“Cramping? Now and before?”

“No.”

That reassuring smile makes another appearance. “Excellent. We’ll get the machine ready, okay?” She smiles more gently. “Some bleeding in the early stages of pregnancy is normal. When it is heavy or sustained, it’s a concern. Nothing I’ve seen or heard from you and Garrison suggests this is something alarming. Okay?”

I nod, relieved she hasn’t said the m-word because I can’t bring myself to even think of losing my baby.

“Let’s get this ultrasound to check on the baby, and I’d like to get some blood and urine tests done as well so we can get to work giving you and the baby a clean bill of health. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good.” I let myself take my first real breath since I thought my life was imploding again.

“Then let’s get some questions answered as we wait for this scan, okay?”

Sadie starts with questions, asking me the same questions she asked Garrison and nodding at each answer. The clinical nature of it all, calm, measured, her voice a steady staccato, slows my panicked breathing.

No, I don’t have any cramps.

No pain.

I was hot before, but I was sitting next to a fireplace.

No, I’m not hot anymore. My feet are cold, but that’s nothing new.

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