Page 46 of Unleashed
“Ms. Beaumont?” she says gently. “I’m Dr. Henderson. It’s nice to meet you.”
Her handshake is firm but not clinical, a touch that steadies me in a way I didn’t realize I needed.
“Let’s take a look at how baby’s doing, shall we?”
I nod, throat tight. She snaps on gloves, smooths gel onto the wand, and the cold shocks me when it touches my skin. I tense, then exhale as she guides it across my stomach with practiced ease. A silent prayer echoes in my mind.Please, be strong…be okay.
And then the sound comes, a soft pitter-patter that fills the room, rhythmically steady. Alive.
I close my eyes, tears stinging as I just listen to the sound of the heartbeat. Right now, I don’t need to see it; I don’t need to search for the shape on the monitor. All I need is the sound. The rhythm. The proof. That steady rush that says I’m not alone. That there’s life inside me—tiny, fragile, fierce.
My baby. My miracle.
The sound is music, a song written just for me, for us, and I drink it in like oxygen. Because no matter how much the world tilts, no matter how many pieces of me are missing, this is real. This is mine.
“Everything looks good,” Dr. Henderson says. “At two point three inches, your baby is growing as expected. Really strong heartbeat, too.” The wand leaves my stomach, and she wipes the excess gel from my stomach before snapping off her gloves. “Any nausea?”
I shake my head, still half-dizzy from the sound that just filled the room, that heartbeat that feels like the only thing tethering me to this earth.
“Good. If you’re tolerating food well, go ahead and start your prenatal vitamins. I’ll let the nurse write down some good options for you to choose from.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
She squeezes my hand before she leaves, the kind of gentle touch people offer when they think you have someone waiting for you outside. A husband, a partner, a family. Someone to wrap you up in arms and promises the second you walk out that door. But I don’t have that. Everything—everyoneI have is right here in this room.
The doctor leaves, and the quiet is deafening. The hum of the fluorescent lights, the faint rustle of paper under me, they’re nothing compared to the sound missing from this room,hisvoice,hisheartbeat pressed to mine,hisvow that I’ll never be alone in this.
Isaia should be here. He should be the one clutching my hand so tight it hurts, grounding me with his grip the way only he can. He should be leaning close, his voice rough in my ear, whispering that he hears it too—that wild, racing heartbeat that belongs to us. He should be crying with me, his tears falling into my hair as he swears he’ll never let anything touch us, never let anything near our child.
He should be here. Instead, there’s only silence. An empty chair where he should’ve been sitting. A blank space where his presence should’ve filled the room, too big, too consuming, too Isaia to ignore. But he’s not. So much time has passed, and I no longer know the real reason he’s not here. Is it because he lied? Is it because I didn’t phone him that first night? Or is it—God, the thought claws into me—is it because he no longer…
He no longer wants me? Does he know I’m pregnant and he doesn’t want…us?
The thought horrifies me, so sharp it carves down my ribs and hollows me out from the inside. Isaia not wanting me—that’s a world I’m not sure I can survive in. The man Luna got tangled up in, the stranger I stumbled to the ground with, the meet-cute that turned into an obsession that became my oxygen—is now a silence I can’t outrun. A shadow I can’t touch. The thought that the same man who once swore he’d burn the world for me could choose not to want me anymore—it unravels something vital inside me, thread by thread, until I don’t know what’s left.
Sadness drags at me, pressing me deeper into the crinkling paper until it feels like the table itself is swallowing me. Fear creeps in right alongside it, insidious and cold. What if this is it? What if this is my life now? Appointment after appointment, milestone after milestone, nights awake with a crying baby, and no one beside me. No Isaia’s hand gripping mine. No anchor. No storm. Just me.
Alone.
My fingers curl harder over my stomach, like maybe I can promise this child more than I can promise myself.
Maybe I should call him. Maybe I should reach out, just once, and bridge the silence before it swallows me whole. But the thought sears sharply through me;What if he doesn’t want me anymore?Because if he did…wouldn’t he be here? Wouldn’t he have already come for me? Wouldn’t he have called?
The ache in my chest is too much, the room too small, so I shove the thought down, slide off the table, and tug my dress down, hands trembling. The hallway feels endless as I walk it, each step echoing with what’s missing. By the time I reach the elevator, my throat is raw and jaw tense from trying to keep myself from crying. I can’t break down here in front of all these people.
Keep your shit together.
It's already crowded when I step into the elevator, bodies pressed too close in the small space, the scent of antiseptic and perfume mingling in the stale air. I squeeze between a man in scrubs and a woman clutching a manila folder, my back rigid as the brushed metal doors slide shut with a soft, final click. The hum of the motor fills the silence, the low murmur of doctors and patients nothing but background noise to the riot inside my chest.
At the next stop, the doors hiss open and a prickle of awareness floods me as bodies spill out in a rush, shoes scuffing, voices trailing, until the space is nearly empty. I move to step forward—freedom just inches away—when a sharp tug jerks me back. A finger hooked into the belt of my dress.
Breath slams into my throat as my spine collides with iron heat, a chest so solid it steals the air from my lungs. And then—God—then the scent hits. Clean leather. Smoke. Power. The darkness that has stalked me in every dream, every nightmare, every lonely breath since the moment I was taken from him.
I gasp, the sound breaking sharp in the small metal box as the doors slide shut, sealing us in, and the air thickens, dense with him. His breath drags against my neck, lips brushing so lightly I almost think it’s not real—until shivers ripple down my skin, the familiar crackle of electricity sparking everywhere.
My body melts backward, helpless against the heat of him. “Isaia,” I breathe out, his name a plea, and he responds to it like he always did—like a moth to a flame. A soft moan drips from his lips, and his hand curls over my belly, fingers clutching the floral fabric, a touch that tells me he knows.
He knows…
