Page 28 of Fatal Love
“Come on,” Cal yelled from the bedroom as Connor shifted to let Hunter help. They each took an arm and leg, and together they ran as Beatrice yelled obscenities and Cal dragged Maria across the bedroom floor.
Tick-tick-tick.His mind knew what his heart didn’t want to accept. They weren’t going to make it.
“Faster,” he shouted. “We’re out of—”
“I got it,” Sabrina’s voice called over their comms. “I defused the bomb!”
Hunter sent Connor a look that showed equal amounts of surprise and approval. “Nice.”
Connor slumped slightly with relief, but Beatrice’s body arched again and she cried out, and he and Hunter had to set her down.
The contraction racked her body, making her go rigid. Cal dropped Maria’s wrists and fell to the floor next to Beatrice as she started some funny breathing.
Cal was breathing funny too, as if he could barely get enough breath into his lungs.
Shock? Too much blood loss?
“We need to get both of you to the doctor,” Connor said.
Hunter stared at Beatrice’s hand, probably because, like Connor, he wasn’t sure where to look. “I called for an ambulance, but, um…”
Beatrice came up on her elbows, obviously bearing down.
“Um, what?” Connor asked. Something told him he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“It’s not going to get here,”—Hunter glanced at him and down at Beatrice,—“before the baby arrives.”
Everything in Connor went still. “What?”
Cal started to say something, but his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the floor.
Out cold.
“Cal!” Beatrice yelled between breaths. She speared Connor and Hunter with a desperate look. “Do something!”
“I’ve got Cal,” Hunter said, jumping over Beatrice’s belly to kneel next to the man and check his pulse. “You handle the baby.”
“What?” Handle the baby? What the fuck did he know about babies?
And then, as he glanced down at his boss struggling to push while her injured husband lay next to her bleeding out, he sucked up his squeamishness and dropped to his knees next to her.
“I know zip about delivering a baby,” he confessed, “but I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”
“Unnnnggghhh,” was all Beatrice said, but she grabbed both of his hands and squeezed.
The pressure from that squeeze was like a hundred pound weight, making him grimace and nearly lose his balance.
Holy Jesus. “21 Pilots!” he said into his comm. “I need you.”
“Um, yeah, about that,” she said.
But her voice wasn’t in his comm. It was coming from…
His head snapped around, zooming in on the end of the hallway.
Fuck a goddamn duck.Could this night spin any further out of control?
There, at the end of the hallway, Sabrina stood staring back, Ebba Nielsson next to her with a gun pointed at Sabrina’s temple.
