Page 2 of Vicarious

“Before we knew it was twins, we argued over whether it would be a boy or a girl. And every morning, Adrian would kiss my stomach and ask how his little lady was doing. I joked that as often as he called her that, if it was a girl, she probably thought it was her name already. And it just… it stuck.”

She’s not smiling anymore. And she’s stopped caressing her stomach.

My turn to cheer her up.

“What is your real name anyway?”

“I’ll take it to my grave,” she declares. She starts to say something else, but she winces again and holds onto her stomach.

“You sure those are false?”

“We can’t stop. We have to get across the border into Canada first. It’ll be harder for Pray to get to us once we’re across the border.”

“I know that, but I don’t think babies generally care about things like that,” I point out. “We’ve been driving for hours. There’s two states between us. And Pray’s going to have his hands full doing damage control, especially after…”

After I probably killed his greatest weapon.

“I’m fine. We’re fine,” Phae adds, sounding more like she’s trying to convince herself than me.

I raise an eyebrow at her.

“No really. I’m—”

Phae suddenly lets out a strangled cry, gripping onto her seatbelt. With that, my decision is made. I type into the GPS of our fraudulently gotten rental, looking for the closest hospital.

“How long have you been feeling these pains, Phae?”

I don’t know much about childbirth but I do know that it’s supposed to take a while. And hopefully, it hasn’t been long.

“I don’t know. A few hours.”

“A few?”

“Six maybe. When we last stopped and got something to eat.”

At which, despite being eight months pregnant and typically with an insatiable appetite, she could barely get down a few bites of her sandwich. I should have known something was wrong then. But of course something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

No use dwelling on it now.

The nearest hospital comes up. Forty minutes.

It’s the longest forty minutes of my life. I’m used to intense situations. I’m a trained spy and assassin, for fuck’s sake. But I know what to do in all those situations. I don’t know what to do if Phae gives birth in a car with just me.

It’s only years of having to remain calm in intense situations that keeps me from panicking. That keeps me able to concentrate on the task at hand and drive to the hospital. Because panicking and losing control isn’t going to help this situation. I might not be able to do anything, but my de-escalation training kicks in, and I apply those calming techniques as best I can to Phae while getting us to the hospital. Try to keep her calm even as her contractions come faster and more painful.

When we get there, I park right in front of the emergency room doors, walk up to the receptionists desk and say, “My friend is having a baby. Right now.”

Unlike in the TV shows where that would be enough to put the entire emergency room in a frenzy, the receptionist calmly pages who she needs to. Me demanding someone moves faster is going to do little, so I go outside and around to Phae’s side to help her get out.

As soon as I open the door, she falls sideways out the car. I just catch her in time before she cracks her head on the ground.

“Phae.”

“Dele. What…?”

She pale, sweating, and clammy. And it was one thing not demanding someone move faster when this was just regular labor. But now? Something’s clearly wrong.

“Hey,” I shout. “Hey. She passed out. She—”

---