Page 55 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

All of myplans fall away with every grunting scream from Avery. Every one means another contraction, and two blocks from the hospital she starts trying to pull her own pants down. She can’t do it. She just can’t, not without falling off the seat of the car. I had planned to drive into the parking garage and call for help. Then I had planned to park in emergency parking and walk her inside. And then she pins her chin to her chest and makes a new sound, a lower sound, and fuck, everything is happening now.

I pull up onto the sidewalk outside the emergency department and run for the door. They probably brace for an attack, coming from a guy like me—rumpled, with tattoos everywhere and wild eyes—but somehow I get the right combination of words out.

Wife. Labor.Twins.

The words don’t sound real to me, because how fucking lucky could I be to have a wife, and two little babies to call my own?

Blue scrubs, all moving toward me. Three or four people, I don’t know. They sweep toward the car and one of them pulls the door open and there’s Avery, her knuckles white on the headrest and her hair spilling over her back. A stretcher appears and she screams at them, snaps at them.

“Let the dad through,” somebody says, and I kneel down on the concrete. Avery’s eyes are huge, the whites desperate, her forehead beaded with sweat. Urgent energy surrounds the car. They want her in the hospital. I want her in the hospital.

“Hey, Aves.” I stroke her hair back from her face. “We’ve got to go inside, okay? It’s cleaner than Elliot’s disgusting police car.”

“I like it in here,” she moans.

“I know you do. But you’ll like it in the hospital, too. They’ll keep us safe.”

“Are you sure?”

No. I’m not sure. For the rest of my life, I’ll never be sure. But I will lie my ass off for Avery Capulet. AveryMontague. “Yes. It’s all going to be fine. We just need to get inside, all right?”

She gives a short, sharp nod and hands reach around me, all of those people moving as a unit, and they get her out of the car. They get her onto the stretcher. A woman flies out the doors of the hospital and comes up to the side of the stretcher, bending close to Avery’s face. “Hi, honey,” she says. “You’re doing so great. You tell me when the next contraction is over. Okay?”

Avery’s face is pain, nothing but pain, but it releases her as we speed into the emergency doors and bypass the waiting room. Labor and Delivery must be somewhere else. I have no idea where. The team around the stretcher doesn’t stop for anything.

“It’s done,” she gasps. “Another one’s coming—”

“Yes, they’re coming really close together. Let’s get her pants off.” Someone reaches in with scissors and I don’t even break their wrists. Avery’s bloodied leggings shred under the blades. Someone else yanks down her panties. They’re soaked, I realize. Her water broke already. The babies are coming now.

“Operating room?” One of the nurses asks, and the OB holds Avery’s knees apart and looks in.

“Yes. But there’s probably not going to be time.”

“Time for what?” They don’t seem to hear me. We’re still going so fast, through a set of double doors that have to be opened via card key and then another one. The hospital seems quieter here. A picture of a baby on the wall tells me we’re in the OB department, thank fuck. They wheel Avery to the very end of the hall.

And that’s where things stop.

For an agonizing minute, everything stops. The OB scrubs up. She puts on a mask. Someone throws me a set of scrubs and I step into them like a robot. That same nurse helps me get a surgical cap on. I feel feral. Avery is already in there—I can hear her. The nurse snaps in front of my face. “You ready, Dad?”

“I’ve never been more ready in my goddamn life.”

And then we go in.

The obstetrician is at the foot of the table, between Avery’s legs, and they guide me to a stop by her head. She grabs my hand in the tightest grip I’ve ever felt. I’m going to lose bones to this, but it’ll be worth it.

“It looks like we won’t be doing a C-section, Avery.” God, this woman has such a warm voice. It even makes me feel comforted, and I am fucking terrified. “One of your babies is already crowning. Go ahead and push—”

Avery is one step ahead of her, curling in on herself with gritted teeth. She puts her head back to take a deep breath and starts again.

“Good, Avery,” says the OB. “Good, good.”

It doesn’t look good to me, the gush of fluid and blood that comes next, the red baby, but then the OB holds it up and everything is different. Everything. The whole world and everything in it.

It’s my daughter. I have a daughter.

There’s no special moment for me to clip the umbilical cord—a nurse does it, and then the baby is handed off to another nurse, who wraps her in a blanket. There’s no special moment because another baby is coming. Another baby is going to be born in blood and violence. It is so fucking violent, birth.

Avery screams and then makes a guttural noise. “Oh, fuck,” she says. “Oh, fuck, it hurts.”

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