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“Yeah, but—”
“She’s bleeding, man. I need to get her to the hospital.”
“No!” I cried, shaking my head frantically. “Not the one here.”
“River,” Maverick gritted out. “You need medical assistance.”
“I know,” I sobbed. “B-but we can’t go to the hospital here. It will get back to my dad and he’ll know and then Ben will arrest you and…and…and…” I was starting to gasp as my anxiety made it harder and harder to breathe. A part of my brain was screaming to calm down, this was just a panic attack, but I couldn’t.
Lyric lifted his free hand. “It’s okay, River. We’ll drive a few counties over.”
“Fine,” Maverick gritted out. “But if you get worse, we’re stopping, no matter how close we are. I’ll deal with your dad and Ben if it comes to that. But I’m not going to risk something happening to you, baby.”
I couldn’t get my voice to work, so I only nodded.
While Maverick carried me down to the SUV, Lyric ran inside to grab Mav’s phone and keys since he’d forgotten them. It only took a few minutes, and then we were on the road. Lyric called Mila, telling her what was going on, but when she said she was going to follow us, Maverick convinced her to stay home and cover for me with school and my dad.
Not even thirty minutes into the drive, another cramp hit me. It was so painful, it robbed me of oxygen, and I curled into a ball on Maverick’s lap in the back seat. It was only the third cramp of the morning, but each one of them had gotten worse and worse. “Drive faster!” he roared, his fingers trembling as he stroked my hair back from my face. “It’s okay, baby. You’re going to be fine.”
“Th-the b-baby,” I cried, burying my face in his neck. I knew in my soul that I was losing the baby. The cramp had pushed more blood from me, and I didn’t need to look down to see that it had leaked through the sweat pants and onto Maverick’s jeans.
“Shh,” he soothed in a choked voice. “Don’t think about that.”
But how could I not?
Just the week before, I’d nearly aborted our baby. And now I was losing him or her. Guilt engulfed me like a physical vise. Was this my punishment for even thinking of getting rid of something so precious?
Pressed up against Maverick, I felt the vibrations as he spoke, but I was crying so hard I couldn’t hear anything he or Lyric said. When we started to slow down, I clung to Maverick. “N-no. We aren’t far enough away.”
“Shut up, River,” he growled, kissing the top of my head.
Moments later, Lyric braked hard, and Maverick threw the door open. Holding me against his chest, he ran into the emergency room and yelled for help. As he laid me on a gurney, another cramp hit me, knocking the air from my body, and I curled into the fetal position as the pain became too much to withstand. It was the worst pain of my entire life, so intense that the world began to go dark around the edges.
Vaguely, I heard someone asking questions, but I couldn’t answer as I tried to breathe.
“River Masterson,” Maverick was saying. “She’s my wife. Please…” His voice cracked, making my heart hurt even more than it already was. “Please, just help her.”
I felt the gurney moving, and then someone was stabbing a needle into my arm for an IV line. A doctor started examining me, but other than the feel of her ice-cold hands, I didn’t understand much of what was going on. This cramp was different from the others. It was lingering, making it hard to even think about anything outside the circle of agonizing pain.
They must have given me something for the pain through the IV, because suddenly, I felt as if I were floating. I blinked up at the ceiling a few times, the fluorescent lights glaring down at me as if judging me. Maverick was holding on to my hand so hard, my fingertips felt numb.
Then the lights went dim, and I felt something warm and gooey being squirted onto my belly.
“There’s the heartbeat,” someone said, unknowingly stabbing a knife into my heart. “And here…that’s the fallopian tube. It’s ruptured, by the looks of it. We need to get her into surgery. Now.”
“No!” I screamed at the doctor. “You can’t. Y-you just said that there was a heartbeat.”
She gave me a sympathetic grimace. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do. Right now, your life is the one in danger. You’re losing too much blood.”
“No, no, no,” I whispered. “Maverick, tell them. Make them
understand I don’t want surgery. I-I’ll be fine. Our baby still has a heartbeat. That’s all that matters. Tell them!”
I felt his free hand stroke down my cheek, but when he spoke, he broke my heart. “Do whatever you have to,” he told them. “Anything to protect her.”
Ten
Maverick
