Page 81 of No Asylum Here

Rook slammed the emergency call button.

I grasped Bunny’s hand, crouching beside her with tears in my eyes. “I’m going to get that thing out of you. I promise.”

“It hurts…” Bunny's lower lip trembled as she stared up at me from the surgery table, tears streaming down her ghost-pale face.

It wasn't possible. She had been gone. Was this a miracle or something darker at play?

"Everything is going to be okay."

“Stop making her promises you can't keep, Doc,” the mad thing chastised in my ear. This time, I wasn't listening. I had a patient to save.

"Dr. Rook..." Bunny's paper-thin voice could barely be heard over the chaos of the operating room as my team prepared for surgery. I hunched over the table, bringing my ear close to her mouth. "Will you take care of the baby when I'm gone? You'll be a good big brother. And give the baby my Joanie to play with."

Weakly, she tried to reach for the doll stuffed down the front of her gown, but I took her hand in both of mine and clutched it to my chest with the most reassuring smile I could force to my face. "You're going to be fine. I'm going to make sure you can watch after the baby yourself."

Since I was the primary surgeon for St. Bart's, the operation room was outfitted with a record player and a select few records. Listening to music calmed me while I worked, even though Rook hated it. In an effort to keep Bunny conscious, I instructed a nurse to bring over a few of the records we had on hand.

"Look, Bunny. Two of your favorite Lesley albums. Which one do you want?"

She stared at them like they were ancient alien artifacts instead of her beloved Lesley Gore. "How about ‘It's My Party’? It's the Ed Sullivan Show recording, I know that's one of your favorites.”

Bunny stuck her lower lip out in a pout. Her all-time favorite was “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows,” but that one was in my bell tower office. Her chin bobbed with the tiniest of nods, and I handed it to the nurse who started the record.

I jumped into action, raising my arms, allowing Nurse Marisela to quickly dress me in my surgery scrubs, while another tied a cloth mask around my face. When they moved to dress my father, who was still standing beside the O.R. doors, I spat, "Not him."

"You have to let me help, Mal⁠—"

"I don't have to let you do shit." I took a scalpel off the surgery cart as a nurse wheeled it past and pointed it at him. "If Bunny didn't need me, I'd slit your throat right now. Fuck off."

"At least let me stay and watch the birth of my child."

Glaring daggers at him, I foisted all my attention back to my patient. “You take one step closer, and I’ll gut you.”

“How magnanimous of you.”

“Fuck you. I’m only letting you stay because I don’t have time to throw you out.”

The surgery room was alive with the whir of equipment as I shouted demands at the nursing staff, ordering oxygen and pain killers for Bunny, while I helped in erecting the wall of fabric that would prevent her from seeing the mutated child I was about to pull from her stomach.

“Why are you bothering with all this shit for the mother? Forget her!” Rook snarled from the door. “Save my baby!”

“You’re not believing this shit, are you?”

“Not for a second,” I mentally responded to the voice.

He didn’t care about the baby because it was his child. I knew firsthand that he’d lost that instinct months ago. All he cared about was getting his hands on his experiment so he could take it down to his lab and study the results.

Over my dead fucking body.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Mal

Knowing that the baby was injected with Rook's radioactive green serum, I didn’t have hopes for its survival. My first priority was keeping Bunny alive.

The IV the nurses had hooked her up to, siphoning her pain meds through her antecubital fossa, should have been taking effect by now.

“Does it still hurt?”