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It almost feels like we’re waiting on a fucking tornado or hurricane to land.
Instead, there’s an ugly squelching noise. “The head’s out,” the doctor says. “Do you want to feel it?”
I realize after a beat he’s talking to me. My hand is shaking, but someone—Kane, I think—grabs my wrist and guides me between her legs. It’s wet and strange, and I have no idea what the fuck I’m touching, except that logic tells me it’s our child.
“Jesus,” I breathe out.
Someone cleans my fingers off, and I go right back to Alice, who starts pushing again with her last contraction. Time seems to go on forever, and then suddenly, the baby’s out. I don’t hear a cry, but everyone’s rushing around, and I feel a sudden surge of rage because I don’t know what’s happening.
Why isn’t the baby crying?
“Sometimes they don’t cry,” a nurse answers me, and I realize I must have shouted that question. “She’s breathing just fine.”
Oh. Oh. Jesus Christ. There’s a baby, and she’s…she’sfine.
“Come with me,” James says, and he pries my fingers away from Alice. A larger body pushes past me, and I know it’s Kanecoming to take my place. That’s the only reason I allow James to take me from her.
We cross the room, and then my hand brushes against something hard and cool, and after a second of tracing it, I realize it’s the little cot that had been set up before Alice went into active labor. There are blankets beneath my fingers, and as I creep forward, suddenly, there’s a little body.
I have no idea what a newborn looks like. If I’ve ever seen one, it wasn’t a memory I retained. In my head, it’s strange and alien and far too tiny. And it’s also the most beautiful thing I have ever put my hands on.
“Give me one second, Dad, and I’ll give her to you,” one of the nurses says.
Is she talking to me? There are four of us, and I don’t know, but it becomes clear when there’s a warm, wrapped bundle shoved against my chest. I know how to do this. I’ve been practicing for months because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I ever dropped this child, but now it feels so much more.
She’s heavy and light all at the same time. It’s like I have the world in my arms.
I don’t remember the last time I cried, but my eyelids are hot.
“I need to sit,” I tell literally anyone within hearing distance.
James is still there, and he walks me a few steps away, and then we sit together on a long bench. I take a beat, just feeling the weight of this precious thing in my grasp, and then I find the courage to touch her face. Eyes—kind of puffy and closed, cheeks wrinkled and strange the way skin feels after being in the bath too long. Her nose is snub, and her lips feel like they’re peeling, and oh…Jesus. She has hair. Downy soft and thick.
“She looks like Alice,” James says. I don’t bother to tell him that doesn’t mean much to me. She doesn’t feel like Alice. Shefeels new and strange and far too fucking fragile for my killer’s hands. “Doesn’t have much of me in her, thank God.”
I shake my head, unable to form words, so I just turn my face to kiss him. I miss his mouth, but the edge of his jaw is just as good, and he lets me linger there. “Alice?” I finally ask.
“She just delivered a pile of what looked like purple goo that I’m never going to be able to forget. Ever. And she looks fine. Exhausted, but the doctor’s face seems happy.”
I allow myself to relax that much more. I would kill for this precious being in my arms, but I would die for Alice, and I will not imagine a world in which she’s taken from us. I feel James reach over, and my hand covers his to find that our daughter has curled her fingers around his thumb.
“How did this happen?” James murmurs, and I know what he’s asking. It’s the same question I’ve been asking since we put our demons to rest. We were not supposed to get a happily ever after. We were the villains who were supposed to die at the end of the book.
James rests his head against my shoulder as we wait, and a long while goes by before I hear Kane’s footsteps. I relinquish the weight of the baby as James helps me stand, and Kane pauses to kiss me—just a chaste press of warm lips against my own.
“Ari’s in the bed with her. She wants to meet our daughter,” Kane murmurs.
I follow them back to the bed, and Alice immediately snags my hand, kissing my knuckles. “I think I broke your fingers.” Her voice is hoarse but strong, and I want to sob in relief.
I shake my head and release her. “I’ve had worse.”
She scoffs, but she says nothing, and I know it’s the moment Kane has laid the baby in her arms.
It’s too raw. It’s too real. I don’t think I can survive it.
Then Kane’s arms come around me. He’s standing beside me, watching for me where I can’t, whispering in my ear how Ari looks awed, and James looks like he’s going to pass out, and Alice looks strong.
“Can you believe it?” he asks.
