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“You sure?” Wit looked her over, unable to determine if she was right. There was so much blood. “The baby?”
“The baby?” Ayelish’s focus turned back to C.T. as they were laying him on a gurney and preparing to load him on the elevator. “The baby is f-fff…”
Her color faded and eyes rolled back while her lids fluttered closed, and she fell in Wit’s arms.
“Ayelish?” Wit didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice. He swept her up in his arms as a guttural cry escaped him. “Help! Somebody help me!”
He ran with her, sobbing, trying to catch the elevator before it was gone. His sob grew more desperate. “She needs help!”
Coy beat him to the elevator and stuck his arm between the closing doors to stop it and ripped it back open. He waved Wit on and joined him as the doors closed behind him.
Wit sobbed out loud while he watched the doors close and the people on the other side look on with horror. He heard screaming, crying, and pleas for God to save her and the baby. The tears streaking the cheeks of his team confused him as they stared on at him. When the elevator doors finished closing, he saw the inside reflecting back at him. It was then that he realized those sobs, cries for help, begging for something divine to save Ayelish… were coming from him.
15
“Mendoza wouldn’t have letme go if we weren’t okay.” Ayelish pulled a shirt over her damp hair and finished dressing after showering the blood an enemy drew off her body. “I promise. I’m good now.”
“Aye, you passed out in my arms.”
Ayelish held Wit’s face in her hands and kissed him. “You heard the doc. Adrenaline and hormone overload combined with dehydration…that’s all it was.”
“You hit your head, Aye.”
“Yeah, I don’t remember that happening. Thought the cut was from broken glass.” Ayelish shrugged and left the bathroom and sat on the bed of their bedroom to slip on shoes.
“That’s the problem, darlin’. You don’t remember hitting your head.”
She tossed her hands in the air. “It was chaotic out there. You should have seen it. Pure pandemonium. It’s a wonder any of us remember our names, much less a bump to the head.”
“You just ain’t gonna listen, are you?” He helped her to her feet, assessing her balance.
Ayelish paused with her eyes turned up as she thought for a moment. “Nope. Not listening. Mendoza said I was fine and gave me IV fluids. I’m good. Besides, we aren’t leaving the building, just heading to the Lair. I’m not letting you do that by yourself.”
“I’m good. I just want you to be good too.”
“And I am, Wit.” She rested her hand on her belly. “We’re good. You don’t have to tell the team your story. Especially after today…”
“No. Someone I admire –– a brother –– is lying in a bed upstairs fighting his way back to life because of something I somehow brought here.” Wit held her hand and walked down the hall to the living room with her. “We have to figure this out. Before anyone else is hurt or, worse, killed. I can’t have that hangin’ over me, Aye. I just can’t. These people mean too much. I can’t let them have my back without all the information they need to find and fight a ghost.”
Turning in his arms, Ayelish laid her head against his chest. “I know, baby. I know. You shouldn’t have to carry any of this or fight the ghost either. Just promise me, you’ll let them in.”
“I will. I can’t live another day like today.” Wit bit his bottom lip. “No more surprises. No more ghosts. Just answers and closure. Hopefully sharing with them what I shared with you last night might get us there.”
“Okay. I’m right there next to you. The whole way,” Ayelish said. “We both are.”
Wit took to one knee and braced himself by holding Ayelish by the hips and spoke to her belly. “I’m doin’ this for you too. I’ll always fight for you and your mama. Forever and ever. And I love you more than life, little one. More than anything.”
He looked up at Ayelish when her tear fell to his cheek, and he smiled at her before turning his attention back to her belly. “I love you. I love the both of you.”
His kissed her flat stomach and gently rested his head against it for a moment while she held his head against her with one hand and ran her fingers through his hair with the other.
“We love you too,” she whispered back. “So much it hurts.”
Wit rose to his feet and held her hand as he pulled her along with him to the door so they could leave.
“The good hurt, right?” he teased, opening the door for her. “Not the kind like, you got a headache because of me ’cause I know I’m a little bit extra in the nerve department sometimes.”
She giggled down the hall to the elevator. “Definitely the good kind… but I am familiar with that headache.”
