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Squeezing behind the wheel was a thing, and she had to take a breather twice on account of the contractions. But then she was driving off, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white.
Traffic was light because it was after ten p.m. and this was the suburbs—and yet she was terrified she was going to get into an accident. Then again, that was how she always felt. She made herself conquer the fear, however.
She was done being afraid of anyone or anything.
Done with being treated like a little girl when she was a grown adult.
Done with the casual misogyny she had always accepted as just part of the way the world worked.
And what do you know, it turned out she was treated as she demanded to be treated, and now it was with respect. If one thing good had come out of all of this, it had been finding that measure of strength.
The St. Francis emergency room entrance and parking lot were just as she remembered. Which shouldn’t have surprised her, but did. Then again, she felt like she had last been to the facility fifty years ago, with Not-Danny DeVito.
And a man who would change her life for all kinds of bad reasons.
She glanced down at her stomach. Well, and one reason she already loved with every fiber of her being.
Pulling into the closest space she could find, she got out and dragged herself toward the revolving doors. On the far side, she wobbled over to the reception desk and waited until the woman looked up at her over a pair of reading glasses.
“Hi, may I help you—”
“Dr. Robert Bluff. I’m here to see Dr. Bluff.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. This isn’t a doctor’s office where you can ask for a specific provider. This is the emergency room—”
“I know where I am. I want you to page him, right now. And if he’s not on shift, you’re going to call him at home. And if he’s on vacation, you’re going to bring him back from wherever he is. He’s the only one who’s going to deliver my baby.”
The pushback was immediate, but also unperturbed, as if lots of weird demands had been tossed over the receptionist’s proverbial transom. “Ma’am, I’m not sure I was clear enough. You can’t just—”
“Page him, right now. Or I’m having this baby in front of you and all the nice people in those chairs over there.”
The woman hesitated. But as Anne just stared her right in the eye, her hand reached out to the phone. After a couple of buttons were pushed, the receptionist said, “Dr. Bluff, you have a…”
“Patient,” Anne said.
“A patient at the front desk. Paging Dr. Bluff, please come to reception.”
As another contraction hit, Anne held on to the desk’s edge and swayed. Just as she was about to have to go sit down, the sharp, burning sensation eased, thank God—
The sudden rushing feeling that hit her next was not unexpected, she supposed. But as the insides of her legs ran with a hot fall of liquid, she guessed it was better for her water to break here than in her car—
Dr. Robert Bluff marched out of the double doors of the treatment area, his face annoyed as if some protocol had been breached. But the instant he saw her, he did a double take.
Anne lifted her hand. “My water broke. Sorry—”
“That’s not water,” he said as he rushed forward. Over his shoulder, he shouted, “I need a wheelchair, right now!”
With a sense of dread, Anne looked down at herself—and what she saw was incomprehensible. Her inner thighs were bathed with blood, so much of it that a brilliant red pool was forming at her feet.
Throwing out a hand to the doctor, she grabbed on to his sleeve. In a low, urgent voice, she said, “You remember me, from before. I was here with one of your kind. You know what I’m talking about.”
The man’s—vampire’s—eyes bugged out.
“It’s his,” she said softly. “The man—male—I was with. This is his baby, and you’re the only one who can do this.”
Dr. Bluff glanced around. Then he whispered, “I’ll take care of everything.”
The wheelchair arrived in the nick of time. Right as her knees gave out, she collapsed back into the seat, and she was grateful that Dr. Bluff insisted on pushing her out of the waiting area himself—and it was just as well she left. The patients and families who were in line to be seen were all looking over at her in horror, and as she was swept through the double doors, she was willing to bet the jogging orderly with the rolling bucket and the mop had been called on account of her.
The next thing she knew, she was being transferred onto a gurney in a room that had four solid walls and a lot of equipment.
