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“Mary, this woman is heavily pregnant.”
She thrust herself forward. “Oh, no.”
“And she’s either urinated on herself or her water’s broken,” Halo called.
“Put your hand on her belly,” Mary instructed. “Is it soft?”
“No, it feels like a soccer ball.”
“A contraction, Halo. She can’t have her baby out here in this storm.”
Halo's mind had been racing since the moment they’d come up on the accident. How would he deal with an injured driver, a messed-up Mary, a small, wet, possibly hypothermic child, a dog, no comms, and perhaps even a roadside birth, all in the middle of a raging storm?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mary felt ridiculous shivering in the car while Halo was out in the storm. He’d said that he needed to get the tree out of the road, and Mary was processing his ability to do that. She’d thought of Jack and the beanstalk and that maybe Halo had something in his pocket he could eat to become a giant. Then, it would be easy.
She thought of Alice in Wonderland and the bottle she drank, and Mary had asked him if he had a power drink, but her words must have escaped him.
It was this very odd half-reality she was living in.
On the one hand, here she was, recognizing that she, Halo, and Max had once again been thrust into life-or-death circumstances, that things were very dire, that her right action was needed.
Her limbs weren’t fully cooperating. She felt like she was drunk in her movements, though her head didn’t feel that way at all. She felt clear, cogent.
And yet, she also wasn’t sure.
This all had a dream-like quality, and at moments, it was more like a nightmare. The sounds and images were forming, and they were too improbable to be real. And just like in her sleep, Mary was telling them to go away; she was dreaming. And they did; they’d poof and go away.
Back in the woods, Mary had leaned into the tree hollow, and had run her hands over the shivering child, careful not to catch her hand on the wings. But those words had tasted wrong. And she’d asked if this was a fairy child.
Halo had looked both horrified and resolute.
Whatever magic was happening in these woods, Mary felt like it was thinning.
She was quickly waking up.
Halo wasn’t sipping a magic potion to grow big. There was a practical way to get that tree off the car and out of the road.
He told her that Marilin, the expert he knew, explained that since trees falling down was part of the storm season, many of the locals had chainsaws in their trunks. He’d pressed a button on the dash, then turned to her. “Here’s hoping.”
She’d lifted crossed fingers.
Mary felt she should be helping but wasn’t sure how. If she got out of the car, he’d be paying attention to her. In this rain with the chainsaw? That was too dangerous. The best thing to do was to follow Halo’s instructions and hold the child, hug Max, and try to keep everyone warm.
Halo climbed into the front passenger seat, pulling a hand over his face to clear it of rain.
“Mary.” He was turned to look her full in the face, assessing. “How are you doing?”
“Better, I think.”
“I need that to be true.” He bit his back teeth down, working his jaw, some kind of internal argument going on. “Here’s the deal, we need our car. I’m not sure how far away it is. I’m not sure how dangerous it is to get you there.”
“I’m not leaving the woman or child.”
“Which means I need to leave you.” He squeezed his hands around the headrest.
“I’ll have Max, and Max will protect me.”
