Page 101 of Say We've Found Forever
Emma can make it alone…she’s so much stronger now…
A contraction rips through her, and her feet slip, offering enough give on the door to let decaying hands creep around the frame.
She calls out Wyatt’s name in a last-ditch effort, wrenching herself upward when she thought she couldn’t to grab the curtain rod off the shower.
It’s got a pointed end, and she shoves it through the first rotten head to get close enough. She’s only got one weapon,though, and can’t pull it free. Emma already stabbed another through the eyeball, and more just keep coming.
Addison can’t do anything but crumble as the baby pushes on her pelvis, determined to be born despite the danger all around her. She won’t even get to see this world before being taken out of it. This can’t be how it ends.
Another runner lunges straight for her until the stink of its breath puffs heavy on her nose. She leans back and braces for impact, but then it’s pulled away again, as if in slow motion, and tossed out into the hall, where Wyatt slams its head against an exposed picture hook.
He’s covered in blood and gore and looks like he went ten rounds in a boxing ring, but he’s alive. He’s here. Rushing toward her in a panic, hands roaming her body in search of injuries, one resting on her stomach and the other cupping her face.
“That’s all of ‘em. Are you okay? Bitten? Emma, are you okay? Shit, they were fast. So damn angry, I’ve never seen…the baby, how’s the baby? Talk to me?” He’s rambling, much like she would be if she weren’t experiencing something the size of a melon trying to exit her body.
“We’re okay,” she groans. “The baby’s coming. Now. Right now.”
Here, in this bathroom covered in crimson with a dead body at her feet, is not where she wants to bring a life into the world. She struggles to stand, only to need Wyatt to catch her when her legs give out.
“I can’t be here when it happens. Please, anywhere else. Anywhere.”
She could have ten seconds left or ten minutes for all she knows, but there has to be some attempt at finding a place to birth this baby that doesn’t involve a rotten corpse being the first thing she sees.
He helps her hobble out of the bathroom and down the hall into their room. She makes it two more steps before collapsing to the ground. She’s not getting any further than this.
Her legs give out, her arms fail, and she sags against Wyatt. Can’t gulp the next breath fast enough before she feels strangled, and all at once she’s pushing before she even knows what she’s done. Instead of feeling worse, there is a moment of unexpected relief.
Somehow, she’s shifted to the floor with a nice view of the popcorn ceiling. Her other daughter is on the bed behind her, watching this all play out with the widest eyes Addison’s ever seen.
“I’m gonna look, okay?” Wyatt says.
She only nods. At this point, a complete stranger could wander in off the street and take a peek, and she wouldn’t give a single shit.
“I can see her, she’s right there,” Wyatt gasps, beaming at her with an awestruck smile.
Her reply is not nearly as excited, and she screams it at him like a banshee on fire. “I know she’s right there, I can fucking feel it!”
The baby beingright therehas to mean this will be over soon.
Any second now.
Any. Second. Now.
Fuck.
An offensive amount of additional seconds continue to pass, and it’s still not over.
“Wyatt, I can’t do this,” she cries, her face crinkling as the next wave levels her enough that breathing is a struggle. “I can’t.”
He grabs her hand, letting her squeeze until her knuckles whiten and she’s sure she’s given him an extra scar. “You just stabbed a runner in the head with a shower curtain rod in themiddle of labor. That’s the most badass thing I’ve ever seen. If anyone can do this, it’s you. I’m right here. You’re not alone. You can do this.”
Exhaustion has her limp, and any ounce of effort she might have found feels so far away.
Wyatt looks at her like she could move mountains, though. She finds strength in the reverence in his eyes and the hope in his tone. Let’s him help her up into an imitation of a crunch for one last push, and then the baby’s first scream comes on the tail end of Addison’s last one.
She collapses backward against a fluffy pillow that Emma must have snuck under her head, and then all she sees is Wyatt with a baby in his arms, wiping what looks like strawberry jam off her pink body with a fresh towel.
Then he’s depositing that bundle right on her chest, the prettiest thing she’s ever seen. “You did it, sweetheart.”
