Page 29 of Light

“Hey.” With her fingertips still lodged against my chest, at least Emma’s mellowed her fingers into warm churros instead of blazing skewers. “You’re not in this alone, Dark Knight.” She lends herself a tiny smile because of the reference. “I’m right here.”

Though I’ve been working on a return smile for her, I embrace my inner Bruce Wayne and let a growl take over my throat instead. “Not cool to steal my lines, baby—even if you are Wonder Woman.”

“Nothing to steal,” she volleys. “They’re not lines.”

The space over my heart grows warmer, coming alive with a sensation I’ve never experienced before. I don’t move my stare from her gorgeous golden face, but I’m damn positive she’s lighting up everything in my chest with a mixture of liquid sun and forty-carat flecks.

“They’re simply the truth, my beautiful Zeus.” She wraps her other hand back around mine, filling all of my fingers with that incredible golden power. “We’re going to do this together, okay?” she presses. “We’re going to greet our son, face-to-face, at last. We’re going to be here with all of the same elation and connection and jubilation with which he was first created. We’re going to look at him, and kiss him, and hold him—”

“And love him.” I declare it in a thick husk, already watching the intention in her eyes. Instantly, it’s cut short by the sharp gasp on her lips. But as Bean starts up his dance party again, I soak up all of the tearful gratitude she musters across her face and pours into the pressure of her fingers. “And then we’ll tell him that, each and every day,” I go on. “The same way I’ll never stop telling you, my incredible woman.”

I stroke a hand through her hair, savoring its silky warmth. I glide that hand along the back of her neck, remembering each and every time I’ve cupped that honey-soft spot before kissing her. I do that now, brushing my lips across hers. At the same time, I inhale deeply, dousing my senses in her sunshine and summer-wind scent. I notice it all. I memorize it all.

I memorize us.

Because it’s all about to change.

As soon as I turn my forefinger into an electric scalpel and lower it to her skin.

And then through her skin.

“Aaaaahhhh!”

And then, with her shriek in my ears and her agony in my soul, slicing even deeper.

“Don’t stop. Damn it, don’t stop, Reece!”

And then obeying her—despite how it’s all but killing me. Despite how I register how she’s following my path with her fingers, seeming to mitigate her pain with solar-level heat, which is fine and dandy unless one is the guy inflicting the torture in the first place.

Christ. And I really thought my months inside the Source had forever squared away my debt to karma? Being Faline’s lab rat was barely the appetizer course for this entree of an ordeal.

Having to reach in past my wife’s intestines, enduring the slosh of her body fluids as I do.

Having to swallow back my sick as Calvin can’t, enduring his violent dry heaves and his get-me-a-bag breaths.

Having to keep going, pushing aside her bladder, to gain an unhindered view of her uterus.

And now, for the shittiest hell: having to haul in a huge breath while feeling my way along the swollen bulge.

Farther. Farther…

My hands quaver as my mind panics. Where the hell am I supposed to cut? What did all the guide books say about this? Why the fuck can’t I remember any of it? And most importantly, how far are we from home? Is there any possibility of holding off so Neeta can do it?

“Shit!” Emma’s scream coincides with a new punch from inside her uterus. The whole thing vibrates from the impact, setting off similar tremors up and down her body. “Oh, sh-sh-shit,” she repeats from between her chattering teeth.

“Holy crap,” Cal exclaims as we reach a crest with a view out to the ocean. In the distance, over the waters of the Pacific, there are bursts of red, gold, blue, and green—and I sincerely wish I could attribute the guy’s astonishment to those fireworks displays, officially heralding the arrival of the new year. But he and I have a more astounding light show to be concerned with right now.

The one emanating from the center of my wife’s body.

“Christ on fucking dynamite,” I spit. So having to stress about looking at my woman’s uterus isn’t enough. Now I’ve got to figure out how to cut the damn thing open? With it looking like an oversize magic bean, complete with the ethereal blue glow? And as long as we’ve gotten to that subject: what the living hell is going on with this shit? What does this even mean?

I’m entitled to spew that one aloud too, and I do. Not that it helps with one shred of my roiling gut, one beat of my thundering pulse, or one degree of my scalding bloodstream. I’m a mess, sitting here like one of the assholes I used to corner in back alleys, existing on a mix of raw terror and blind uncertainty—and the catatonia that fucked-up alliance can bring on.

“Damn it!” Emma digs her grip into my wrist, nearly putting a permanent indent between the two bones. “It means you’ve got to get him out, Reece. Do it,” she orders, her teeth fully bared. “Just—oh, God!”

“Oh, God.”

Our overlapping iterations are different spears on the air. Mine’s a rough, stunned croak; hers is a high, desperate scream. Her pain threatens to wither me again, until I fully recognize this shit is on me. She’s not just relying on the lightning in my fingertips. She needs the power that her love has infused into my character—and the strength it’s given my will.