Page 96 of Across Eternity

“And I need to enjoy the feeling of you wrapped around me like a blanket.”

“Fine, but no more sex.”

He laughs. “Not even married yet and you’re already denying me.”

It hits me all over again: I am pregnant. I want to tell Henri, but...it would also mean telling him he will not know his daughter. It means telling him he might die in the next few months.

“I’m not feeling well,” I whisper, and then I press my face to his chest and begin to cry. I don’t want to be part of the prophecy. I don’t want to be the mother of the hidden child. I just want Henri and our life, and even now—as he swears to me everything will be fine—I suspect I’m not going to get it.

* * *

In the afternoon, Henri goes out to check the traps. “Perhaps you’ll eat if I can find you something other than meat in a tin,” he says.

I bite down hard on my lip, watching him walk away. Going off into the woods is a risk, and so is building a fire to cook the meat. I should tell him about the baby, but this is a perfect example of why I’m reluctant to do so. He’ll take risks he shouldn’t, and he’ll coddle me in ways that are unnecessary. Most of all, I’m worried he’ll ask me to leave, because this is a terrible time and place to give birth. Even finding a doctor will be an issue, and what if she comes early like Cecelia did?

I return to the house, looking for anything that might prove useful for the last leg of our trip, and find myself facing a mirror in the bedroom upstairs. Now that I know I’m pregnant, I’m not sure how I could have failed to see it. My face has changed, and so has my body. I turn to the side and pull up my shirt just enough to see that the perfectly flat plane of my stomach, the one I’ve had all my life, has disappeared. It won’t be long until Henri sees it too.

“Well, well, well,” says a voice. I let the shirt drop and round on Quinn. Why the hell I would name any child after him is beyond me.

“I didn’t think you were capable of sneaking up on people,” I snap.

“When the occasion calls for it, I manage.” He glances at my stomach, his mouth set in a grim line. “So whose is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A woman doesn’t stare at her stomach in the mirror the way you just did unless she’s looking for one particular thing. Is it his or not?”

I glare at him. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course it is. You really think I’d risk my life trying to save someone I’d been cheating on?”

His arms fold. “Then why doesn’t he know?”

“Because I just found out myself,” I snap. “And because it will complicate things. I’ll tell him when we get to—”

The purr of vehicles approaching silences me. Quinn and I stare at each other, our constant animosity gone for once, and rush down the stairs.

“Two vehicles,” he says, peering out the window. “Six soldiers. With at least one machine gun.”

I pull my gun out of my waistband, a quiet, ugly thrill in my veins. I know I told Henri I’d try to stop, but this is different. “I’ll go around the back of the house and shoot from the side. You go to the window.”

He grabs my arm. “Are you nuts? They turn that machine gun on you and it’s over. Do you not even care about the baby?”

I should, but the desire for revenge is humming in my blood, louder than any other sound. “We can do this,” I hiss. “I can get the three in back, you take the three in front.”

He shakes his head. “No. Just run. I’ll surrender and tell them I’m alone. Maybe it’ll give you enough time.”

I blink. Since we met, I’ve seen him do little that isn’t selfish or boorish. But here he is, unexpectedly noble. I don’t understand. “Why would you do that for us?”

“Henri is a good man,” he says, and for the first time he seems like the adult he might be one day—decent and responsible. “He deserves to know his child.”

He walks out before I can stop him. His hands are up. I can reverse this, I think. I can still save him. And then the soldier with the machine gun rises and begins to fire. I watch as Quinn falls to the ground.

It feels as if it lasts a very long time, but in truth it’s probably only a second before my shock morphs into dark rage. I should care that I’m pregnant, that what I’m doing is suicidal, but making them pay...it surpasses everything else.

I run out the door behind the kitchen with one gun, hoping to kill the three in back before they realize where the bullets came from.

I slide along the wall, and once I’m close enough, I take aim. I’m almost calm, empty, as I open fire. The first soldier falls, and then the second. The third swings toward me and falls...but the bullet isn’t mine.

Henri, just on the periphery of the woods, has begun to fire. And it feels as if the world is falling apart as they turn toward him, rather than me. It was different when it was just my life at stake, or even mine and Quinn’s. But now it’s Henri’s, and all my confidence and rage abandons me in a sudden rush of panic.