He didn’t stop. He walked faster.
"Ms. Morrigan, bear with it," he said, like my pain was a minor inconvenience. "This isn’t the ti. If we stop now, we’re both dead."
Sothing was wrong. The certainty settled in my chest like cold water before the reasoning even caught up. He didn’t care whether I lived or died — he was in a rush to deliver sowhere, to hand off like cargo. The man on the floor back there wasn’t the traitor. This man was. A plant, sent by that woman to get onto a ship while Sergio was gone, while I was too broken by pain to think or fight.
He had almost succeeded.
Sweat poured down my face as another contraction ripped through . I let myself groan, let my body go limp against him — not entirely pretending — and quietly worked the knife from my sleeve into my palm. To him, I was just a woman about to give birth. His eyes were fixed on the path ahead. He wasn’t watching my hands.
He didn’t see it coming when I drove the blade into his chest.
Blood hit my face. I was terrified, but I had made my choice. If he got to that port, I wouldn’t die quickly — and that was the worse fate. The shock of the blow threw sideways, and I was ready for it. I twisted as I fell, taking the impact on my left arm, curling around my stomach. The mont I hit the ground, I rolled upright on shaking legs. Amniotic fluid soaked through my clothes. Sweat stung my eyes. I grabbed my belly and ran.
He got back up.
Covered in blood, he ca after , and panic beca pure motion — move, move, move —
A gunshot cracked the air.
His head snapped back and he dropped. Behind him stood Sergio, gun still raised, smoke curling from the barrel.
"Coco."
A pool had already ford at my feet. I looked at him with everything I had left. "Dr. Zimr — please. The babies are coming. Please help ."
His brow pulled tight, but his voice was decided. "We need to find sowhere right now." He scooped up without another word. "Hold on."
I gripped his shirt and nodded, not trusting my voice. As he carried , I asked about the situation outside, needing to understand even now, even through this. He told quietly — there were spies among his people, the dead man had co closer to succeeding than anyone realized, and if I didn’t arrive at the port on schedule, they would storm the island. How long that window was, he couldn’t say.
He laid on a narrow bed and looked at with an expression stripped down to pure focus. "The doctor is dead, Coco. It seems I’ll have to deliver the babies myself."
"But—"
"Don’t think about anything else. Treat as a doctor. Right now, you and the babies are all that matters." He moved toward the door. "I’ll get hot water. Get yourself ready."
Heat rushed to my face despite everything. I was a heavily pregnant woman, but I was still a woman — and he was still a man who wasn’t my mate. I reached for the small rabbit in my pocket and turned it between my fingers, working its ears over and over.
"Carl..."
Lewis’s voice ca through, rough and strained. "Elena, your safety and the babies — that’s all that matters. I don’t care about anything else. Just hold on. I’m almost there."
Riley followed, voice tight. "This is not the ti for modesty. Keep yourself and those babies alive — that is your only job."
I let go of the rabbit and gripped the bedsheet instead.
Sergio returned, and with him was an elderly woman — small and dark-skinned, her hands deeply lined, her eyes calm and knowing in the way of soone who had sat beside fear many tis and learned not to be moved by it. He told she had delivered more babies than either of us could count. Sothing in released, a tension I hadn’t fully known I was holding, and I exhaled for the first ti in what felt like hours.
"Good," I managed. "Okay."
"I can hear movent outside. I have to go guard the periter." He pressed a gun into my hands before he left, his grip briefly covering mine. "Stay ready."
The elder didn’t speak any language I knew, but I understood her well enough. Her gestures were clear and certain — fully dilated, ti to push. Every instinct in had been quietly terrified of this mont for months. But underneath the fear sothing else had been waiting, sothing fierce and irresistible. The thought of finally eting them, of holding them, pulled forward when nothing else could have.
Co on, I thought, bearing down against the pain. Your father is almost here. Please co out safely.
"Elena, I’m right here," Lewis said softly through the communicator. "Don’t be afraid."
"Carl — they’re almost here." My voice broke. "We miss you so much."
"I miss you too." His voice cracked, and sohow that — the sound of him fighting to hold himself together from wherever he was, racing toward us through the dark — made feel less alone than anything else could have.
"Carl... Carl..." The contractions were relentless, cresting one after another without rcy or pause.
"I’m here. I’m so sorry I can’t be with you."
Then the elder’s face changed. The calm she’d maintained shifted in an instant, alarm moving across her features — controlled, but unmistakable. She looked between my legs and spoke rapidly, urgently, in words I couldn’t follow no matter how hard I tried.
Riley’s voice cut in. "What is she saying?"
Lewis answered, and the flatness in his voice — the particular flatness of soone keeping emotion out by sheer force — told everything before the words did. "The baby is breech. It’s a difficult labor."
Riley went frantic imdiately. "She’s carrying twins! If the first one doesn’t move, both of them could suffocate — she needs a C-section now!"
No.
The word die moved through like a cold current, and everything it touched hardened into sothing unbreakable. I could not let that happen. Not after the forest, not after the knife, not after every promise I had made in every dark room to the man I loved. These children were not going to die here. They were not.
"They won’t die," I said, tears streaming freely, my voice rough and absolute. "I’ll deliver them. I will."
"Elena — I brought a doctor with , but we need a few more minutes. Hold on. Can you do that?"
I nodded, even knowing he couldn’t see . The gesture was only for myself. "I’ll hold on. I promise, Carl."
A gunshot rang out from just beyond the door.
Then another.
Then the sound of sothing heavy falling against the wall.
They were here.
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