The beeping sound, bright lights and unmistakable smell is more than enough to tell me where I am. The emptiness in my stomach is the icing on the cake.
Brown eyes, and that deep Southern twang filters in my mind, welcomed. My cousin Kylie is always a welcome.
What had me not opening my eyes and rethinking my rushed flight to survive decision is the intense, ice man with frozen blue shards that colored his irises. His sculpted face was always sharp around the edges.
And I remember him growing up, when he looked at me, it was with nothing so much as a brief second of irritation. Some things never change, and Kevin Stone is one of them.
“I know you up,” The voice that says that is unfamiliar, but I flutter my eyes open and directly across from me stands a woman with dark long brown hair, a white coat that covers what looks like a bump.
“6 months. But I wish I was in your place right about now. The suspense is killing me.” She smiles as she lifts the iPad to her vision, jotting down notes.
The urge to tell her she didn't want to be me is a string that wants to come out, but I bite my tongue. A few days ago I wouldn't have been able to shut my mouth, let alone bite my tongue.
“My baby?” I ask, hesitant and scared. Did my baby survive?
She smiles and looks next to me. I follow her gaze and in a small cubicle wrapped in a blue blanket is my boy. My heart drops with relief.
She goes to lift him and brings him to me; I take my baby in my arms and look down into his small, tiny face.
My mother died when I was barely just a teenager, and my uncle Marcus Bray took me in. I was a brat then, the worst of the worst but he loved me, anyway. When I called him nine months ago to tell him I was pregnant and I didn't want my baby he said, I will. He told I will love my baby regardless of anything because my momma loved me, regardless and he loved me too.
My eyes well up as I look into his close up wrinkled face.
Today I understand my Uncle’s words, my love is bursting. I lift his small body to my nose and inhale his scent as he stirs.
His voice opens in a howl, and my eyes go wide. I look at Frost, and she smiles putting her magazine down, and then at the Doctor who chuckles.
“You need to feed him, your milk will be watery for now, but it will come through fully after a day or two.” I lift my top to give him milk, aware that Kevin is in the room. How can I not be when he is covered in leather, tattoos and piercings?
“No pissy names. He's a tough boy, got your lungs,” Kevin says as he stares at my boy drinking his milk.
“Whatever she names him will not make a difference. He already has his club name.” My cousin walks closer as I lift my boy off my breast and position him to the other one.
“And what name might that be?” I bite my lip as I suppress the urge to call her Ky. Uncle Marcus warned me when I called him all those months ago. It was now almost 4 years after I watched my beautiful cousin get shoved into the back of a cop car from the television screen. Kylie wasn't our Kylie, she was Frost.
Now, as I lift my eyes to stare at my cousin with the big smile and keen brown eyes, I can see the ice she hides. Killing the man you love to save another doesn't come without a cost of your soul, I know that better than anyone.
“Wrecker, he wrecked our quiet night, wrecked my new carpet and wrecked our hearts,” She winks at me.
“Have you seen the video? Spade took it to give Killer shit but I think you will enjoy it,” She moves closer to me and gives my baby a brief yet familiar glance before she places her jean covered ass on the bed next to me. Her rich honey and the intoxicating scent is familiar and gives me a sense of peace as I look at the screen of her phone and watch the video.
I see Kevin cut my stomach open and tear it. I cringe as the wound beats with remembrance. The sound is inaudible as my baby howls. I look down at my boy and I can still feel him sucking on my nipples. It stings, and I remember from the bit of reading I did when I found out I was pregnant this feeding was going to be a painful one in a few days.
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