URGENT (Book 2 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 74: Bad Girls Get Fierce When They Have To Be

Anybody besides me dying for this chapter? Part of me was super glad to return from vacation so I could take care of my book babies....

Mac

The words Adam makes are meant to be loving and reassuring, but they are nothing more than a back rhythm. I am deep inside, too deep to hear him, too deep to feel his arms around me, almost down to the center of fear where it ceases to be fear and instead feels only like awareness. I am deep down, searching, focused only on my quest.

There is only one thing I need right now. One thing that I can focus on.

I can't find what I'm looking for. I breathe and search. Search and breathe. That's all I can do.

I can't think, I can't cry, I can't hope or plan. All I can do is breathe and search.

There!

My hands go automatically to my stomach as I feel the flutter of my baby moving inside me. I go deeper still, willing all my power, all my love, all my protection to that sweet whisp of life I can feel inside me.

Please, baby. Please hear me. I'm your mommy and I love you and I will fight for you. I will do whatever it takes, just please keep your little heart beating and your little body moving, okay? Please, baby. Please know you are loved and I will never, never give up on you.

I swear I think the movements I feel get a little stronger as I talk inside my head, inside my body, soul-to-soul with my baby, so I keep talking.

At some point, I realize the back beat is getting more urgent. Adam is trying to get my attention.

"MacKenna, baby? You gotta talk to me. I've got Sidney on the phone. She has questions..."

My eyes snap open, and I cup Adam's cheek. His face is calm, but his ocean eyes are a storm of fear. "I can still feel the baby moving," I tell him. "The baby is..." I can't say the words, because to say our baby is alive, right now, fills me with the horror that whatever is happening to my body could cause that not to be true.

He immediately repeats my statement to Sidney. "That's good," he assures me, "Really good, Shortcake. We need to talk to Sidney right now, okay?" He puts her on speaker phone, and I answer her questions.

No, to all. No cramps, no backpain, no clots. Just light red blood, like the start of a period.

Sidney assures me that bleeding is not uncommon, that the outcome for the baby could still be very good, but that I need to get to an obstetrician in Boston as soon as I land. She doesn't have any contacts or colleagues there but she promises to make a few quick calls and call us back with a recommendation.

When we hang up, Adam kisses me—my forehead, my nose, my lips lightly, and then he draws back, my face in his hands. The he looks down, and I watch his face drain to ash. It takes me a moment to realize he's staring at his blood-stained jeans, from where I have shifted in his lap.

"I'm so sorry, MacKenna. So sorry I left you with Dawes. So sorry I didn't fight harder for what I knew was best for you."

"This is not your fault, Adam," I tell him, but he shakes his head and says darkly, "Like fuck it isn't." 

He pulls me to him, placing his hand on my belly, his head on my shoulder as he murmurs, "I'm so sorry, baby," over and over. I don't know if he's talking to me or Babycakes, but I know, he thinks we are losing our baby, and he thinks if we do, I will fall apart, lost in another trauma. Worst of all, he thinks this is his fault.

I don't know what's happening right now to my body, or to my baby, but I know one thing for sure—it is not Adam's fault. It's maybe Dawes' for giving me drugs, or maybe mine for pushing my body too hard when I should have only been concerned about growing my baby, or maybe no one's because something is wrong beyond anyone's control, but Adam is not to blame.