SYN
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do,” the doctor said in a choked voice after she finished her exam. “Your body is rejecting the baby. I’ve given you every medicine that I know of. It’s just—these things happen sometimes. I’m so sorry.”
The doctor had been working on me for three days now. The blood would come and go, but just when we thought it was gone, there would be more.
“It wasn’t from her jumping in the water?” Hendrix asked in a choked voice, for what must have been the millionth time.
“No,” she said reassuringly. “It’s just a random consequence that it happened so close together. I don’t know why this is happening, but it certainly wasn’t caused by that.”
There was a ringing in my ears, and I felt like I was back underwater. Everything was distorted around me, and it was hard to breathe. Like the air had grown thick like soup around me.
An oxygen mask was forced on my face, and I sucked in the air as sobs began to rip from my chest. I laid there, gasping for air, until I felt a warm body settle in next to me, strong arms wrapping around my body.
Caspian.
He held me as I cried, and Hendrix and River gathered around me. The doctor had left who knows how long ago. But I couldn’t move. I was stuck in this place, this terrible place where all I could feel was grief and pain.
“The lake,” said River suddenly.
“What?” Caspian asked, lifting his head from the bed.
“We need to take her to the lake.” His eyes were wild, out of control. “It saved us then, it could save the baby now.”
“The lake?” I asked, confused a moment before remembering the guys' so-called “origin” story of how they became who they were now.
I tried to sit up, gasping when another pang rocked through my stomach.
“Look at what it did to us,” growled Hendrix, grabbing at his hair in frustration.
“Better a monster than gone,” argued River.
My mind was whirling. If there was any chance…I would do anything to save my baby. Anything.
“Please. Take me to the lake,” I begged. “We have to try.” My voice was hysterical, strange…desperate.
Hendrix's lips were pursed, a tic in his cheek. He was obviously torn.
“Please,” I pleaded again.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “I’ll call for the boat—the speedboat. Make sure she walks as little as possible.” He strode out of the room, his shoulders hunched and tension laced through his form.
* * *
The guys had been almost silent as we raced through the waves. At the last minute, right before I’d stepped onto the speedboat, Hendrix had freaked out that the bumps would be too much for my condition. So he’d had the staff retrieve one of the bigger boats.
Not the yacht from that fateful night, thankfully. I thought it would be a long while before I could get back on that…if ever.
We’d been on the waves for several hours, going as fast as the boat could without the rocking getting too intense. As the miles passed, all three of them became more and more somber. Hendrix was managing his tension by asking me every five seconds if I was all right. River was standing at the guard rail, his hands clenched around the metal, his features tight. And Caspian, he hadn't stopped moving, walking around the boat over and over again without speaking, ratcheting up my anxiety.
“Do you remember very much about the lake?" I finally asked hesitantly, wanting to prepare myself for what was ahead. I was kind of picturing this green glowing, scary-looking water with magical properties. But that probably wasn’t right.
He shrugged his shoulders, not liking the subject matter obviously. “It was near our childhood home. I’m sure the mansion we grew up in is still there…falling apart. There was no one on the island except for us and the servants. We had crops on the property, and whatever we couldn’t grow ourselves, we had shipped in. My father didn’t let us leave the property very often. His paranoia was too much for that.”
His thumb was softly stroking my skin as he stared out at the water.
“I remember that day as if it was yesterday. I remember him calling me a ‘demon,’ how he broke my nose before he drugged us all. I remember being dragged out into the cold water and sinking into the blackness. I remember when I began to die.”
His body shivered and I shivered right along with him, thinking of my father the night of the fire. If there was a hell, I was certain that they were both down there.
"I don't remember anything standing out about the lake. We didn't talk to enough people to know if there were any stories about it. I just remember feeling warm, fire licking at my insides, and then, all of a sudden, I wasn't dying anymore."
I rubbed my bump softly. "You don't remember thinking anything at the time? I'm just wondering if there were like magic words or something that triggered it."
Hendrix shook his head. “There were just three dying boys, thinking it was the end.”
Land rose up sharply in the distance then, and Caspian stopped his pacing, going eerily still as he watched it grow larger.
Its beauty grew the closer we got. It was a large island, filled with emerald valleys, sharp mountain spires, and jagged cliffs aged by time.
"What's the island called?" I asked, marveling that they’d grown up in that place without anyone around.
"When we lived there it was called Isla de Cascada. We’ve called it Isla de la Perdicion ever since that day.”
“Hmm,” I mused, cringing when my stomach cramped again, and I leaned over, gasping in pain.
“Syn,” Hendrix barked, panicked.
I took a few deep breaths and straightened up. “I’m fine. Let’s just get there.”
Hold on, gummy bear, I mentally pleaded with our baby.
I scrunched up my face as we got closer, wondering if I was having a hallucination—was that mist around the shore…glittering?
“Um—by chance, are you seeing anything strange?” I murmured, wanting to make sure that I wasn’t going mad.
“Sparkly fog—I don’t remember that from growing up,” answered River in a blank tone that held none of the emotion it should have.
I shot a glance over at him, noting how pale his skin looked from its normal golden color.