That’s when I felt it. At first it was like I thought someone had punched me until I saw the blood oozing from my back leg. The bang from the gun echoing around me and before I could react, I felt another hitting me in my side. Darian forced us to shift back as I lay naked on the soil. Panting from the bullet lodged in my abdomen.
I suddenly felt a dart hit me in the neck and I knew instantly it was wolfsbane if I had any chance of healing. It was out the window now, with wolfsbane in my system. I felt delirious as my head hit the forest floor. Feet in the distance coming closer.
“He is out, now find her and I want her alive” Says a sadistic voice. My stomach dropping at his words. He meant my mate. He was here to take Lily from me, and I was powerless to stop him as I slipped into darkness. His words repeated in my head as I succumbed.
Lily POV
We watched Tabitha in panic praying someone would get here, but when she started screaming her face turned to panic. I knew they were going to be too late.
“No,NO. NO” She screamed.
“What? Tell me what to do”
“She is coming, I can feel her coming. I need to push” She says struggling to strip her pants off.
“What? No, leave them on, just cross your legs” I tell her panicking myself I can’t deliver a baby. She ignores me and continues to try to pull her pants down. Giving me a glimpse of, I don’t fucking know what I am looking at but it is no longer a fucking vagina. If this is what kids do down south, I am not having any.
“Oh god I can see its head” My dad said, and I realised he was right. It was a head tearing painfully out, blood running everywhere.
"You need to catch it Lily” My dad says.
“You catch, you know what you’re doing, right?” I look at him. He shakes his head
"I couldn’t even be in the room with your mother. I have a weak stomach" He says before spewing in the sink.
“What? You torture people but can’t handle a woman giving birth?” I say incredulously.
“It’s different and you’re a girl it should come naturally” He mutters, before turning a shade of green and puking again. His retching was nearly enough for me to start. Come on, Lily, you can do this, you're good at sport. I can catch right. Like catching a football only slimy and covered in vag juice, I tell myself, giving myself a mental pep talk.
Tabitha groans loudly, pushing hard, and I push her legs into her chest. The baby’s head pushing out slowly, tearing her almost from arsehole to navel. Well, not that bad that may be a slight exaggeration but she tears terribly, and I almost feel bad for her vag. There is no turning back from that I don’t think. Suddenly the baby’s head pops out and Tabitha starts panting heavily. But something doesn’t look right, and I realise the umbilical cord is wrapped around her baby’s neck multiple times.
“Wait, stop” I tell her as she starts pushing again. She immediately stops. “What? What is wrong?” She says worried, trying to look.
“The cord is stuck around its neck” I tell her not really wanting to touch her vag but not really having a choice when every time she pushes, the baby is no longer moving any further like it is stuck. I try to get my finger under the cord to loosen it, and try to slip it over its head, but it is slippery and rubbery. Tabitha suddenly groans and pushes hard again as the baby moves but I can see the cord getting tighter and tighter. She keeps groaning.
“Stop,” I tell her.
“I can’t, I can’t help it” She says and suddenly the baby is forced out sliding into my hands covered in blood and god knows what else. I quickly start unwrapping the cord.
“Why isn’t she crying?” Tabitha says, sitting up in panic. The baby is all floppy in my hands. I rub its back, but nothing happens. My father comes over, looking down at the Baby and Tabitha is in hysterics screaming and wailing while I jam my finger in its mouth to see if its airways are clear and they are.
My father looks horrified and I place my mouth over its mouth and nose trying to remember the CPR training I had in school. I breathe a short puff into it and nothing. I do it again and nothing. I go to do it a third time when it starts screaming. I never in my life had I been so excited to hear a baby cry.
Tabitha stops screaming hysterically and reaches her hands out for her baby and I place her in her arms. Before looking at my father in relief. Tabitha cuddles her crying baby to her chest, and she starts to settle in her mother’s arms. She was beautiful with chubby little cheeks and blue eyes. I sit back, relieved when suddenly Tabitha pushes again.
“What?”
“The Placenta?” She says and I tug slightly on the cord. Suddenly a rush of blood, fluid and something that looks kind of like raw brisket comes out.
My father instantly runs for the sink as he chucks up again. I roll my eyes at him. Weak, bloody weak. I think to myself.
“Want to hold her?” Tabitha asks, looking at me to see if I want to hold my mate’s baby. I look at the slippery little bundle in her arms, debating whether I want to. When I hear an explosion at the front of the house.
The entire house shakes violently, and dust is blasted into the kitchen knocking half the wall out. My father, who was closest to the kitchen door being thrown into the window, getting knocked unconscious. I hear shouting and jump to my feet, feeling for Layla but come up empty. Men rushing into the room surrounding us, guns pointed at me and Tabitha. I put myself between her and them, fearing that they would shoot her.
When suddenly I hear someone chuckle before stepping through the door. A voice I never thought I would hear again, and my blood ran cold, icy cold.
“Well, that was easier than I thought, Hi Lily, miss me?”