Eden

and winced, waiting for her to land a punch on his face. Claire’s lips pursed together, and then she pulled him to her, pressing her lips against his, hard.

“Agh,” Jared said, turning.

Ryan paused in shock, and then his body melted against hers. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer, and she wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck. The kiss was so intense that it looked nearly painful.

Bex giggled, but they didn’t hear him. After a minute or two, it was uncomfortable to watch, so we all meandered to the other side of the cavern. Jared seemed to be in a foul mood, which bothered me. Why he was so against Claire and Ryan was a mystery to me. They were perfect for each other, and clearly loved each other.

“I wonder if that will happen for me,” Bex said, glancing back.

“Don’t look. No telling what’s going on back there,” Jared said, picking up a rock and throwing it.

“It might,” I said, smiling. “Don’t listen to Jared. He knows I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Jared grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Of course you are. Why would you believe I’ve thought otherwise?”

I shrugged. “You’re so against them.” I gestured behind us. “Like my mother was so against us. Because it makes things hard.”

Jared pulled me closer and wrapped his arms around my knees. “I just don’t like Ryan. It has nothing to do with you, or us.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you like him?”

Jared shifted nervously. “Ryan is the closest I’ve come to losing the love of my life. That’s not something you get over.”

I touched his face. “I love you. Ryan loves Claire. Get over it.”

Jared laughed once, and looked to Bex. “I hope it happens for you. I really do.”

Bex rolled his eyes and stood, walking to the back of the tomb where the altar held the book. Kim spent a lot of time in that area, even slept there. Bex sat next to her, and their voices became a stream of quiet conversation.

I balanced on all fours trying to navigate my large body to a standing position. Just as I pushed myself from the rock floor, my stomach clenched, and I stumbled. Jared caught me, but I couldn’t stand straight up.

“Contraction?” he said, frowning.

“I don’t…I don’t know,” I said, breathing through the pain.

Bex and Claire were immediately at our side, with Kim and Ryan trailing behind.

“The baby?” Bex said. “Should I set up?”

“No,” Jared said. Let’s let her rest. See if it eases up.”

Claire nodded, and assisted Jared in helping me to our makeshift bed. My feet up and relaxed, I tried to think about something else other than whether that pain would return. Labor was going to be a nightmare if I had to look forward to hours of that. I had hoped that my new abilities would anesthetize the pain a bit, but if the previous encounter with contractions had been any indication, I was screwed.

The pain crept up again, like a wave swallowing me whole.

“Breathe, sweetheart.”

I sucked in through my nose and blew out from my mouth, but it didn’t help the pain. A large fist had gripped my uterus and was digging in its fingers while I suffered the worst case of food poisoning ever recorded — that was what I felt.

“Should we set up?” Bex said again.

“No,” Jared said firmly. “We’re just timing them now.”

We waited several minutes, and then I felt another contraction, but it wasn’t nearly as painful. They became less frequent painful before stopping all together. Everyone in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief when Jared deemed the event a false alarm. He wouldn’t allow me to sit up, though, or even leave the bed after that. He or Claire would walk me to the hole in the floor if I needed to relieve myself. It was half-humiliating, half-frightening. My body hadn’t felt like my own for quite a while, but now there was no control over the situation.

We had no idea what went on in the world aboveground. I wondered what Beth and Chad were doing, if they worried about us, and about Cynthia and Lillian. If they leaned on each other for support, waiting to hear their grandchild had been born and that all of their children were alive. Even though I knew I needed to stay positive in those last difficult days, lying bed with nothing to do but read the same magazines, or think, my mind effortlessly traveled to less trivial things.

Checkers and chess were no longer entertaining. Even watching the others play cards irritated me. We were nearing the end of July, and I was so large I could barely maneuver. I had to let my mind wander to get away from the darkness of the tomb, from the fact that we were living in a tomb at all, and the dripping. For the love of all things holy, the dripping. That sound alone nearly pushed me out of my mind.

I would close my eyes, and pretend I was at Brown on the Main Green, lying with Jared while the summer air weaved through the trees. I blocked out the echoing and murmuring inside the tomb, and replaced it with laughing and jovial sounds of flag football on warm days, and the wonderful smells coming wafting from the Gate. Even my dorm room at Andrews was an escape. Mostly, I concentrated on our oak tree, and the loft. I still mourned our first home, but in my mind, it was untouched. Recalling every memory of every place I’d spent with Jared was the only thing that kept me sane at that point. That, and watching Claire and Ryan fall in love. Their sweet conversations, and the way they reveled every moment with each other kept me away from the darkness.

As the first of August came and went, my memories became harder to enjoy. They just mocked me. Us. Our faces had all grew pale, begging to see the sun again. Not even the promise of safety was worth this. Quiet times with Jared were something I had always wanted, but not in this prison. Not in this tomb, where I already felt dead.

A small twinge in my stomach made me hold my breath. It went away, but soon another came, and then another. They were stronger, and the more I hoped they would go away, the quicker and more intense they came.

I tried to breathe, but the air was so stale. When I tried to concentrate on my breathing through the pain, all I could hear was the water dripping. Always dripping. It was maddening. I was in labor, and going to give birth inside a drippy, cold hole in the ground.

“No,” I whispered.

Jared read a book a few feet from the mattress, noticeably waiting for me to tell him I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to say it. Speaking the words made it real. There would be movement towards the supplies, and the unpacking of all the medical paraphernalia I didn’t want to see.

Before another contraction came, I pushed myself out of bed. “I have to get out of here.”

Jared put down his worn copy of The Catcher in the Rye, and turned to face me. When he saw I was standing, he stood, too. “Nina, you have to lay down.”

“I can’t,” I shook my head. “It’s enough, Jared. I can’t stay here, anymore. We need to find somewhere else.”

“There is nowhere else.”

I bent my knees and awkwardly bent over to pick up a few of my things lying around the bed. “Well, we can’t stay here. I can’t…I can’t have my baby here.”

Jared sighed. “Nina, stop. You’re being irrational.”

“Okay, so I’m irrational. But I’m going to be irrational outside, where I can breathe.”

Jared tried to touch my hand, but I pulled away. “You know you can’t,” he said. “I can, and I’m going.”

Ryan crossed his arms. “Then go.”

“What?” Jared seethed.

“She’s stronger than all of us. If she doesn’t want to stay, we can’t make her.”

“See?” I said to Jared, pointing to Ryan. “He listens to me. You’re not listening!”

“Sweetheart,” Jared said, holding his hands in front of him. “You know what’s waiting up there for us. We’ll be attacked the second we breach the stairs.”

“Just for a minute,” I said, trying to nonchalantly slide by him. I grabbed my stomach and hunched over a bit,