Another contraction seizes her. She screams as she pushes. I’ve heard this part is harder than the actual labor, or at least that it hurts worse. I let her bear down on my palm, cracking my knuckles once more.
Birdie pushes hard, her focus so intense that I can see little crescent moons forming on the back of my hand where her nails dig in. I glance back at Tom once more, lying in a pool of his own blood. I look back at Birdie, sitting it a pool of hers.
The baby quiets. Vanessa strips the shirt from her body and wraps the child in it.
“She needs attention. Now,” Vanessa says.
The way she says it implies urgency. I nod to her.
“Stay here,” I say. “I’m going to get help.”
Birdie nods her head emphatically, ready to get out of here. I stand and look once more at the four of them: Vanessa, Birdie, the baby, and Tom.
I duck out of the studio into the night. I hear another explosion, this time loud enough that I cover my ears. The night sky is an inky backdrop for the orange flames that lick at it. The entire compound is on fire and it’s slowly encroaching on the studio.
I look towards the road and see that the armored vehicles have advanced. Gunfire rings out, loud pops and crackles in the night. They have no idea that the person they’re seeking is already dead.
I run into the trees, hoping to avoid a bullet. The branches scrape and claw at my clothes, tearing them in places, I’m sure. I don’t have time to check.
I emerge on the other side. A woman screams from somewhere deep inside the compound. The main house burns with a fury matched only by its master. I watch as orange illuminates the darkness. From the edge of the trees, I can’t get anyone’s attention. I try several times. I’m afraid to run into the gunfire and I hate myself for it.
I stand for a moment, watching everything.
The word that hovered over conversations like a black cloud comes to my mind: Waco.
It’s then that I see the shape of a man emerge from the main house, body engulfed in flames. He screams, an ungodly sound. He inhales and chokes on the flames. I picture them winding their way through the branches of his lungs, climbing inward into his core, consuming him. He collapses, dead, fifty yards in front of me.
More gunfire echoes in the night. Shots on both sides. It’s a firefight.
I take a moment to collect my thoughts. I have to get Birdie out of here. At all costs. I decide to turn around and go back to her. I traipse through the trees, once again being pulled and tugged at by the arm-like branches of the cedars.
I emerge, and the studio is still untouched by the fire. Not far away, though, a patch of brush has caught flame. It’s only a matter of time before the stale paintings provide just the incendiary material needed to catch the building on fire and burn everything inside.
For a brief second, it strikes me as sad that Tom’s body will burn out here. It’s strange how we can have compassion and empathy even for the cruelest of people. Tom broke me in so many ways. He damaged me and punished me, and here I am, feeling sorry for his already-rotting body.
I shake the thought from my mind long enough to get back inside the studio. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I call out to the pair of women.
“Birdie?” I say. “Vanessa?”
“Over here!” Birdie calls. Her voice has regained some strength.
I let my eyes re-adjust and I jog over to the place where I left her. She sits in a pool of blood. The placenta at her feet. It’s then that I glance around, realizing that Vanessa is gone.
“Where’s—”
“She left. She took her,” Birdie gasps. “I’m too weak to get up.”
“You have to get out of here,” I implore her.
“I can’t move, Ione,” she says.
“Where did she take the baby?”
“I don’t know. She just left.”
I look around as though I’ll find the answers that I seek in the paintings surrounding us. I don’t. I look back at Birdie.
“She has a Jeep. There’s another one by the main house. Go. Take it. Find her.”
I nod to Birdie. This final command from her might be the last thing she says to me, I realize. The fire is encroaching on the studio. There’s no stopping it. And I have to leave her here.
I turn and step back out into the night.
IONE
The compound burns furiously in the night. My eyes need no time to adjust, the illumination provided by the flames amply supplies enough information for me to make sense of what’s going on around me. Flames stretch ever skyward, reaching higher and higher as each structure on the ranch falls victim to their wrath. I run once more through the little bit of forest, emerging on the other side to see the entirety of the place—the main house, the library, the common areas, and the cabins—burn with a rage that Dylan Thomas would have approved of.
I realize that my breathing has turned ragged, shortened. I take each abbreviated breath, not able to fully fill my lungs to capacity and get the oxygen that my brain desperately needs. It feels like Tom’s hands are at my throat all over again.
I force myself to calm down. I count. One, two, three, four—imagining the sound that my nails made on that glass top table at the bar that I last saw Wes at. I breathe in and for a moment I swear I can smell his cologne.
“No,” I whisper to myself.
This is a thought of the dying. And I’m not ready to give up yet.
With newfound awareness about the dire nature of the situation, I steel myself for what I have to do. I spot a Jeep not far from the main house, unoccupied. The
