“Where’s Daniella?” she asked.
Adam glanced back toward the door, saw the woman who held his child hurrying over. She knelt beside them.
“That’s our baby girl,” Adam said.
“She’s beautiful. I’m Jenny.”
“I’m Adam. This is Stacie, my wife.”
Even in the lowlight, he saw the concern darken Jenny’s face.
“Here, would you take her?” She handed the sleeping infant—its neurological system shut down from all the mayhem—to Adam.
“Hi, Stacie, I’m a nurse. My name’s Jenny.”
Adam heard the sound of metal clanging nearby, saw Clayton and the man he’d called Bolton kicking one of the huge air conditioning units mounted to the roof.
Jenny took Stacie’s wrist and held it for a moment.
“Postpartem hemorrhage?”
“That’s what Nurse Herrick called it.”
Jenny looked down at the blood still pooling on the cement between Stacie’s legs.
“She’s bleeding again,” Jenny said. “Had they stopped it before?”
“I think so.”
“Can I hold my baby?” Stacie whispered.
“Sure, sweetie.” Adam laid their daughter in the crook of Stacie’s arm.
Jenny said, “Could I speak with you for a moment, Adam?”
“What about this bag?”
“It’s okay. You can put it down.”
He laid the blood bag on the concrete and followed Jenny for a few feet toward the edge of the roof. Clayton and Bolton were struggling to push an air conditioning unit that was bigger than a refrigerator in front of the door to the hospital.
Jenny stopped and took both of Adam’s hands and said, “I am so sorry, but I’m afraid your wife isn’t going to make it.”
Like someone had shovel-punched him in the gut.
Jenny continued, “It probably jarred the clots loose when you carried her up from the birth unit.”
Adam felt a rush of emotion coming on.
Fought against it.
“How long does she have?”
Jenny just shook her head. “Go be with her.”
Adam turned away from her, stared down at his wife lying on the helipad, stroking Daniella’s head with her fingers. He had never been more scared, including the previous hour.
He walked back over to his family, sat down beside his wife.
“She’s beautiful,” Stacie said.
“She looks like you. Your eyes for sure.”
Clayton and Bolton were muscling another unit toward the door, metal scraping against concrete. Thought he could hear inhuman screaming echoing from inside the hospital.
He laid his hand against his wife’s forehead—cool and sweaty.
Closed his eyes. Prayed harder than he’d ever prayed in his life.
“I’m so cold, Adam.”
He started unbuttoning his black shirt.
“I hope you won’t lose your faith over this.”
He wondered if she meant her death, if she knew it was imminent, or everything else.
“Of course not,” he said, wondering if he was lying to her.
Stacie looked down into the face of her daughter, and as Adam pulled his arms out of his shirtsleeves and laid it across Stacie’s chest, she said, “You’ll tell her about me?”
“Stacie, stop, you’re gonna be—”
“I know what’s happening,” she said.
He could barely get the words out. “Every day, darling. Every day. I love you, Stacie. I love you so much.” Tears streamed down his face.
Her eyes were going glassy, filling slowly with a kind of stunned emptiness.
“Stacie! Do you hear me?”
She turned her head, and stared up into his eyes, one last and fading beat of lucidity.
“I know you love me, Adam,” she whispered. “You know I love you?”
He nodded.
“I’m scared, Adam.”
He laid down beside his wife as the demons started beating against the door, their faces turned toward each other, staring into Stacie’s eyes as the life inside them drained away.
JENNY turned away from the dying woman and her newborn. Yet another tragedy in a night filled with them.
She pushed her emotions back, maintaining the guise of a professional, and looked for Randall. He and Clay had finished barricading the door and now Randall stood alone, staring off into the sea of blinking, flashing emergency lights. Jenny walked over and stood next to him, slipping her hand into his, welcoming the familiarity of his calluses.
“Do you think we’ll be rescued?” she asked.
A silly question, because there was no way he could know, any more than she did. But Jenny wasn’t seeking an answer. She just wanted to hear his voice.
“I’ll make sure you and the kids get safe, Jenny.”
His voice was cracking, and he looked away from her.
“Randall? What’s wrong?”
He coughed and covered his mouth, but not before something fell from his lips and bounced onto the tar- papered roof.
“Oh, Randall…”
He stared at her, his eyes hooded, his pupils already starting to enlarge.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I won’t hurt you or the kids. I’ll…I’ll throw myself off the building before I let that happen.”
He tried a pathetic smile, and more of his teeth dropped out. Jenny watched, revolted, as new ones breached the gums and began to grow in.
Clay was walking over.
“Randall, I need your help guarding the barricade…holy fuck!”
Clay raised his weapon, pointing it at her husband’s head.
Without thinking, Jenny stepped between the men.
“No!”
“Get out of the way, Jenny! He’s—”
“He’s my husband! You’re not going to kill him, Clayton Theel!”
Randall made a grunting sound, then doubled over and dropped to his knees. Jenny shoved Clay’s gun away, and crouched next to Randall, keeping her arm around his shoulders.
“Jenny, you need to step away from the dracula.”
“I know Randall. He won’t hurt me. Will you, Randall?”
Randall violently shook his head. “Won’t…hurt…no one. I…can…fight it.”
Clay reached for Jenny, grabbing her arm, tugging her away. A millisecond later, Randall was on his feet, getting inside Clay’s aim and grabbing the deputy by the throat.
“If I…lose…control…kill me. But…until then…fuck…off.”
