Chapter 9 - Labor
My water broke at 2:14 in the morning.
Ryan was still at North Briar.
I called him between contractions.
"Don't panic."
He immediately panicked.
"You're in labor?"
"That's usually what happens after the water breaks."
He was at the hospital forty-five minutes later, hair wet from rain, shirt half-buttoned, eyes wild.
"I'm here."
"Good. Now breathe."
"You're telling me to breathe?"
"One of us should."
For six hours, the outside conspiracy disappeared beneath the simple violence and wonder of labor.
Then our daughter arrived.
Seven pounds, two ounces.
Dark hair.
Angry lungs.
Perfect.
Ryan cried before I did.
"Sophie Anna Carter," he whispered.
We had not planned the middle name.
I looked at him and nodded.
A nurse placed Sophie against my chest.
For one minute, nothing else existed.
Then hospital security entered.
"Mr. Carter? We stopped a woman downstairs using an authorization form claiming she had emergency access to the baby."
Ryan went still.
"Who?"
The guard held up his phone.
A security image showed Margaret at the maternity entrance wearing a hat and surgical mask.
In her hand was a folder.
Jessica, standing beside the window, whispered, "She actually came here."
The guard continued.
"She left before officers reached her. But she dropped this."
Inside the folder was the forged guardianship plan.
And a second document.
A petition requesting temporary control of Carter family voting shares if Ryan became "emotionally incapacitated by a maternal medical crisis."
Ryan read the filing date.
Yesterday.
May you like
Before Margaret forced the black liquid into my mouth.
She had prepared the crisis before she created it.
