Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I gave them a sad smile.
Chuckling at whatever new thing Deja had said, the doctor headed over to the incubator. "And now for my tiny patients."
I looked up and pulled my hand out of the incubator. "Are there a lot of injured coming in?"
"Oh yes. The battle has definitely begun." The doctor's smile thinned. "We have set up overflow. Every bed is full. The Red People are opening up areas above to get us more space."
“The Red People?”
“Oh, yes.” She picked up the chart on the incubator’s side and browsed the earlier nurse’s notes. “We don’t really know what to call them. They won’t give us their names and they all wear red with hoods.”
I smiled. “Got it.”
I’m so glad the Silent Ones are helping.
"There’s a lot going on. Gunshot wounds. Blade wounds. Burns. Broken bones. One man came in with shrapnel in his back that the surgeon said should have killed him three times over, but one of the Red People helped with that. And. . .somehow he became better."
My stomach tightened. “Perfect.”
"Still. . .men and women in red hoods continue to carry in more wounded.”
“Any. . .Fangs or Claws?”
“Oh dear.” She shook her head. “I think the whole hospital would go into chaos if any of the top people were injured. You would hear the cries and screams from in here.”
“Okay.” Still, no relief came.
The doctor slid her hands through the incubator’s porthole.
I turned to the guards along the wall. "Any news since the Fox's plane landed?"
The closest one shook his head. "Not yet, Tora."
"Okay."
Hopefully, no news was good news.
It took everything in me not to go over to where they were fighting and find out for myself. The announcement of the Fox being on this island had happened a good thirty minutes ago. Surely there was more news.
I should fucking be there.
But I knew if Kenji or Hiro saw me anywhere near that battlefield, they would lose their fucking minds.
They would stop fighting.
They would stop thinking.
They would come for me, and the war would still be unfinished, and more men would die because I could not sit still in a basement and trust the men I loved to do what they had spent their entire lives training to do.
So I stayed and watched the doctor lay out materials on the rolling table beside the incubator—a small bottle, a square of gauze, a needle so thin it disappeared against the light. “Are the twins okay?”
“Yes. Surprisingly so.” The doctor uncapped a small white plastic device with a hidden needle inside. "Right now I’m checking bilirubin again, blood glucose, and another newborn screening sample. Their hematocrit looked good earlier, so I'm hoping these little gentlemen continue to cooperate so I can help the other doctors."
“Okay.”
“They’re so sweet.” She reached into the incubator through the porthole and gently gathered the smaller twin's foot into her gloved hand.
His heel looked impossibly small.
She rubbed it between her fingers for a few seconds. "Warming the heel first helps the circulation."
I looked at my own hands. An hour ago they had been around Kiko's throat. I had felt her windpipe go flat under my thumbs and the shape of her neck change. And now those same hands had soothed her newborns. I had expected to feel something after killing Kiko. Grief, sickness, or even guilt.
Now it was just a hollow place where the rage had been, and that scared the shit out of me.
Humming to herself, the doctor brought out a square of gauze, dabbed the twin’s skin, and gave the small heel a tiny prick.
So tiny I barely saw it.
The baby jerked, and his face scrunched into a fierce little knot as his mouth stretched open.
The cry arrived a heartbeat later.
My heart ached.
"Oh, sweetheart." The doctor caught the first bright bead of blood in a narrow collection tube. "I know. I know. You're telling me exactly how unfair I am."
The tiny cries became sharp little hiccupping wails.
Without thinking, I slipped my hand back through the porthole.
"It's okay." My fingertips rested against his side. "I'm here."
His crying softened and he leaned the smallest fraction toward my hand.
The doctor looked up with raised brows. "He knows your touch already."
Warmth filled my chest. “Maybe.”
The doctor continued collecting several more crimson drops before pressing fresh gauze against the heel. "Perfect."
She wrapped the foot in the gauze for another moment before releasing it. "Now your brother."
That twin is going to see it coming.
Sure enough before she even reached in, the other twin wrinkled his tiny nose, sniffled once, and then twice. Next, his little fists opened and closed inside the sleeves of his blue onesie.
She gently grabbed his foot and warmed the second heel exactly the same way.
Before the prick came, I slid my hand farther inside until I could rest two fingers lightly against both of them.
When she took the sample, his whole body stiffened, and his lips pushed into the tiniest pout I'd ever seen, but no cry came.