Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Soleil kept her mind on that track. Medical, healing. The beautiful stranger.
Her cat purred inside her, more than happy to focus on him.
She couldn’t allow herself to think about death, about how bodies went hard and cold and began to smell. She couldn’t think about how people screamed for help when they were being torn apart. And she couldn’t think about how she’d fallen with an ax in her back and blood in her mouth, her face half-buried in rucked-up soil.
The scent of damp earth in her nostrils.
The odor of decomposition.
The crushing weight of body after body.
Shoving the memory away with brutal force, she finished stapling up the woman, her hands slick with blood in the aftermath. She used the medical-strength sanitizer in the kit to quickly clean them before she moved on to the next person. Because this was nowhere close to over. People were still falling, still dying.
That was when she saw the pregnant woman, her body convulsing.
Soleil slammed down next to her, managed to get her into the recovery position, and risked her hand to make sure the woman’s airway was clear. The patient seized for another few seconds before shuddering, her breathing ragged.
Her eyes were cloudy with bone-deep fear when they met Soleil’s, her ebony skin slick with perspiration. “My baby. Please. Help my baby.”
Severe contractions rippled under the hand Soleil had put on the woman’s stomach. “I’m a healer,” she said with firm deliberation, her cat at attention. Birth was her favorite part of healing—but not like this, with the mother coated in pain, in fear. “You just do what I say and your baby will be fine.”
Yariela had taught her that birthing mothers responded better to firmness than gentleness. “They need to know that you know what you’re doing and that you’re in charge, chica,” the senior healer had said. “Especially when you have such a pretty young face.”
Soleil’s scarred face had never exactly been pretty, and was haggard these days, but she continued to follow Yariela’s advice. “What’s your name?” she asked, as she touched her fingers to the woman’s wrist to get her pulse. “I’m Soleil. My friends call me Leilei.”
The woman swallowed. “Zoula.”
“Okay, Zoula, I need you to sit up.”
“It’s too early.” Zoula sobbed as she allowed Soleil to put her into a seated position against the wall of a shop.
“Eight months by my glance.” Soleil took her vitals again, didn’t like what she was sensing, but kept her tone even and calm. “Survivable even outside a hospital.” She pushed up the woman’s legs so they were bent at the knee, then pulled off her own sweatshirt to drape it over Zoula’s knees to give her a semblance of privacy.
Not that the sobbing, scared woman seemed to care.
“I’m going to remove your underwear,” Soleil said, thankful Zoula was wearing a loose dress. “I’ll be gentle.”
“Please save her,” Zoula begged. “Please. I love her. I’m allowed to now. Silence has fallen. I’m allowed to love my baby.” Desperation in every word.
Soleil used a pair of disposable surgical scissors to delicately cut off the woman’s underwear but left them below her. Then she turned to a shell-shocked man sitting on the nearby curb. “I need your jacket.”
Pale and shaking, he nonetheless immediately peeled it off and handed it over. Folding it, she tucked it around the pregnant woman’s bottom. She had no intention of allowing the baby to touch the asphalt, but this would also help protect her gloves and hands from scrapes.
She couldn’t risk wasting even an ounce of healing energy.
A gush against her hands, too much blood coming out of Zoula. Shit. “You,” she said to the man again, making sure her voice stayed steady. “Call emergency services, tell them it’s a priority. Pregnant woman in distress. Baby coming.” That way, the paramedics would know what they’d be facing with this patient.
The man pulled out his phone with a trembling hand.
Trusting him to complete his task, Soleil returned to her own. “You can do it,” she soothed Zoula, who’d gone too quiet. Too much blood loss. Too much trauma. “I have you, and I have your little one.”
Five minutes later, with Zoula’s eyes fluttering and struggling to stay open, Soleil held a tiny baby covered in the fluids of birth. She’d emerged with startling quickness, as if her mother’s body was ejecting her because she had a better chance of survival outside than inside a body that might seize again.
Her cry was thin and angry and welcome.
Cat making a happy rumbling sound in her chest, Soleil placed the baby immediately into Zoula’s hands, knowing the contact would be good for them both, then used another pair of sterile scissors from the emergency kit to sever the umbilical cord.
A DarkRiver cat—a white-blond male—who’d run over with a blanket gave Soleil a nod that said he saw her, knew her, and would deal with her later. He covered mother and baby in the warmth of the blanket, while Soleil took care of the afterbirth. She placed it in a large biohazard bag from the kit in lieu of anything else, never taking her attention off her patients.