The Last City by Mary E. Twomey

Author:Mary E. Twomey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mary E. Twomey LLC

16

My Childhood Best Friend

I tear open the backdoor of the sedan as tears cloud my vision. No matter, I don’t need to see Nico to tear his head off. “Nico, stop!” I scream at my childhood bestie, using my surge of adrenaline to jerk Nico by the arm so hard that he flops out of the backseat and onto the parking lot’s pavement, slack jawed and limp.

Nico lays on the concrete while I climb over his body to get to my baby. I can’t stop crying as I fiddle with the car seat’s buckle. I scream for Orlando, for Rome, for Declan, for a doctor, for my mother herself to come down and save my baby.

“No! No, no, no. Miracle, I’m here! I’m so sorry. Please don’t leave me! Open your eyes! It was an accident! I didn’t think Nico would wake! Miracle, please!”

My baby’s eyes close and my heart implodes, agony ripping me in two.

Orlando limps laboriously to the car, taking in the scene uncertainly. “What happened? What can I do?”

My mind races. “I don’t know! Nico drank from Miracle.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know! Miracle’s not waking up, Orlando! Open your eyes, baby doll! I can’t… Please!”

“My blood,” Orlando reasons. He takes a swab with his finger from the bullet wound on his leg and presses it between Miracle’s tiny lips. He rubs the blood on their tongue, but Miracle isn’t swallowing.

I pop up the hem of my shirt and shove my breast into my baby’s mouth, hoping that will coax them to swallow what I hope is lifesaving medicine.

Orlando’s breath is heavy across my neck, which I know means he is fighting with consciousness.

I hold the air in my lungs, refusing to breathe if my baby does not draw breath with me.

The pain of nursing is the best relief I could possibly feel. I grip Orlando’s shirt by the buttons, bracing myself because Miracle’s jaw is strong. “Nursing,” I tell him, breathless as tears stream down my face. “Alive.”

Orlando exhales, burying his face in my hair. “That’s one of us on the road to healing. Good.” He drops to his knees, but it’s not because he has fainted. He kneels beside Nico, who I now notice is twitching on the concrete.

I cannot feel terror that this is Nico’s last moment. I can’t feel anything. I sob into the air, my chin lowered because my baby is alive, but I don’t know how permanent that relief will be. I massage Miracle’s chest, hoping to coax along their heart to replenish any blood that Nico took.

“Nico was rabid,” I explain to Orlando. “He was passed out when I put him in the car. But he must have woken up when my back was turned. He drank from Miracle, Orlando!”

“It’s a waiting game, then,” Orlando says, his voice grim. “Either Miracle’s blood is lethal, like yours, or you are the Last Deadblood.”

I wail into the night air. “I didn’t want to find out like this!”

“None of us did.” Orlando reaches out and scoops up Nico’s hand while my childhood bestie twitches in the night.

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