before continuing. “What does Jenny know about what’s happening to her? To you? What are you going to do?”
Remi’s right leg shook, fast and constant like a drug addict’s. He had bags under his eyes and looked pretty beat. The light that used to emanate from him was almost completely gone. Almost.
“What were you thinking, Remi? I mean, it’s clear what you were thinking.” I wasn’t helping at all.
“Seriously, Grace!” Remi shouted as he stood up, then fell involuntarily back onto the couch, too weak to act out. “You think I don’t know how badly I screwed up? How screwed up I am?” Tears streamed down his caramel face. “These freaking shackles!” Remi grabbed at his ankles, but I didn’t see anything.
“Listen to me,” I instructed him. I moved over to the couch where he sat. “We don’t know if the baby is Fallen, for God’s sake. Even still, we have to protect it, and we know now that we can’t keep the baby here. The Fallen don’t respect Nod as a neutral place anymore. We need to take the baby to the Garden. You can stay here, or you can move to Kheiron with me. Work with me, Remi, I’m thinking out loud here.”
Remi sat, rubbing his ankles. “What about Jenny?” he asked suddenly.
“Ahhhhh!” Jenny screamed from the next room as if being stabbed.
Remi stood up, then tried to run toward the room where Jenny was. It broke my heart to see him in this condition, fragile and weak as he struggled to take the necessary steps to reach her. His feet seemed glued to the ground as he walked, pulling, and a seemingly immense effort was needed to propel himself forward.
“Jenny, babe, are you okay?” Remi asked as he made it to the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall, struggling to breathe.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” Jenny let out another louder, longer blood-curdling scream as she crouched forward, grabbing her stomach in pain. Her legs were spread wide and her feet pressed firmly against the palms of Vivienne’s hands in a surreal scene, since there was no visible sign of pregnancy.
“Mom,” Remi and I said at the same time. She was delivering Jenny’s baby. Dark brown bruises encircled by purple, then black and yellow, covered Jenny’s body in a pattern that seemed odd at first, but was no doubt from the being growing inside her. When I looked closer, I could have sworn it was in the shape of the Big Dipper.
I grimaced at the sight of her. Remi hurried to her side to cover her from my judgmental eyes, but the damage had already been done.
“Push,” Mom instructed Jenny calmly.
Jenny’s face was pale, almost green. It was as if someone had doused her with a bucket of water. Her mangled hair was dripping into tiny individual pools on the floor. If I didn’t know it was a birth, I would have sworn I had walked in on an exorcism. The room smelled slightly of metal. Remi paced back and forth as a few grayish-white feathers fell to the floor.
“It’s okay, Jenny. You’re gonna be okay,” Remi lied as he wiped her forehead with his hand. He breathed on her and cooled her, drying the skin on her face.
I stayed near the door as I watched Vivienne work with Jenny, contemplating the fact that Remi was not the least bit sad for what he had done. My mind was working overtime trying to figure this out.
“AAAGGGHHHH! OOOOOOHHHHHH!” Jenny screamed as she lunged forward, grabbed her knees, then immediately fell back onto the bed, exhausted.
“Good job, Jenny. You have a beautiful baby boy!” Mom exclaimed as she pulled a tiny ball of slippery, bloody, yucky mess from Jenny’s insides. Gross. Vivienne cut the cord and wrapped the baby in a blanket from on a table nearby before walking over and handing him to me. “Uh, Mom. Don’t you think Jenny or Remi want to hold their baby?” I whispered as I looked over and saw Remi bent over Jenny. He covered her with his body.
“Babe, it’s a boy,” Remi informed Jenny as he held her head in his hand. She looked worse than she did before. She was starting to turn blue, even as she forced a smile.
“Is … is that … that Grace?” she managed through chattering teeth, turning her head to me. That she had any energy at all was astonishing. Her entire body shook uncontrollably. “I’m so-o … c-c-c-c-co-o-col-old.”