When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,104

expected me to get them out of this. They felt safe because they were with me.

I’d never felt more lacking in my life.

“Okay,” I said, forcing a big smile. “We’re gonna run into the woods behind the building. Then we’ll walk in a sort of circle until we get to the path. Are you ready?”

They both nodded again.

I got to my feet, bending my knees to remain hidden behind the squatty building. Holding both of the kids by the hand, one on either side, I led them to the corner of the building.

Taking a leap of faith, I tugged their hands. “Run!”

They ran beside me, Mikey struggling to keep up, but we made it into the trees without being shot at. That part of Vera’s vision hadn’t come true. Yet. But I didn’t have time to sit around, resting on my laurels. We had to keep putting distance between ourselves and the Collards.

Dropping Ashley’s hand, I leaned over and picked up Mikey, settling him as best as I could on my hip. “Follow me,” I whispered.

She nodded with wide eyes.

I started picking a path through the trees, trying to find bare spots for us to place our feet. We’d nearly made it to the path when I felt my stomach tighten.

I slipped Mikey off my hip, setting him down on his feet, then squatted next to him.

“What are you doin’, Aunt Rose?” Ashley asked in a whisper, sounding genuinely curious.

“I have a tummy ache,” I said, giving her a tight smile as the pressure grew. “I just need to rest for a moment.”

“Okay.”

I tried to force myself to relax, knowing full well it would hurt less if I wasn’t tense, but I was too on edge for any deep breaths to fix this. We were much too close to the icehouse for comfort. If I cried out, one of the Collards might hear me—and it might bring them right to us.

Tears stung my eyes, but I told myself not to cry. I didn’t want to scare the kids and I needed to be strong for the baby. Labor took hours and hours. Especially for a first baby. I had plenty of time to get to safety.

The contraction continued to build, and I tried to find a focal point—a dark spot in the tree trunk in front of me—breathing like I’d learned in childbirth class, but the pain intensified, and a moan built low in my throat.

I put my fist in my mouth, concentrating on not crying out.

Ashley watched in terror, and although I would have given anything to comfort her, I had to pour all my focus into keeping quiet.

It finally peaked, and as the last of it faded away, I forced myself to stand, my legs shaky. I held my finger to my lips as I grabbed Mikey’s hand and led the kids to the path.

I had about four and a half minutes before I had to do it all over again, which meant we had to be as far from here as possible.

Chapter 28

Mikey didn’t make it very far until he couldn’t walk anymore, so I picked him up and tried to carefully navigate the tree roots on the path. The fact that I was going down a small incline didn’t help. If I’d been clumsy before, I was twice as bad now.

We’d made it no more than fifty feet before the next contraction hit—which lit a new fear in my heart. It hadn’t been four minutes since the last one, more like two. I found a spot with a rock on the side of the path and set Mikey down. The contraction started to ripple through me, and I got on my hands and knees, a position that seemed safer given where we’d stopped.

“What are you doin’, Aunt Rose?” Ashley asked with wide eyes.

“My tummy hurts again,” I said, trying not to freak out. Going downhill was slower going than climbing up, and I was starting to wonder if we were going to make it to the truck let alone the hospital before the baby came.

The contraction continued to build, even stronger than the one before, and I started to cry, wanting Joe more than I’d ever wanted anything or anyone in my life. I wasn’t supposed to do this alone. He was supposed to be here with me.

But seconds later, the only thing I could think about was riding through the pain. I rocked back and forth, breathing in for a count of four and out