He didn’t stop. He walked faster.

"Ms. Morrigan, bear with it," he said, like my pain was a minor inconvenience. "This isn’t the time. If we stop now, we’re both dead."

Something was wrong. The certainty settled in my chest like cold water before the reasoning even caught up. He didn’t care whether I lived or died — he was in a rush to deliver me somewhere, to hand me off like cargo. The man on the floor back there wasn’t the traitor. This man was. A plant, sent by that woman to get me onto a ship while Sergio was gone, while I was too broken by pain to think or fight.

He had almost succeeded.

Sweat poured down my face as another contraction ripped through me. I let myself groan, let my body go limp against him — not entirely pretending — and quietly worked the knife from my sleeve into my palm. To him, I was just a woman about to give birth. His eyes were fixed on the path ahead. He wasn’t watching my hands.

He didn’t see it coming when I drove the blade into his chest.

Blood hit my face. I was terrified, but I had made my choice. If he got me to that port, I wouldn’t die quickly — and that was the worse fate. The shock of the blow threw me sideways, and I was ready for it. I twisted as I fell, taking the impact on my left arm, curling around my stomach. The moment I hit the ground, I rolled upright on shaking legs. Amniotic fluid soaked through my clothes. Sweat stung my eyes. I grabbed my belly and ran.

He got back up.

Covered in blood, he came after me, and panic became pure motion — move, move, move —

A gunshot cracked the air.

His head snapped back and he dropped. Behind him stood Sergio, gun still raised, smoke curling from the barrel.

"Coco."

A pool had already formed at my feet. I looked at him with everything I had left. "Dr. Zimmer — please. The babies are coming. Please help me."

His brow pulled tight, but his voice was decided. "We need to find somewhere right now." He scooped me up without another word. "Hold on."

I gripped his shirt and nodded, not trusting my voice. As he carried me, I asked about the situation outside, needing to understand even now, even through this. He told me quietly — there were spies among his people, the dead man had come closer to succeeding than anyone realized, and if I didn’t arrive at the port on schedule, they would storm the island. How long that window was, he couldn’t say.

He laid me on a narrow bed and looked at me with an expression stripped down to pure focus. "The doctor is dead, Coco. It seems I’ll have to deliver the babies myself."

"But—"

"Don’t think about anything else. Treat me as a doctor. Right now, you and the babies are all that matters." He moved toward the door. "I’ll get hot water. Get yourself ready."

Heat rushed to my face despite everything. I was a heavily pregnant woman, but I was still a woman — and he was still a man who wasn’t my mate. I reached for the small rabbit in my pocket and turned it between my fingers, working its ears over and over.

"Carl..."

Lewis’s voice came through, rough and strained. "Elena, your safety and the babies — that’s all that matters. I don’t care about anything else. Just hold on. I’m almost there."

Riley followed, voice tight. "This is not the time for modesty. Keep yourself and those babies alive — that is your only job."

I let go of the rabbit and gripped the bedsheet instead.

Sergio returned, and with him was an elderly woman — small and dark-skinned, her hands deeply lined, her eyes calm and knowing in the way of someone who had sat beside fear many times and learned not to be moved by it. He told me she had delivered more babies than either of us could count. Something in me released, a tension I hadn’t fully known I was holding, and I exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.

"Good," I managed. "Okay."

"I can hear movement outside. I have to go guard the perimeter." He pressed a gun into my hands before he left, his grip briefly covering mine. "Stay ready."

The elder didn’t speak any language I knew, but I understood her well enough. Her gestures were clear and certain — fully dilated, time to push. Every instinct in me had been quietly terrified of this moment for months. But underneath the fear something else had been waiting, something fierce and irresistible. The thought of finally meeting them, of holding them, pulled me forward when nothing else could have.

Come on, I thought, bearing down against the pain. Your father is almost here. Please come out safely.

"Elena, I’m right here," Lewis said softly through the communicator. "Don’t be afraid."

"Carl — they’re almost here." My voice broke. "We miss you so much."

"I miss you too." His voice cracked, and somehow that — the sound of him fighting to hold himself together from wherever he was, racing toward us through the dark — made me feel less alone than anything else could have.

"Carl... Carl..." The contractions were relentless, cresting one after another without mercy or pause.

"I’m here. I’m so sorry I can’t be with you."

Then the elder’s face changed. The calm she’d maintained shifted in an instant, alarm moving across her features — controlled, but unmistakable. She looked between my legs and spoke rapidly, urgently, in words I couldn’t follow no matter how hard I tried.

Riley’s voice cut in. "What is she saying?"

Lewis answered, and the flatness in his voice — the particular flatness of someone keeping emotion out by sheer force — told me everything before the words did. "The baby is breech. It’s a difficult labor."

Riley went frantic immediately. "She’s carrying twins! If the first one doesn’t move, both of them could suffocate — she needs a C-section now!" 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

No.

The word die moved through me like a cold current, and everything it touched hardened into something unbreakable. I could not let that happen. Not after the forest, not after the knife, not after every promise I had made in every dark room to the man I loved. These children were not going to die here. They were not.

"They won’t die," I said, tears streaming freely, my voice rough and absolute. "I’ll deliver them. I will."

"Elena — I brought a doctor with me, but we need a few more minutes. Hold on. Can you do that?"

I nodded, even knowing he couldn’t see me. The gesture was only for myself. "I’ll hold on. I promise, Carl."

A gunshot rang out from just beyond the door.

Then another.

Then the sound of something heavy falling against the wall.

They were here.