Michael froze on his way out the door, but then I started having another contraction.
“Get out so she can do her job,” I ordered my ornery husband.
Amy’s eyes followed Michael’s progress, brows raising to see what he’d do.
Michael chose correctly, though.
He offered his hand to the two of them, said, “I’m going to call my family,” and left the room.
“Eddie and Amy,” Hannah said. “Is there anything you need from me? I have another patient that’s in the final stages of pushing.”
Amy shook her head when Eddie looked at her. “No, that’s all, thank you.”
I knew Eddie, and the moment Hannah left the room he walked to my bedside.
“You ready for this rodeo to get started?” He asked teasingly.
Eddie loved to tease me.
We worked well together, trading barbs back and forth like two children in a play yard battle.
He loved the Yankees, and I was a Texas Rangers fan all the way. Which tended to make us butt heads from time to time.
“Well, I was all ready to have you teasing me while giving me the epidural,” I grunted, toes curling when the next pain hit me. “But I guess since you’re too good for me I’ll settle for Ms. Amy.”
Amy didn’t smile, but Eddie did.
“I have a C-section with triplets in about fifteen minutes. I’m sorry, but she’s cooler than you are,” he admitted openly.
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
He winked. “I’ll check back in with you later.”
I nodded and watched him leave the room.
As my face turned to Amy, I was immediately struck with just how different she looked now that Eddie was out of the room.
Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde different.
“You okay?” I asked her worriedly.
She walked to the door and closed it slowly.
“Don’t you need a nurse?” I asked. “And your stuff?”
She didn’t answer as she drew the curtain and turned back to me, walking towards me with a new purpose that set my instincts on edge.
“Your man fucked up,” the woman whispered to me. “You’d think with how cautious he was being with the doctors that he’d pay a little more attention to who was about to inject all sorts of fun drugs into your spinal column.”
I looked at her nametag and realized with a sinking feeling that she had the same last name as Dr. Jones.
Her name was Amy Jones.
Wife or daughter?
I couldn’t tell.
And why had I never seen her before?
I worked on this floor, and it was kind of a rule that I saw everyone on it seeing as I was a midwife. It was good business to know my colleagues.
“Don’t you mean my epidural space?” I asked worriedly.
My hands were sweaty, and my thighs quivered as I prepared to launch myself from the bed.
Only before I could, Amy Jones produced a gun.
“Don’t move,” she hissed. “I don’t really need your cooperation. I think I’ll just do it the quick way.”
My body froze.
“There’s oxygen in this room, not to mention my husband is right outside,” I tried to reason with her. “Surely you know that you’ll never get out of this unscathed.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t really care. At this point, I just know you need to be gone, as well as him, before I go. You’ll be my final couple. How does it feel?” She said soothingly, bringing the IV tubing that was going into my right hand up to her stomach.
I could see the syringe in her hand, and knew she was about to give me something.
Which was why I yanked my hand to the side hard and quick, ripping tape, hair, and skin as I forcefully removed the catheter from my vein.
She glared at me disapprovingly and shook the gun at me for emphasis.
“I told you not to fucking move!” She whispered forcefully.
I moved.
I couldn’t help it.
It wasn’t in me to lay back and take what was coming for me.
“Hey, I just got word from Dr. Mead. He’ll be here in just a few minutes. He got held up by a train on 18…” Lennox’s voice trailed off as she got a load of the situation she’d walked in on.
She looked to me, then back to Amy before raising her hands up near her head. “Don’t shoot her.”
Amy kept the gun pointed at me, but she was glaring at Lennox, which was why she never saw me move close to the emergency ‘code blue’ cord and yank it from the wall.
The alarm in my room started to shriek.
And people poured inside.
Nurses, doctors, techs. Michael.
The sheer amount of people that’d entered the room had overwhelmed Amy, but she was smart and put the gun away before anyone could see her.
Michael’s eyes fell on me, and I started to scream.
“She has a gun!”
Amy was quick, though.
Using the commotion to her advantage, she ran, skirting past multiple nurses who were standing there stunned.
Michael, though, wasn’t stunned.
Far from it.
He was following her out the door almost as quickly as she’d left it.
Lennox walked up to me, placing a towel to the wound at my hand that I just now realized was pouring blood onto the floor.
“You’re a mess,” she whispered soothingly.
A sob caught in my throat, and the pain that I’d somehow been able to disregard in this entire debacle hit me again tenfold.
“God,” I slumped.
Lennox caught me and moved me towards the bed, and I went willingly.
“You’re hand’s a mess,” she said, eyes scanning the wound.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“I should’ve done what Michael wanted and not gotten the epidural. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess right now,” I said worriedly.
Lennox started to clean off my hand with an alcohol swab.
Which was ridiculous since I needed a lot more than an alcohol pad to clean up this mess. Maybe a towel or something.
Then I forgot all about the mess I’d made and started focusing on the massacre that was happening between my legs.
It burned, but it didn’t hurt anywhere near as bad as everything else attached to my body.
“I feel like I need to push,” I said worriedly a few moments later.
Lennox looked up into my eyes.
“Your doctor’s not here yet,” she said worriedly.
I closed my eyes.
“Alright,” Hannah yelled. “This isn’t an exhibit. Everyone out.”
“But that psycho’s got a gun!” A nurse replied worriedly.
I wanted to roll my eyes.
And I would have had I not been worried that I might suddenly make a big move and the baby would fall out of my vagina.
“I really….really need to push,” I urged insistently, ripping the blankets that Lennox had just replaced, off my legs. “Either back off or catch this baby, because it’s about to happen.”
Hannah shooed out the rest of the people and Lennox and her stared at me with worried eyes.
“I’ve never delivered a baby before,” Lennox said helplessly.
“She’s in the custody of the police,” Michael growled, throwing open the door and slamming it shut behind him. It took him a few moments, but it wasn’t long before he realized that my vagina was out for everyone to see. “What?”
I pointed down to my vagina. “Your baby wants me to push.”
He shook his head. “Dr. Mead isn’t here yet.”
If I could have, I would have beaten him.
“Well you tell that to this kid!” I screamed.
Michael’s eyes widened when something between my legs caught his eyes, and I moved my hand down between my legs and felt something that most definitely hadn’t been there before.
“I’m crowning,” I said to the three of them.
I wished I’d had a camera to capture the looks on the three of their faces.
“One of you need to come over here and play catcher, or you need to go get a doctor. Now,” I ordered them.
Still, none of them moved.
A doctor. A PA. And a nurse.
And all three of them stared at me with blank faces.
I can’t believe I was having to do this all myself!