On The Bound

Chapter Twenty.

           Shauna is wailing. Loud. The soundtrack of a woman's labor. Earthy jasmine is in the air. Suffocating. The birthing cot is surrounded—arms tense, eyes wide, breath held like prayers in the ribcage. Her brown eyes look like wet dirt. Sade stays on the other side of the cabin. Away. She holds Javi tighter, wraps her arms around his body. Like she could press him back into the womb. Back into safety. Her arms become borders. Her heartbeat a barricade. He is safer with her.

"Why the fuck is this taking so long?" Shauna complains, a sharp knife of pain comes after her words.

"Should we, like, boil water?" Mari's face scrunches. Muddy constellations of sheer panic. The cabin is blistering.

"Are there, um, contractions? Should we be timing them or something?" Natalie chimes, looking around for approval.

"Yeah, that last one was just over a minute. I-Is that long or short?" Gen questions, pointing towards the blonde medic. She doesn't answer. "Misty! Should I be timing the in-between or no?" Misty stares through the room like it's glass, like none of them are really here. Like a ghost in her body, her gaze is stretched between Shauna and the open air.

"I-I don't know, I just. . . I need. . . I need. . ." Her voice fragments. Choruses of disappointed looks and incomprehensible jeers were aimed at Misty. She couldn't help. She was useless to them. The others turn. Sick. Sade releases Javi gently, sets him down like a sacred offering, and moves. Walking like she's trekking through fire that won't burn her.

"Misty, hey, take a break," she murmurs, her voice the color of low thunder. She places a hand on Misty's shoulder, warm, real, anchoring. Sunflower yellow fills the air—not the flower, but the hue of surrender, of letting someone else hold the weight. "We don't need you passing out."

Misty nods, fragile and folding. She disappears into the background like dusk. Then, Shauna and Sade see each other. Eyes doll-like. Brown. Divination. Longing. An air of certainty replaces Misty's absence. "I'll time them. Just focus on your breathing."

Shauna nods, eyes closing. A surrender, not to weakness, but to trust.

Akilah becomes the primary voice. The cusp of life. "Okay," she says, urgency braided into reverence, "I think when's it's this regular and intense, she's in labor labor and the baby is actually coming."

"So, it should be over soon?" Taissa suggests, hopefully. Akilah child-like face swells into a grim smile.

"Maybe," Akilah's jaw clenches, "but my sister's labor was a day and a half."

Shauna's eyes blow open like twin stars imploding, wide and wet and white with panic. A chilling gust blows through the cabin. No, she cries, I can't take this for a day and a half-

Taissa clutches her hand. An anchor. Yes, you can.

Sade clenches. Feels it—jealousy, sharp and green, sliding through her bloodstream like steam through a pipe. Hot. Silent. Dangerous. She swallows it whole.