Field of Blood by Wilson, Eric (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📕

“You must’ve given her fits.”

“I’m sure that’s what she would say.”

Peering into the nursery this morning, Gina wondered what sort of life lay ahead for her newborn. Would he give her fits of his own? Would she turn into another Nikki?

Though the pregnancy had been an exercise in endurance, she felt today like she could breathe again. Physically, there was no longer any pres-sure against her lungs, or anything distending her belly. But the relief went beyond that.

Each day with Jacob in the womb, she had carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Now, with that burden unloaded, she could begin to live again.

What was wrong with her? It sounded selfish to even think that way.

Her son was safe, and that’s what mattered. No undead assassins. No signs of Cal, either. Just another sunny day in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

As if to demolish her tentative calm, as if to say he knew exactly what lay ahead, little Jacob let out a thin cry that escalated into a torturous wail.

Atlanta

He was in the cab of a rented Dodge pickup. On I-75 heading north out of Atlanta, he finally broke free of the tangled traffic, free of the tangled life. That’s what he told himself. He was headed to Chattanooga with his messengers of wrath tucked into their beds in the daypack on the passenger-side floorboard.

See? Right over there, beneath Erota’s satiny nylon legs.

No, he thought. Eyes straight ahead, soldier.

Nevertheless, he allowed himself to wonder for a brief moment what it would be like to zigzag the country with her, a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, robbing the lives of the unrighteous instead of banks. Zeroing in on the places where lawlessness reared its ugly head.

Not that the banks were lily-white. The fees they were charging nowadays? That was robbery in and of itself.

“Hey, mister.”

“Huh, yeah?”

“You’re weaving into the other lane,” Erota said.

He jerked the pickup back onto the right course, the straight and narrow. He sneaked a glance her direction. She had those sunglasses on, so that he couldn’t—

But wait. She was taking them off. She was looking his way, with a request in her upturned eyes.

Yes. That was his instant answer. Oh yes.

With that reaction, he felt something stir inside him. There was a visceral male response, true, but there was something deeper too. A presence, her very essence, bulging through his limbs and prying his ribs apart with an invisible crowbar. He could almost smell fetid earth and a gnarled vine creeping through the opening.

Then the image disappeared, and he was back in the real world, where cars were exceeding the speed limit on his left—lawlessness, everywhere—and Erota was asleep in the seat to his right.

He sniffed at his chest. He smelled sweaty, salty.

“Erota?”

She was sagged against the door, eyes closed. Nobody home.

He said her name again, then realized she was but a shell next to him. Yes, she was already here with him, in him. They were going to do this together. They would mete out justice as a team. As for those doctors who got paid to deliver newborn life during one appointment, then to take an unwanted child in the next . . . they would pay. The ones who funded such hypocrisy . . . they would pay too.

And if Erota wanted some collateral damage, he was all for that.

“Not much further,” he said, watching a road sign pass overhead.

He was a soldier. A demolitions expert, if you will.

“I need to call my boss,” Jed told her. “Let him know I won’t make it in.”

“Sure.”

“Be right back, Gina.”

“I’ll be here, keeping an eye on our baby.”

She watched her husband pad down the corridor, out of sight. She turned back to the cries of her child, her heart flayed by each note. Ignoring hospital guidelines, she eased into the room to console Jacob. She touched his hand, leaned down over the incubator to kiss his soft cheek.

A mother’s love . . .

He only wailed louder. His slender lips peeled back, contorting into shapes independent of one another, red matching banners that curled and snapped in the blustery winds of his unspoken sorrow.

Between the closed eyelids, a sliver of color showed. Gina had observed Jacob’s irises earlier, while cradling him in the birthing suite. She thought she’d seen flecks of gold.

She had also spotted faint blue splotches on his forehead, but she was reminded that the letter Tav would not appear until adulthood—if she even believed any of that. No, these particular markings were nothing more than bruises from Jacob’s passage through the birth canal, sorrows endured for the greater reward of life.

“Just stop,” she whispered to herself. “Stop being so philosophical about everything, and just try to enjoy this.”

Jacob’s continued cries made that difficult.

His hands were now grasping at the air, his body rocking in the tiny bed. The warble started again in his throat, his lips fluttered, and a scream rose with bansheelike persistence. Although Gina had always loved children, even dreamed of working in the orphanages of her homeland, this was more than she could bear. He was a miserable baby, and each shriek was an indictment against her.

Had she done something wrong? Was she inadequate, unable? Maybe he was just upset that she was standing so close and not picking him up.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Gina slipped back out to the thick viewing window. The cries were muffled yet still audible, and she was struck by a disturbing vision of the months to come . . .

She would take Jacob home, armed with medical guidelines and cautions and what-to-do-ifs, but no one would have an answer for how to deal with his screams. She would rock her baby for hours on end, pace the floor, and try to feed him, hoping, praying, pleading, that he would fall asleep or find a few moments of peace.

None of it would help. Little Jacob had a burden to bear, a rare gift.

What had Cal