Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(92)

“All in all, I say we’ve dodged a bullet,” Dr. Brenner said. “They’ll clean up our mess for us, for the illusion of being left alone. Let the girl’s family mourn. We won’t bother them. We’ll get what we can from the corpse, though the brain was fried by electricity.”

Let Terry Ives think she had the upper hand for a brief moment.

“But don’t we need the woman’s child?” the director asked.

“I have that well in hand.”

“See that you do.”

All the approval he needed for the next phase of the evening. It would have been easier to accomplish here, but there was a certain novelty to rearranging his plans to accommodate a disruption, to stepping out into a spotlight and still managing to remain invisible. He gathered his credentials, some hospital scrubs, a fake badge, and got in his car. He shook his head at the torn chain-link gate as he left, a cleanup crew already half done with the mess. There was only one hospital near Larrabee, and it was simple enough to guess that was where Terry would end up before the night was through. The injection should start producing effects soon, if it hadn’t already.

And so Brenner drove fast.





11.


Ken parked Terry’s car in the yard and she yawned, sleepy after the events of the evening. Ken’s car was parked in the Ives’ driveway. He and Gloria had driven over together.

“I’m wired,” Ken said. “I don’t know how you can be tired.”

“I’m with her.” Gloria raised her hand in the back. “I no longer have a single fantasy about how glamorous and exciting and easy the lives of comic-book heroes are.”

Terry laughed. “Do you guys want to come in?” A half-hearted invite she prayed they’d refuse, but would also be fine with if they said yes. In other words, real friendship. “There are still some brownies, I think.”

“It’s been a big night,” Gloria said. “And you need your baby sleep.”

“Baby sleep?” Terry asked.

“It’s like beauty sleep, but for healthy babies.”

“Ah.”

“You too, Ken?”

He stared off into space.

“Earth to Ken,” Terry said. “Is there something you need to tell me, or are you ready to call it a night?”

“There’s something, but I don’t know what it is.” He raised his hands. “Yes, I do know that’s annoying, you don’t have to tell me just because Alice is gone.”

“All right, I’m going in.” Terry accepted her keys from Ken, who patted her car’s hood and said, “Well done, Nellie.” She didn’t bother to ask what that meant.

She waved goodbye and let herself in the front door. She went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Or maybe milk. Were there brownies left?

She deserved one. The night had gone as planned. Alice was safe. They were safe. Brenner would leave them alone if he was smart, and she’d find a way to get the word out about what he was doing.

So…why did she feel like darkness gathered at the edges of her vision?

Pain ripped through her entire body, centered at her waist. Water ran down her thighs.

She grabbed the counter. “Oh,” she said. The baby. She screamed, “Becky, she’s coming!”

A door slammed above and Becky ran down the stairs. “What—your water broke!” She paused. “She’s early.”

“We have to go. Hospital.” Terry felt woozy. “Now.”



* * *



—

Becky asked about the damage to the front of Terry’s car, and Terry had no explanation. “Just drive,” she said.

“It’s going to be all right,” Becky said. “They do a good job at this place.”

But they both knew it was the same hospital where their parents died.

“Faster,” Terry said. Every contraction rattled her bones like lightning. Pain. Such pain. “Get there.”

To her credit, Becky did go faster. She slammed on the brakes when they got to the ER drive-up, tossing on the hazards and helping Terry out.

Terry barely knew where she was, she was in such pain. “She’s in labor!” Becky shouted.

“Help me,” Terry said. “Save my baby.”

Baby Jane has to be okay. Hang in there, baby Jane.

Nurses and doctors swamped Terry, and steered her onto a gurney. They rushed her into the building, Becky jogging alongside and then disappearing. An IV drip was inserted in her arm and they said something about pain medicine. The sight of the monitor with the line of her heart spiking and down, spiking and down, was so familiar that for a moment she thought she might be back in the Hawkins lab.

“This baby’s coming,” someone shouted. A team of people was around her, and the scene dissolved into scrubs and masks, beeps and the clatter of surgeon’s tools on a steel tray, the smell of disinfectant…Terry hung on to consciousness for dear life. Every contraction was a knife to the gut and she prayed for baby Jane and accepted the pain…

“One more push,” a voice near her said, face behind a mask, and so she did. She pushed for all she was worth. There was a blaze of light in her vision and then she heard it—the most beautiful sound in heaven or on earth.