The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)(82)

“Brave girl,” the professor said to Naomi. “You know how to do this. Now I want you to start pushing.”

“Fuck. It hurts.”

“It was no different for me,” I said to her, hating the sound of my own voice, hating my false smile. “Or the millions of women before us.”

David looked shocked for a moment. “You have children?”

I have a grandchild, I almost said, which would’ve shocked him even more.

It was barely a few minutes later when the professor said, “He’s ready, Naomi. Are you?”

She nodded.

“All right, then. Give it everything.”

She did. I held one hand and David held the other.

“Good,” the professor said. “He’s almost—he’s here.”

Naomi made a sound, somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, and fell back against the pillows. David’s face was ashen, but his eyes were full of awe.

“I want to hold him,” Naomi said weakly. Then, a beat later, “Toss him here.”

“Is it—is it a boy?” David asked.

“Yes,” the professor said in the eerily silent room.

“Why isn’t he crying?” David asked, and then saw the baby. He was blue.

“Oh God,” David whispered.

“What?” Naomi said, with an animal fear in her eyes. “What is it?”

The professor worked quickly. He was afraid, too, but no one would ever be able to tell but me. I held Naomi’s hand as she asked, “Is he—is he—?”

The cord was around the baby’s neck, but the professor cut it, and a second later, the baby turned from blue to pink. He was still silent, but the professor no longer looked alarmed. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “Good boy. He’s fine,” he said to Naomi.

“Why isn’t he crying?” David asked warily.

The professor cleaned him off a bit with a towel, looking relaxed. “What reason does he have to cry?”

“I thought that was normal? That babies cry when they’re born,” David said.

“Some do, yes,” he said, and handed the child to Naomi, who watched him raptly. “He’s scrappy,” she said with a smile on her lips as she cradled him in her arms. The infant’s eyes were open and eerily alert. “My little hero.”

She was a fierce girl, ferocious, even, but at that moment, she looked completely at peace.

But David was still unsettled. “Is there something wrong with him?” He looked at the baby with suspicion.

“No,” the professor said. “Everything is right.”

“What’s his name?” I asked Naomi.

She looked at the baby, then at David. “Noah,” she said, her eyebrows raised as if daring her husband to challenge her. Wisely, he didn’t.

I looked at the little shell of the newborn’s ear, the soft, perfect skin on his cheeks, the tiny fingers on the hand that would one day extinguish my life, and I said, “Good choice.”





59


I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TIME to scream before I noticed that Noah was still standing. The gun had jammed, or something. I didn’t know and did not care.

Noah was staring at nothing. He was blank, expressionless, stunned, motionless. The gun was still at his head. His father didn’t even react.

I was going to have to fix this. I was the only one who could. I said Noah’s name and he looked at me as if I’d spoken to him for the first time in history, as if he had no idea who I was.

“Give me the gun.”

He didn’t. But he did lower his hand, and then he spoke as if we were alone.

“Let’s go look for your brother.” He took my hand in his free one.

“There’s no time,” I said calmly.

“We can torture my father until he tells us.” I thought I caught David rolling his eyes in disgust. He was clearly not threatened.

“Uh, guys?” Jamie’s voice. We both blinked, confused, until we remembered the laptop. Jamie had seen everything. “As much as I’d like to watch that, I think—I think you should be quick,” he said diplomatically. But I knew what he was thinking.

Noah acted as if he hadn’t heard him. “We should start looking.” He tugged at my limp arm. My fingers were dead weight in his. I wasn’t going to follow him. There was no point. And parts of my legs were still numb anyway. I wouldn’t get very far, even if David and Jude let me.

“I can’t walk,” I said.

“Then I’ll carry you.”

Noah still didn’t get it. “We’re never going to find him before—before—” I couldn’t say the word.

“Not if we don’t try.”

I forced myself to remember that for Noah, Horizons seemed like yesterday. He didn’t know what had happened since.

I’d woken up strapped to the table like an animal, but I wasn’t one. I’d done things—things I regretted and things I didn’t. I was too old to blame them on being young. My family had been too good to me for me to blame it on them. I’d made my choices by myself. Some of them had been wrong, but they were my choices. I owned them. No one else.

Noah’s father knew he would never be able to convince Noah to kill me. This display was for me, so that I could prove to Noah why I should die. No one else could do that for me.