Becoming Calder (A Sign of Love Novel)(115)

Hailey walked in with my breakfast tray. She was looking down and I immediately saw that she had a large red mark on her cheek. "Hailey—" I started, throwing the covers back and getting out of bed.
"Don't, Eden, please," she said, her voice sounding hoarse. "There's not much food, sorry. Our steadiness is tested now." She set the tray down on my bedside table and left, closing the door quietly behind her. My heart squeezed in my chest.
I picked up my tea and sipped at it as I considered what could be done. Hector had rejected me as his wife. That had to be good. I couldn't play the role in his foretelling now. It was over. Still, a chill went down my spine despite the warmth of the liquid making its way into my body. Hector wasn't going to give me up. I knew he wasn't. I had only bought us some time. And if my instincts were right, not much time. I finished my tea and swung my legs out of bed. I knocked on my own door and a few minutes later, Mother Miriam came and answered it and I used the bathroom as she waited outside.
I checked all the drawers in the bathroom and everything that could be used as a potential weapon had been removed. I leaned against the counter, feeling defeated. The problem was not so much escaping, myself. I could probably manage to do that. But how would I get Calder out, too? And if I didn't, what would Hector do to him? I felt hopeless.
As I opened the door to the bathroom, a sharp pain lanced through my abdomen and I doubled over, crying out at the sudden intensity of the cramp.
"What is it?" Mother Miriam asked, coming to my side.
"I don't know," I said breathlessly, still clutching my stomach. Another stabbing pain assaulted me and I grabbed the wall, doubling over once more. "I'm pregnant," I cried. "Something's wrong!"
Mother Miriam drew back, shock registering on her face. "No," she said simply.
"Ahhhh!" I cried out as agony ripped through my stomach and I bent over and vomited on the hardwood floor of the hallway.
"Take her to the sick tent," I heard behind me in Hector's deep, cold voice.
Mother Miriam wrapped her arm around me and held me upright as we walked . . . limped down the hallway to the stairs. Sweat had broken out on my face and everything swayed around me. "What did you do?" I asked weakly as we passed Hector. "What did you put in my tea? What did you do to me?" I cried out more loudly.
"It had to be eliminated," he said behind me. "What has been foretold cannot be unwritten or undone, not even by Satan."
"Ahhhh!" I screamed in horror and agony, the pain ripping through my body and through my very soul. Mother Miriam gripped me more tightly and practically carried me out the door of the main lodge.
I vomited again right outside the door. "He's killing my baby," I sobbed. "Oh, God of Mercy, help me, help me, help me." I fell to my knees in my own sickness, shaking and sweating, and half-crazed with terror.
"Shh, child," Mother Miriam said behind me, picking me up again and dragging me down the stairs. "I'm here."
"You hate me," I sobbed. "You did this. You did this, too!" I beat weakly on her arm, wrapped around my waist, but I had no energy left to do anything but bear the pain and sickness.
"I would never do this," she said. "I've lost, too."
"Ahhhh!" I screamed again, doubling over in the courtyard and vomiting again. The world blinked on and off, everything swimming around me as I tried to pull myself upright. Something warm and wet was running down my leg.
I heard my name somewhere from far away and even in my delirious state, I knew it was Calder. "Calder," I screamed. "Calder!" My voice broke on his name as I called out a second time and then doubled over in a blood-curdling scream again, more sticky wetness sliding down my leg. I tried to lurch toward where he was calling to me, but Mother Miriam pulled me back. "I have to get you to the sick tent," she said. "If you want to live, I have to get you there."
I went limp in her arms, as another pain tore through me, too weak even to scream this time.
The world dimmed and faded around me and then came into focus again as I saw men running past me toward where I had been trying to go to Calder.
The next thing I knew, I was in the sick tent, lying on a cot, the pain still ripping through my body as I sweated and cried and screamed out the agony.
I lost time as everything went in and out of focus around me, the morning sunlight slanting in through the window one second, and then the early evening twilight sky greeting me the next. All that day, I cried and writhed and endured the pain as Mother Miriam came and went, attending to my body in ways I couldn't even focus on.