“Push, Rebekah! That's it, wonderful!” The midwife's voice is just a dull whine in my ears.

I'm flat on my back, legs up, using muscles I didn't know I had. The baby is coming.

I'm surprised I haven't torn my mother's hand off yet. She holds on like an angel, even as I claw at her wrist, trying to vocalize the seconds ticking by through my clenched teeth, remembering the key word I learned in the exercises.

Breathe. Count. Push.

“Just breathe, baby,” mom whispers, reading my mind, wiggling her fingers through mine.

There's a vicious pain between my legs. Just when I don't think I have it in me to force myself through one more round, the midwife stoops low, catching something sliding out of me, and there's a sharp, but noticeable relief.

I'm a mother now. It's strange how something happening this fast can change my life forever.

I think I pass out for several minutes. The midwife and the nurse accompanying her help wrap up the afterbirth, sliding a fresh pillow underneath my head at the end. I've drenched the last few in sweat.

Mom stands and walks to the sink with a rag in her hand, returning a second later to wipe my brow with cool water. It's actually relaxing. I'm glad I opted for a home birth.

I'm not sure I'd have survived in a hospital with my nerves in the state they're in. They've been uprooted, torn, and deep fried several times over throughout my pregnancy. Presque Isle is a quiet spot to be alone and isolated, but it can't work total miracles.

As long as I'm in the States, I think about the past. There's no cure except more distance. Just before I went into labor, I looked at my charity for the first time in months, wondering how soon I'd be able to take my little boy overseas.

“Amazing job, honey. The worst is over now. Rest.” Mom talks to me in a soothing, caring tone I haven't heard since I was a little girl.

It's a stark contrast to the few sharp words I've heard from my father since he found out about the baby. I'm practically disowned. He told me I could stay here in Maine, hiding from the world, until he figures out what the hell to do.

Like he has any say.

I'm not giving it up. Mom knows, and she supports me. There's no way my beautiful baby boy is ever going up for adoption.

I've made that vow since day one, but now every molecule of my being screams it when the midwife places the tiny, sleepy bundle into my arms. Pulling back the edge of the blanket, I look my baby in the face for the first time.

He's beautiful. Strong. Less than an hour old, and he's already inherited his father's eyes.

It must be the drugs or the exhaustion getting to me when I look up. Mom stands next to me. She's smiling, proud, and alive in a way I haven't seen her for years. For a split second, I hallucinate it isn't her, but Grant standing there.

I smile at his ghost, against my better reason, before he vanishes. Why does my brain have to do this?

It's easy to forget I'm supposed to hate this man for ruining me when his evil seed gave me something so fragile, so precious, so beautiful.

“Now for the exciting part,” mom says, sitting next to me as she strokes my brow. “We get to pick names!”

I've given it some thought, and I'm torn between Tyler and Jackson. The first choice is a loving, masculinized tribute to my best friend, who's with me here now in spirit. I'm sure I'll see a dozen texts offering encouragement the next time I look at my secret phone. Jackson, I've always liked for other reasons.

It's a good name. A safe name. The name of a kind, gentle English doctor I met years ago in Bogota, who probably saved half a village with his round the clock, selfless care.

Also, both names are as far as I can get from the baby's father. I won't even consider a name that's one syllable, or tastes like sandpaper on my tongue. Nothing that reminds me of him.

Grant is gone forever. The birth makes me realize it more than ever.

I did this alone, without the cheating man-whore who left a smoking crater in my chest. Mom's smiling eyes remind me how far I've come. How big a miracle it is I haven't cracked under the pressure. Without her support and Tay's, I'm not sure where I'd be. But I'm certain it would be somewhere colder, darker, and so much smaller than the grim world I already live in.

Mom looks at me. I see my whole future in her eyes, alive with possibilities I haven't seen since the day she showed up at the condo with Ethan, bringing me a warning, and a demon truth on her laptop.

It won't be easy dealing with dad when the time comes, and I tell him I'm going my own way, with no more excuses, distractions, or strings. Good thing mom has my back. I'm confident she'll at least stop him from cutting off the essentials. Maybe she'll even talk some sense into the selfish, ice cold idiot who somehow shares my DNA, but isn't here to see his grandson because he's blinded by the blow to his lofty reputation my 'bastard child' represents.

Bastard or not, my baby's a Corbin, and so am I. I'd rather be the black sheep than pretend I'm something false, something I'll never be. And with my son making his grand entrance, I'm no longer alone.

“You okay?” Mom asks. I barely hear her over my urge to sleep, holding the baby, listening as the midwife saunters around the room, humming an airy melody to herself.

“I will be soon. Need a little water and a nap. Thanks for being here,” I reach over, squeezing her hand. She moves her free hand over us both, brushing the baby's forehead with the gentlest touch, blowing him a kiss.

“I wouldn't miss it for the world, dear. I've never been this happy to miss a vacation in my life.” For the first time in her life, I think she really means it.

She can't survive forever away from New York's five star restaurants and endless shopping arcades. I told her to take in Dubai months ago, and she did, leaving me alone to catch up with Tay on a visit my father never learned about.

“Cuba will still be there when I'm well enough to look after the baby on my own. Maybe we'll go together,” I tell her, a slow smile coming. Visiting the Caribbean island is her latest obsession. Tourism has swung back into vogue as relations there continue to open, and the Zeno virus is no longer a serious concern.

I could care less about tropical diseases disrupting my fertility with the miracle staring up at me through his soft blue eyes. It'll be many years before I let baby fever get its grip on me again, if ever.

I still don't know how Tyler – or is it Jackson? – happened in the first place. Before, I thought the heavens were cruel to curse me with a misplaced pill or a statistically improbable pregnancy.

Now, there's no denying it isn't a freak accident. It certainly isn't a curse. My son is living, breathing proof there's more good in this than I ever saw before.

“We'll make sure he's rested and fed, Ms. Corbin,” the nurse says. I reluctantly let her take my baby away, carrying him into the tiny nursery set up across the hall.

Everything I need is here. Money buys a lot of things, like the staff and supplies to give me a flawless delivery here in small town Maine. I'm grateful to have a few less worries, but mostly, I'm tired.

Dog tired.

“You should get some sleep, too,” I tell my mother. It's been a long delivery, bleeding through most of the night. She stayed awake with me the whole time.

“Maybe you're right. I'm wired, honestly, but our little guy deserves a clear mind from both of us to enjoy his first day on Earth. Congratulations again, honey.” She kisses my forehead one more time before I bat her away playfully, relapsing to thirteen.

I don't close my eyes until she's out of the room, leaving me alone. Then, for one blissful night, I forget the Bastard Axe who cut my heart into scraps and fed it to the dogs. I forget their names: heartbreak, envy, self-pity, and hate.

Something I thought I'd forgotten happens – I let go.

Sweet surrender takes me. Dreams in dense blackness, velvet smooth, untainted by the heart-wrenching alternate future I see, taste, and feel most nights I sleep, making every morning a somber hell.

Grant isn't there.

He doesn't lift my lily white veil and kiss me with his lying lips.

He doesn't whisper moscato in my ear for the thousandth time, savoring me with his eyes the way I've seen him taste wine, stripping every layer of my soul until I'm naked, honest, and bare before him.

No, he doesn't even sit with me by the water at the Jacquelyn Kennedy Reservoir, my all time favorite relaxation spot in the city. He definitely doesn't hold our sleepy child.

He isn't a father. He isn't my lover. He isn't a tumor I'll never remove, making me throb sadness and longing, missing him when I shouldn't.

He isn't in my head for one torturous night alone, and I'm happy. It's a trial run for the inner peace I need to find for the rest of my life, which will remain solitary and Shaw free.

* * *

I can't seem to get enough sleep.

The nurse comes in with mom sometime in the early afternoon. They feed me a quick lunch, a sandwich with a Caesar salad, and tell me how well our baby boy is doing across the hall. I go through the motions, never fully awake, practically begging for more rest by the time I've finished my food.

Mom says she understands, gives me another get well kiss, and exits the room with my caretaker. I hear their amused laughter across from me as they watch baby blue eyes in his crib.

They're happy, and I'm sure my son is, too. All is right with the world.

I'm sleeping off my delivery hangover when I wake with a start. It's dark in my room. The only light comes from the dim lamps, and someone came by while I slept to close the blinds, which now show night behind them.

I know there's something wrong before I even see the figure at the end of my bed.

This is the part in a horror movie where there's a vampire. But this is no movie, and the man in the room with me is worse than any make believe bloodsucker.

“Welcome back to the world, cheri.” Ethan's voice comes syrupy sweet, and temperamentally insane. “Are we feeling better?”

“Mom!” I sit up, wincing from soreness, trying my best to scream.

Ethan moves fast. His hand goes over my mouth. If I had the energy to bite him, I would, but I still haven't recovered enough from labor to do much of anything. My teeth graze across his skin, before he easily pushes my chin away, into a non-threatening position.

“Don't waste your energy, Rebekah. They can't hear you. I made sure your nurse's car had a little problem when she went out for smokes. It never ceases to amaze me how many healers do. So predictable in their nasty habit. Your mother's on her way to pick her up.” He holds his hand over my mouth, searching my eyes, which are trying to crawl out of my head. “Really, cheri? You're not the least bit happy to see me? Distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say. Surely, they aren't wrong?”

There's a dangerous anger swelling in his eyes. I close mine, the only thing I can do not to see him and stir more panic in my blood.

“You're better than this. If I take my hand off your mouth, you don't have to scream. You don't have to embrace the miserable, boring fate waiting if you raise him alone. It's not too late to do the sensible thing. Give your baby boy a fresh start.” He speaks like the devil, offering me a deal I wouldn't consider in several lifetimes. “Come away with me, cheri. My jet's a short drive away at the Presque Isle airport. Fueled and ready to take you away from your misery, away with me to Europe.”

He comes in close, trying to lay a kiss on my cheek. I twist my head, just enough to put him off touching his disgusting lips to mine. Not so much it makes this maniac walk away.

He tightens his grip on my mouth. His other hand crashes across my cheek, adding new pain to my battered, exhausted body. It's all in my head this time.

“Stupid, stupid bitch!” he roars. “I'm offering you the fucking universe, and you're still this stubborn. Still this insolent. Still this trapped between a rock and a mountain. This is how I'm rewarded for waiting all these months without even a note from you by goddamned pigeon? After I heard about your kid, and decided not to rip him from your guts?”

How can a human heart beat this fast when I'm too weak to fight? Even if I could get up and run without doubling over in agony, there's no way I'd make it out before he kidnaps me.

“Leave, Ethan. Please. Don't do this. I won't tell anyone if you forget what you're here to do, and go now.” I cut myself off when he backs up against the wall, stands there with his arms folded. He pouts, a look that would be laughable, if he weren't so psychotic.

“Go? Okay, cheri. We tried my way, so now we'll do yours.”

“What are you –“ I stop when I see him leave the room, listening to his footsteps thudding across the hall. He's going to the baby.

“No!” I shout. God no.

I fall all over myself climbing out of bed. The pain is worse than I imagined when I stand, and I'm on the floor in seconds, grabbing at my abdomen.

“My God, what a monster you must think I am, cheri.” His voice thunders down like a distant storm. I look up. He's standing over me with his lips in a vile smirk, my infant son whimpering in his arms, cradled by this stranger. “I'd never harm a hair on his tiny head, even if he bears a striking resemblance to his maggot heartbreaker of a father.”

“Let him go,” I whisper, struggling onto my hands and knees.

He completely ignores me. I watch him walk past me, heading for the empty baby carrier on the chair. My son goes in it. His fingers wrap around the handle.

Complete desperation doesn't explode in my brain until he's walking out, heading down the hallway, humming what sounds like a foreign lullaby to himself.

No, no, no! Please. He can't take my baby!

I never know how I make it as far as I do with the blinding pain ripping me in two. I crawl for what seems like forever, helpless as the boy in this monster's arms. I see the back door by the parking lot, the only place he could've gone, and struggle toward it.

I barely have the energy to shove it open, rolling my way out. I see the asshole standing there through my tears.

“Oh, so now you want to follow, cheri? A shame for us both it takes this kind of motivation to make you listen.”

“Whatever you want,” I whimper, my face an inch from the ground. “Whatever it takes so you won't hurt my son.”

“Marvelous. Let me load the little boy first, and then I'll help you to the car. We're going on a plane ride, cheri. We'll arrive just in time to see the sunrise, coming in for a landing tomorrow. The country outside Paris is very beautiful, and I own so much of it.” He stops, rocking the baby carrier by the handle very gently, watching my tears stain the concrete just a couple inches from my face. “I'll have a doctor check you over as soon as we're at the airport. I brought one on board for this occasion.”

The next five minutes, maybe more, are just a blur. He carries me to his car and helps me into the back, where I lay down, grabbing my side. Desperate to dull the agony.

If the chauffeur behind the privacy glass notices the baby and the limping woman he loads into the car, he doesn't ask questions. He's probably paid not to.

A spring storm accompanies us down the long, slow route on the service road to the highway. Lightning streaks across the sky, fitting and mournful, like nature itself has decided to mark the moment when my last thread of sanity snaps.

Then Ethan starts to talk about Paris, about the private nature preserve on his land with all the animals 'our boy' is sure to love, and how it's the place he always imagined getting married.

I wish for a lot of things over the next hour. Like how I'd love to not be a hostage with my newborn son to this freak, or how different timing with the nurse's car and mom's rescue could've saved me, or how none of this would be happening if Grant hadn't stabbed me in the back and decided I wasn't good enough for his senseless, hungry pierced cock.

Yes, I'm missing the bastard again, even when I'm about to be flown off to God knows what.

But my biggest wish? The one gnawing in the pit of my stomach when I close my eyes, sink into the leather seat, and ignore the fire in my pelvis sending pain everywhere else?

I wish this obsessed, violent turd would just shut up.