The Abandon Series | Book 3 | These Times of Cessation Read online

  “The first thing we need to consider is your cervical opening,” the homeless woman said. “How long have you been having contractions?”

  “All day.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Thirty-two weeks,” she said.

  “Have they talked to you about delaying your birth?” she asked.

  “I wanted to do it naturally,” Constanza said.

  “It doesn’t get more natural than this,” she laughed, her breath sour but also slightly metallic, like she hadn’t eaten for a while.

  Constanza turned her head, desperate to avoid the smell.

  “Can you take off your pants, or do you want me to do it for you?” she asked. “Because we’ve already talked about the impossibility of trying to get this baby out with you dressed.”

  “Forgive my brutal honesty, but I’m concerned about your hygiene,” Constanza said, not wanting to offend the woman, but not wanting to be left alone to have this baby by herself either.

  “Right now, that’s the last thing you should be worried about,” the woman said. “I can go, though, let you push this child out onto the asphalt by yourself.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she quickly said.

  “Now maybe you can do that. Maybe that’s all fine and dandy. But what if the baby breeches? What if it gets stuck in the birthing canal, and the umbilical cord wraps around its neck? Then what? You just going to reach down there and drag it out?”

  “I’m not saying I don’t want you here, it’s just…have you done this before?”

  “I used to be a midwife, but that was a long time ago. As you can see, times have changed. But I haven’t forgotten the essentials. Now am I taking off your pants, or are you?”

  She felt herself shrinking inside, almost like she wanted to squeal and run, but there was no place to run, and soon enough, she’d be squealing, then screaming, then crying anyway.

  “You do it,” she said, her energy waning.

  The woman unbuttoned her pants, grabbed inside the waistband along her sides, and said, “Lift your butt up for me.” Constanza lifted, and as soon as that happened, both her pants and her underwear were dragged down to her ankles. The woman turned her head away and said, “Holy balls, did you piss yourself earlier?”

  “A lot,” Constanza admitted. “Like, gallons of it.”

  Making disapproving sounds, she pulled one of Constanza’s shoes off, then slid a leg out of her pants and underwear.

  “Spread both legs for me,” she said.

  Against, almost against her will, she indulged the woman in her request. “Anything else?” Constanza asked sarcastically.

  The woman then licked her fingers to get them clean and said, “Alright, then. Let’s see how dilated you are.”

  Constanza might have blacked out. Or maybe she put the unfolding incidents out of her mind the way a trauma patient compartmentalizes the most disturbing of events. The constant pain brought her back, however, and the next thing she knew, the woman was saying, “You have to start pushing.” Digging down, Constanza found her inner-warrior and began to push. “Okay, good. You just popped the cork.”

  “What?” Constanza asked, sweating.

  “The mucus plug. It blocks the cervical opening during delivery. This is a good thing, my dear. I mean, I’m surprised it hasn’t come out sooner, but don’t worry about that. Everyone’s body is different and you’re doing fine.”

  In the dark, she couldn’t see much, so she kept her focus on the woman’s voice, letting it guide her. Strangely enough, her bedside manner was warm and calming, which made Constanza wonder how this benevolent woman had fallen onto such hard times.

  “You’re almost there, I can feel the baby’s head.”

  “It’s a she,” Constanza finally said.

  “Give me a big push, but don’t hold the pressure in your face. You need to focus all of it on the birthing canal,” she said. “C’mon, just do what I’m telling you.”

  “I am!” Constanza said as she pushed.

  “Do you have a name for her?” the woman asked.

  “Rose,” she grunted out, sweat now soaking her hair and draining down her face.

  “Push, Constanza, push!”

  Her pelvis felt like it was being pulled apart, but she kept pushing. She suddenly felt her bowels loosen, and instead of pushing the child to freedom, she barked out a bucket’s worth of diarrhea. The shame she felt went from four-hundred percent to about a thousand, but the homeless woman just told her that was natural, that it was okay, and to keep pushing.

  The second she started pushing again, she didn’t stop but to take a breath and push even harder.

  “The head is out,” the woman said, excited, “and now the shoulder!”

  Constanza felt the child slide out of her. When the baby was fully out, she lay back on the asphalt, breathing heavy, the struggle and the pressure finally over.

  Exhausted, but resting, she panted and she cried, but then she didn’t hear anything from the child. Tilting her head up, she saw the woman holding the baby in one arm while it looked like she was biting the umbilical cord in half with her teeth.

  What the hell?

  Then, on her own, Rose started to cry, filling Constanza with an incredible amount of both love and relief.

  “Do you want to hold her?” the woman asked. Constanza nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “While you do that, I’m going to gently press on your stomach. You should still be feeling light contractions.”

  “I feel them.”

  “You need to birth your placenta.”

  “Do I still keep pushing, then?” Constanza asked.

  “Yes.”

  Within about five minutes, a pancake-like sack of tissue was pushed forward enough for the woman to deliver it. She held it up, along with the attached umbilical cord, then she said, “Do you want me to save this for you?”

  “Why would I want that?” she asked, repulsed.

  “To eat it, or even to dehydrate it and grind it into pill form. It’s good for postpartum depression. Plus there’s lots of nutrients it in.”

  “Yeah, I’m not eating that.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I need the baby for a moment. You have to let me check her vitals then you can have her back.”

  “She seems like she’s doing really well,” Constanza said, hopeful. “But it’s dark so…”

  “That’s why I need her for a moment.”

  She saw the woman’s lime green beanie in what light the rising moon could provide, but she couldn’t see her face, or Rose’s face, for that matter.

  “When we’re done,” the woman said, “you’ll need to put her on the nipple, get her acclimated to feeding from you.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Should I get it out now?”

  “If you’re ready,” she said.

  In that moment, all the struggle, the pain, and the fear felt worth it because she was about to hold her child! But then she thought of Rowan. If he was able to get out of his office safely—if he managed to get home—he would be so worried! But he would be sad, too. He’d talked about being there for the birth. He’d wanted Rose to see them both the second she arrived in the world.

  “You did such a good job with me, I can’t thank you enough,” she said to the woman, trying to pull her breast out of her bra. “How is she? Is she doing okay?”

  She heard movement, but the woman hadn’t responded. Maybe she was trying to see in the darkness, or perhaps she was taking the baby’s pulse.

  “Is everything okay?” Constanza asked from where she lay.

  She lifted her head up, which took a tremendous amount of strength at that point, and what she saw horrified her. The woman wasn’t holding the child, or checking her vitals. It was so much worse than that. The homeless woman and her child were no where to be seen.

  “No,” Constanza whimpered.

  She felt her heart flutter out, then begin to gallop. Her adrenaline surged, but it wasn’t enough for her
to spring to her feet and take chase, certainly not after pushing a child out of her.

  Blinking back the tears, her pants and panties still around one ankle, she lay there with her bare ass on the asphalt, bleeding, sobbing, and scared.

  “Get up, crybaby,” she told herself.

  She pushed herself up into a seated position. She had blood and discharge all over her vagina, butt, and thighs, and the dried urine was all over her legs and it felt sticky. Using what she was sure was the last of her strength, she reached down, pulled her panties and pants up, then managed to stand and not fall back over. She looked around, but then she noticed that even her placenta was gone. In that moment, she stood there, overcome with panic, not sure what to do.

  “Think!” she told herself in a berating tone.

  The woman who stole Rose had been wearing a Cincinnati Bengals jacket and what looked like a lime green beanie. And she was wearing old jeans and something like Reebok’s or Nikes.

  Other than to provide a cursory description of the woman she’d seen in the light of the setting sun, Constanza couldn’t offer much more.

  She had to do something, though!

  With no other choice but to move, she started walking in the logical direction, which was across a stretch of grass and into the long grove of trees.

  She didn’t realize she was still bleeding, or that she’d already lost a lot of blood, until she started feeling woozy.

  Slowing, stopping, she sat down and felt the raw pain in her perineum. Did she…was she torn open down there?

  She felt the world tilt, the blackness of night get deeper by the moment. Then the tilting world began to slant and swim, and she saw a rather large man walk out of the trees, just as homeless as the woman who had stolen little Rose.

  She knew she was falling, but she couldn’t even react. She hit the hard grassy mound, felt the darkness crowding in. She was nearly unconscious when a pair of big hands scooped her up. The last thing she remembered was being carried into the trees.

  After that…nothing.

  Chapter Six

  Rowan McDaniel

  “These freaking idiots,” Rowan roared, his bad mood souring even further.

  “How did they cut the power to the entire block?” Tommy asked. “There’s no way they could do that!”

  Rowan picked up his cell phone to call one of his contacts in the police department but his phone had died.

  “I need to borrow someone’s phone,” he said. Brian handed him his phone. It was dead, too. He handed the iPhone back to Brian and said, “Clair, is your phone charged?”

  “Yeah,” she said, getting it out of her purse. She went to turn it on and hand it to him, but the screen was dark. “Wait a sec…that’s odd.”

  “My phone is dead, too,” Tommy said. “I just took it off the charger an hour ago, so if it’s dead, it’s probably not a battery problem.”

  Down on the street, the people trying to leave the burning condominium had reached a standoff. All around them, surface layers of the building’s siding were turning to ash and falling down below. The fire wasn’t completely out of control, though. And no one was hit from flaming debris that he could tell. Still, the smoke was bad and the HR offshoot turds wouldn’t let the residents out into the streets.

  Halfway up the condominium, some guy in boxers walked out on the ledge closer to the affected area. He was carrying a fire extinguisher. Seeing this guy up there damn near stopped Rowan’s heart. But then the boxers guy got near the ledge, walked into the smoke, and emptied the contents of the canister into the flames.

  The big puff of powdery-white discharge overtook much of the fiery area, stifling the flames to the point where most of them went out. Was it just fuel burning, or was there something on the surface that was on fire? Maybe the buildings were fire-safe after all, and he just didn’t know it. He prayed that was the case.

  When the boxers guy was done, he emerged from the smoke, looked down on the crowds of anarchists, then hurled the fire extinguisher into the middle of them. The heavy canister hit some guy in the back as he ducked away, which caused him to fall down and reach for his spine. A second later, the guy on the ground looked like he was howling in pain. Rowan felt himself start to laugh, and then he heard Brian break into laughter beside him.

  “Give that guy a medal,” Brian said.

  Outside, the sun slid behind the clouds, casting shadows over the late-afternoon scene. Rowan addressed his team. “Does anyone have any objection to staying the night here?”

  “Do we really have a choice?” Tommy asked.

  An unexpected knock on the office door startled them all. Rowan went to the door, assuming that if one of those riotous turds breached the building, the last thing they would do was knock on doors to announce their presence. He opened the door to a guy in his early- to mid-thirties with dark hair and concerned eyes.

  “Hi, I’m Dave from downstairs,” he said.

  “From the first floor or the third floor?” Rowan asked.

  The first floor was a mortgage group and the third floor was a property management group. The second floor was being renovated by a local bank. They were putting the final touches on a customer service call center, meaning lots of phones and computers. From what he heard, the city was approving last-minute adjustments.

  “First floor,” Dave said. “The lobby is kind of small and walled off, but I think it should be guarded. We’re taking shifts, if you can manage it. I’m sure you know by now that we’re sort of stuck in here.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “And that we’ve had a severe power outage.”

  “What do you mean, severe?” Rowan asked, knowing full well what this meant.

  “Like…and I don’t mean to alarm you…but, so severe it might be catastrophic.”

  “I gathered as much,” Rowan said. “Is the garage locked off?”

  Dave nodded, then said, “The gates won’t work without power, nor will the keycard doors. The only way to get inside the garage is through the door on the sidewalk, the brown one to the right of the gate.” Meaning the only access was via the street, which was out there with all those animals.

  “What are you going to stand watch with?” Rowan asked. “Do you even have a way to protect yourself, or stave off anyone trying to get inside?”

  He was thinking about his car, and his gun.

  “My manager had a pistol in his desk drawer,” he said. “Hopefully, that’s the way we’re gonna keep these cretins out.”

  “What kind of pistol?” Rowan asked.

  “Smith & Wesson .44, but I don’t know the model, or whatever. You put six big-ass bullets into the cylinder wheel, you thumb back the hammer, you point and shoot. I’m not a gun guy, so you’ll have to forgive me.”

  “Is he making the weapon available for all people on door duty, or has he limited it to just you and your guys?”

  “Everyone on duty.”

  “I’m Rowan McDaniel,” he said.

  “I know, man. We all subscribe to your newsletter.”

  “The Columbus Contribution?” he asked, innocent, like he was just a regular press.

  Smiling knowingly, Dave shook his head. “No, man. The other one.”

  He frowned, played dumb.

  “The Dissident Weekly,” he said.

  “I’m not sure—”

  He patted Rowan’s shoulder and said, “I know, I know…it’s not your publication. But for the record, we’re all in the know down there.”

  “That’s good to know,” he thought, thinking Brian or one of the team must have leaked the info out.

  Outside the building, someone fired a big-bore rifle, causing them to pause and listen. When they didn’t hear another report, Rowan asked, “When do the shifts start?”

  “We’re all doing two-hours at a time. First us, then the property management guys on three, then you guys here on four. How many able bodies do you have?”

  “Three who can stand watch,” Rowan said. “Myself
included.”

  “Good, that’s good,” Dave said, thinking through something. “Shifts start at sundown and we’ll rotate up.”

  He nodded, then said, “I guess we’ll see you then.”

  Rowan closed the office door, locked it, then went back into the main office. “It would seem everyone in the building is staying the night. We’re going to rotate lookout shifts.”

  Another gunshot went off down in the street.

  “What is that?” he asked turning his attention to the streets below.

  Clair said, “The lofts across the street are smoking, but not burning. But people are trying to come out. That guy on our side of the street, a few buildings down, is shooting anyone trying to leave.”

  They all got really silent, and then he said, “This is the tipping point, ladies and gents. Right now. Tonight.”

  “So what do we do?” Dhanishka asked.

  “Get as much shut-eye as possible, because if these pugnacious cocksuckers don’t kick things off tonight—which would be typical in their case—then mark my word, tomorrow…it’s gonna be on like Donkey Kong.”

  Chapter Seven

  Rowan McDaniel

  Rowan managed to get six hours of sleep before someone lightly knocked on the door, waking him. Between him, Brian, and Tommy, he had opted to take the first shift, so he was ready to go. He opened the door to pure darkness. In this perfect darkness, a man who was not Dave said, “I’m Lucas from Flannigan Property Management downstairs.”

  “Rowan,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

  A hand reached out, found him, then the man said, “I’m handing you the gun.” Rowan took it, presuming it was the one Dave the mortgage broker had mentioned earlier.

  Rowan felt the pistol, confirmed it was a revolver, then said, “Alright. I’ll see you when I see you next.”

  He heard Lucas shuffling down into the stairwell; Rowan shut the office door behind him and followed the sounds of Lucas’s footsteps.

  Downstairs in the lobby, it was cold and pitch black. Outside, he was able to see multiple bonfires burning in the street. Around the massive fires, people were dancing to the sounds of guys making beats with their hands and mouths.