Chapter Eighteen

Madelyn

Pregnant.

As much as she didn’t want to believe it, that was what the test results she held in her hand said clear as day. That and she was mildly anemic. Either way, it explained why she had felt like such crap these last few days. She was pregnant, and only one guy could be the father. It just didn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t have been possible.

When she had come into the clinic and told them about her symptoms, they had insisted on running a whole battery of tests, ‘just to be safe’. Vitals, blood, urine—they had done it all. While she didn’t know what she had expected; cold, flu, stomach bug, she didn’t once even consider that this might be the cause.

“I don’t understand,” she said softly, unable to look away from the one word on the page that was changing her entire life. “I’m on birth control. I’ve been on birth control since I was a teenager. How is this?—”

“It happens sometimes,” Dr. Price replied, the tone of her voice implying that it was not a big deal. “It’s rare, but it happens. I’m guessing this isn’t what you expected when you came in today?”

Madelyn scoffed a laugh and shook her head. “No. This was definitely not on my bingo card.”

She had heard stories about it happening before, women getting pregnant while on birth control, but they had been so few and far between that she never thought it would happen to her. To top it off, it could not have happened with the worst possible man.

Xavier was a murderer. He had admitted to killing countless people, and he’d stalked her for months. Unhinged didn’t even begin to describe the guy, and then there was the fact that he was a shifter. What did all of that mean for the tiny life that was now growing inside of her?

Because she didn’t know very much about shifters, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to raise one. It wasn’t like there were any baby books on the subject, and Xavier was out of the picture since she had no intention of telling him about the baby. Why would she? She wasn’t the kind of girl to try to trap a guy by getting pregnant, and he had moved on already anyway.

“I’m going to set up a referral for you to see Dr. Catherine Diaz,” Dr. Price continued, making a few notes in her file. “She’s an amazing OBGyn and a very good friend of mine. She can tell you how far along you are and go over the next steps. You will be in good hands with her.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, deciding not to comment on the fact that she already knew how far along she was. She may not know which time he had knocked her up, but she still had a fairly good idea.

She also knew what the next steps would be as well. Months of morning sickness, weird cravings, weight gain, and that was if she decided to keep it. That was something she was going to have to figure out sooner rather than later. She doubted that she was capable of handling being a single mother to a shifter child, but she didn’t think she would ever forgive herself if she got rid of it. It was not the kind of decision that could be taken lightly; it was one that required a lot of thought.

Madelyn ran her fingers through her hair, unable to believe that she was in this position in the first place.

Dr. Price seemed to be oblivious to the downward spiral that was going on in her mind. “In the meantime, I’ll prescribe some prenatal vitamins and anti-nausea meds. They should help give you some relief and allow you to get some food in you.”

Nodding, Madelyn cleared her throat. She couldn’t freak out, not yet. She could at least wait until she got home before she lost it. “Thank you, Dr. Price. I appreciate it.”

The doctor patted her leg in response. “Chin up, Madelyn. This is supposed to be the happiest time in your life, becoming a mother. Once the shock wears off, you will see that.”

She highly doubted that.

Rising to her feet, Dr. Price picked up the file and headed to the door. Just before she opened it, she looked back at Madelyn from over her shoulder and smiled. “You are good to go. You can get dressed. I’ll go put in the referral and the prescriptions. Take care of yourself, Madelyn, and take it easy the next few days. At least until you regain some of your strength.”

“Okay, will do,” Madelyn replied, jumping off the exam table. She was more than ready to get out of there because she was in desperate need of some fresh air. The room was beginning to feel stuffy and small.

“Oh, and congratulations, mama.” With that and a wink, the doctor vanished down the hall, leaving Madelyn staring after her.

Madelyn managed to dress herself in a kind of daze. Her mind was still reeling from the news she had received, and she was still having trouble believing it even though the proof was right in front of her. She kept looking at the test results, thinking they had made a mistake somehow. But every time she looked, it only drove the fact home.

After getting rid of the scratchy hospital gown and changing back into her own clothes, Madelyn picked up her purse and then made her way to the pharmacy counter. The clinic must not have been that busy because they handed her a small white bag with her medications as soon as she showed them her ID. Madelyn shoved the bag into her purse before wandering into the waiting room where Bernie was still waiting for her.

He jumped up as she approached and looked her up and down expectantly. “Well?” he asked as she led him quickly out of the building. She couldn’t seem to get outside fast enough. “Did they figure out what’s going on with you?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replied. “Yeah, they did.”

There was always the option to lie to him. She could say that it was just a cold and that she was fine, but she was just so sick of all the lies. She didn’t want to do it anymore, nor did she have the strength to keep them all straight. So, at that moment, she decided that the truth was all she had.

Bernie laughed when she didn’t say anything more and gently grasped her arm just before she stepped into the parking lot. “Well? Do I need to start planning your funeral, or are you going to get better soon?”

“Um, define soon. Because what I have usually sticks around for about nine months or so. Plus side though, I’m fairly certain it won’t kill me.” She wasn’t trying to make light of the situation. It wasn’t anything to laugh at, but humor was her defense mechanism, and she was feeling rather defensive.

Bernie, however, didn’t laugh. He just stared at her in surprise. “You’re… you’re pregnant?”

“Yup.”

Madelyn went to step around him to go back to the car, but Bernie was in front of her again. “Hang on. You just told me on the way here that there wasn’t a man in your life. Are you holding out on me, kiddo?”

Laughing softly, she shook her head. “No, I’m not holding out on you, Bernie. There is no man in my life. I thought there might be for a bit, but it didn’t work out.”

The two started walking again, crossing the parking lot together. “Are you going to tell him? About the baby?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I haven’t seen or spoken to him in two weeks, and another girl answered when I called him this morning. A girl he previously admitted to having a sexual relationship with. So, I’m pretty sure he’s done with me.”

“You’re joking,” Bernie deadpanned.

“Oh, I wish I was joking. That would make the fact that I’m pregnant a little easier to swallow.”

Taking her arm, Bernie weaved it through his and pulled her close. “Do you want me to kill him? Because I’ve been a cop a long time. I can do it and easily get away with it. I know what to watch out for.”

At that, Madelyn laughed harder than she had in the last several days. It felt odd, foreign considering all she was going through, but she had needed it. It provided a hint of reprieve from the darkness threatening to consume her whole.

“I’m sure you could, but that’s not necessary.”

“There she is,” he commented. When they finally reached the car, she turned and looked up at him. He poked her nose with a smile. “I missed that pretty smile of yours. In all seriousness though, Madelyn, you are going to be a wonderful mother.”

Color flooded her cheeks as she averted her gaze to the ground. “That’s very kind of you to say, Bernie, but I’m not too sure about that. My parents?—”

“Hey, I’m not talking about your parents. I’m talking about you. I know what kind of person you are, and despite what you’ve been through in your past, you have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. And I?—”

All of a sudden, a big black van skidded to a stop in front of them where they were standing next to Bernie’s station wagon, cutting off whatever Bernie was about to say. As the back door of the van flew open, Bernie shoved her behind him protectively, but then she heard a strange popping sound, and Madelyn found herself splattered with warm, sticky blood. Bernie’s blood.

Everything happened so fast that she didn’t even have the chance to scream. All she could do was stare stupidly at the gaping hole in the back of Bernie’s head. She realized that she was looking at parts of his skull and brain too. She had seen much worse on TV and in movies, but it was somehow vastly different when seen in person.

It seemed to take his body a few moments to catch up to the fact that he was dead too. Then, when his body finally collapsed onto the pavement at her feet, Madelyn found herself facing none other than Colby, the guy who was after Xavier, and the gun he had just used to kill her friend.

Lowering said gun, Colby smirked at her, pinching the claw marks that ran down the side of his face, which Xavier had given him the day she found out what Xavier was. Half of Colby’s face was scarred now, and it also looked to be infected.

“Hello again, Madelyn. Long time no see.”

“What did you do?” she gasped, her eyes filling with tears.

Two guys grabbed her arms, her purse clattering to the ground next to Bernie’s body, and they began pulling her toward the open back door of the van.

“What did you do?” she screamed again, struggling against the guys’ grasp. “What did you do?”

“What I had to,” Colby told her as they passed.

The guys tossed her unceremoniously into the back of the van and climbed in after her to hold her down. Colby climbed in last, closing the door behind them. Within seconds, they were speeding off. The whole ordeal felt like it had taken forever when it had happened within a matter of seconds.

One of the guys zip-tied Madelyn’s hands together while the other did the same to her ankles after she had kicked him in his face. Colby just sat there, his back resting against the back of the passenger seat, watching the scene unfold.

A gag was placed over her mouth, though it wasn’t necessary. Whether it was the shock of watching Bernie die so suddenly or the knowledge that she was being kidnapped by trained assassins, Madelyn had given up. She stopped struggling and trying to scream for help because both were just a waste of energy.

Bernie was dead. One minute, he was saying the nicest things to her, things a father should have said, and the next, he was gone. His life had been stolen by a man who had come for her. She just wished she knew why.

“We’re clear, boss,” the man behind the wheel said after a while. “No one’s following.”

“Good, take us back to camp then,” Colby replied, tapping his gun on the side of his knee while not taking his eyes off of her. “I’m sorry about your friend, Madelyn. Collateral damage, you understand. Just like you, I’m afraid. Since I’m unable to reach Xavier myself, I have to be able to draw him out somehow. What better way to do that than by using the woman he loves, right?”

Madelyn didn’t even give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that he’d spoken to her. She didn’t even look at him. What was the point? It wasn’t like it would change anything even if he believed the fact that his plan wasn’t going to work. He would probably kill her on principle. He had said it before; no witnesses.

To Colby, she wasn’t a person right now. She wasn’t a human being with feelings or emotions, nor was she a broken woman who just found out she was pregnant with her stalker”s baby. To him, she was just a tool, a way for him to get what he wanted. However, once he realized that using her wasn’t going to get him any closer to Xavier, she wouldn’t even be that anymore. She would just be a liability. There was no way she was getting out of this. She knew that now. Death was imminent, for both her and her baby.