Page 18 of Brood (After the End #5)

Chapter Seven

Two weeks after that night, I’m waiting for Dr. Cameron to let me into the examination room.

My period is five days late.

Will and I have grown more and more excited as each day passes, but I’ve worked hard not to be too expectant. I don’t want another crash of disappointment.

But maybe…

Maybe.

I perk up when the main clinic doors open. Will was supposed to be here five minutes ago, and I’m getting antsy waiting for him. He remembered what he said after my last appointment with Dr. Cameron and promised to go into the room with me today.

My heart and shoulders sink when it’s Glenda, one of the nurses.

She’s a friendly, curvy woman in her late twenties, and she smiles sympathetically. “I’m sorry you’re having to wait. His last appointment went long. I’m sure you’re bouncing to get some news.”

I would be bouncing if Will weren’t late. Dr. Cameron will summon me any minute, and he won’t let me delay until my spouse arrives.

Spouses aren’t even supposed to be present during exams, but Will was sure he could make it happen.

He needs to be here to make it happen, and there’s no sign of him yet.

When Dr. Cameron appears at the exam room door three minutes later, Will still hasn’t shown up. I stand, glancing a few times toward the main hallway. “Will said he was going to come today.”

“He probably got busy, peaches,” Dr. Cameron replies in his weirdly melodic murmur. “Chief Will has a big job. And we don’t need him here, do we?”

It feels like I do need him, but that’s not something I’m allowed to admit. I follow the doctor into the room and slump into the chair.

It smells like antiseptic. The entire room is filled with it. There’s not enough airflow, and I’m hit with a wave of nauseating heat. “He’ll be here. He’s running late.”

“I’m sure that’s all it is. But we’re not going to wait for him, are we? Go ahead and take off your bottoms so we can get started.”

“Oh.” My fingers hover on my waistband. “I thought maybe it could be only a blood test today.”

“We’ll do the blood test, but we won’t have the results right away. I also need to perform a physical exam to make sure all is well down there.”

All isn’t well.

My stomach churns.

I cast one more lingering glance toward the door, but there’s no sight or sound of Will.

He said he’d be here. He said the only thing he had on his schedule today was a council meeting this morning, but they never go past midday. It would have been over more than an hour ago.

“What’s the matter, peaches?” Dr. Cameron glances up from the shiny tools he’s laying out. “We’re not a little girl anymore, are we? We can handle a simple examination on our own.”

My cheeks burn, and I pull down my pants and underwear before picking them up and laying them neatly on a chair. I make sure my trousers are draped on top so my panties won’t be seen. A ridiculous irrationality but one I perform every time.

Then I sit down in the chair. Settle my feet inside the stirrups.

He secures my wrists with the clamps and levers the chair into position with my feet higher than my head.

I’m way too hot. Closed in. The room spins around me as I try to breathe slowly.

Dr. Cameron is pulling my knees apart. Inserting the speculum. Widening it to stretch me open.

A couple of tears stream out of my eyes and down into my hair. I might vomit.

Will promised he’d be with me for this.

But he doesn’t come.

* * *

I leave the room forty minutes later, limping and shaking and still slightly dizzy. I don’t yet know if I’m pregnant or not.

And Will never showed up.

I round the corner of the hallway and nearly run into someone waiting for me.

For a moment, my heart jumps. Maybe it’s finally Will. Maybe they kept him out of the clinic, and he’s been here waiting for me.

But no. It’s Bella.

Not Will.

She remembered me. She cares about how the appointment went. Will apparently doesn’t.

Bella is smiling at first, but her expression sobers as she scans my face and body. “Oh no. You’re not pregnant?”

“He doesn’t know yet. He has to wait for the results of the blood test. Either late today or tomorrow morning.”

“Okay.” Her eyebrows pull together. “What’s the matter, then? Something is wrong.”

“It’s…it’s nothing.”

She puts her hands on my shoulders. “Cadence, what happened? Did he do something to you?”

“N-no. It was…normal.” On the last word, I burst into tears.

She pulls me into her arms and lets me cry.

Maybe I don’t have Will, but I have her.

* * *

Fortunately, I planned ahead today and saved my shower until after the exam. When I return to our quarters, I drag off my clothes as I walk, drop them on the floor, and step under the spray in an attempt to wash the afternoon away.

When my ten minutes are done, I put on clean clothes and collapse on one of the lounges in the fetal position, waiting for Will and struggling to shake off the aftermath of that exam.

It shouldn’t have been any worse than all the other ones I’ve had in my life. Nothing different happened in the procedure itself. But it felt worse. It felt awful. Like an invasion. Torture.

And all the worse because Will let me down.

I talked it over with Bella after I stopped crying earlier. We agreed that he probably had something legitimate with work come up that prevented him from attending. He wouldn’t have forgotten about it. That’s not like him at all.

But Bella and I also agreed that my reaction proves I’m too emotionally dependent on him. It’s fine to like and trust one’s spouse, but I can’t fall apart completely every time he’s not there to hold my hand.

It’s my fault. I’ve always been too emotional. I can still try to be a good spouse to him. We can go through life together and make babies.

But I can’t continue feeling like this. Like the foundation has been yanked out from under my feet.

I might not be naturally gifted in detachment, but I need to try in this the way I’ve tried with everything else in my life.

I wait in our quarters for almost two hours, but Will never shows up. At four, I return to the kitchen for my work shift, and he doesn’t arrive to summon me into the hallway for even a quick update on the appointment the way he did one other time.

No one has heard of any emergency happening on our level that would keep him busy all afternoon.

Maybe he did forget.

Maybe I’ve been inflating my place in his life.

Maybe I’m not very important to him.

Bleak thoughts, but they don’t go away even as I struggle to focus on making protein-block stew even slightly more appetizing.

The protein tastes different again today. A trivial incongruity that bothers me unduly.

My shift is over, and I’m at the dinner table with Bella and her spouse, Trevor, when Will finally makes an appearance. He comes bursting through the dining room doors, searches the tables quickly, and then strides toward me.

He’s tense. I can see it in the set of his shoulders and his jaw despite his typically unrevealing expression.

He slides onto the bench next to me and says in a hoarse murmur, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I make myself smile at him even though it might tear my face in two.

“No, it’s not. I couldn’t get away. How was it?”

He’s speaking softly, and only Bella is watching, but I don’t want to have this conversation in public. “It was fine.”

“Cadence, tell me—”

I make a face and a hushing gesture. I’ve barely gotten control of emotions, and now his urgent questions are an attack. A bombardment. I can’t talk to him right now. Not in front of most of Level One.

Chief Brody is sitting beside Dr. Cameron at the chiefs’ table. Both of them are looking at me—as if I might have been the topic of conversation. I hate that their eyes are on me. I want to hide and can’t.

Will makes a frustrated sound but visibly bites back an argument. He scowls as he rushes through his meal.

Bella helps out by asking Tara a question about the kind of food they ate on Level Two.

I try to keep up with my part in the discussion, although Will doesn’t participate at all. He’s not happy, but neither am I.

When I’ve emptied my plate, he scoops up the last of his stew in a final mega-sized bite and stacks my bowl on his to carry them over to one of the dirty-dish carts.

Then he returns to our table, leans over to take my elbow, and pulls me to my feet. He uses a hand in the middle of my back to get me walking out of the dining room and into the hallway toward our quarters.

I comply automatically. Partly because I’ll never make a scene, and partly because I need to talk to him eventually.

“Cadence!” The voice is female and slightly breathless. Bella has come after us.

I turn back.

She shoots Will a wary look. “If you want to hang out, I’m free this evening.”

Despite my rising anxiety, my heart softens at the offer. She’s trying to give me an out. An escape. In case Will is bullying me into something I don’t want to do.

“I’m okay,” I tell her, only a slight wobble in my tone. “I need to talk to Will. It’s really all right.”

I know without doubt that Will would never hurt me, and I’ve assured Bella of this more than once. But he looks kind of rough and impatient right now.

Bella is trying to help.

“Okay,” she says with one more look at Will.

Will asks gruffly, “Can we go now?”

“Yes. We’re going.” I wave at Bella as we start walking again.

Will is as silent as I am on the walk to our quarters, but once we’ve entered and the door has slid shut, he turns me to face him. “Tell me what the fuck is going on. Are you pregnant?”

“I don’t know yet. He doesn’t have the blood test results yet.”

“Then what’s wrong? What happened?”

It’s taking every ounce of control I possess to maintain a mostly calm demeanor. Will’s urgency isn’t helping at all. “Nothing happened. What do you mean?”

“I mean something is wrong. You think I can’t see it?” He runs a hand through his messy hair. His skin is slightly damp from perspiration. “Did that man hurt you?”