Page 134 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

“I’m bleeding,” I told Dave in a small voice once I emerged fully dressed from behind the car. “But only very lightly. That doesn’t have to mean anything, does it?”

“Any pain?”

I shook my head. Kevin gave me a reassuring smile, pushing his glasses higher up his nose.

“Good. Tell me right away if it gets worse.”

“I can feel them moving in their usual way,” I interrupted him. “Surely it can’t be bad if everything else feels the same?”

Dave bit his lip, the pragmatic, truthful doctor in him battling with the friend who wanted to comfort me.

“We won’t know more until we get to a hospital, Renny,” he told me gently. “It absolutely can be harmless. But darling, it also may not.”

“Any hospitals in these regions, Dave?” Einar asked, pacing around the three of us as he rubbed his lower jaw until it turned pink.

“A couple south of here, but ... they have to evacuate all the time due to the swarms,” Dave replied. “And anyway, given what I’ve heard from Paoli I can’t say I’d recommend going there. The situation is not urgent yet. Until it becomes so, I say let’s not settle for substandard care. If we don’t push on to Lausanne now, we may not get another chance if Renny’s labour starts early ...”

“I haven’t even reached the viability week yet,” I pointed out with no effort to rein in the hysteria that had crept into my voice. “If labour starts now, then there’s no hospital in the world that could help. I say we wait it out, let the swarms move out of our way before we continue.”

Before I even finished talking, all three interrupted me simultaneously.

“They may be able to prevent early labour,” Dave said calmly.

“It’s about your safety too, for fuck’s sake, Renata, not just the babies,” Einar roared with agitation.

“The swarms may block us out even worse.” Kevin’s voice was tense and apologetic. “It’s getting warmer, and they have little reason to head back south.”

“Right, enough of this.” Einar resumed his pacing.

“We’re going to have to try and take the St Bernard,” he announced uncompromisingly once he stopped, the biting tone only betraying his own apprehension.

“No!” I objected just as Dave said, “I was thinking the same thing, mate.”

“We’ll do no such thing,” I protested. “Six kilometres in a tunnel? High up in potentially freezing mountains? Have you goneinsane?”

I stood facing Einar with as defiant an expression as I could muster, my hair flying madly around my face in resemblance to Medusa’s coiling snakes.

Dave tried saying something, but with hardness in his eyes, Einar spoke loudly over him, “Not up for a discussion, Ren.”

“What, will you drag me to the car by force and lock me in if I disagree?”

I crossed my arms on my chest, ignoring the protests of my breasts, growing more tender and swollen with each passing day.

“I think we both know the answer to that one, darling.” Einar smiled coldly at me, but some semblance of warmth re-emerged in his eyes.

“Please, I can’t let the three of you risk?—”

“Our lives for the lives of two infants and their mother, whom we all love in our different ways?” Dave cut in, taking a step closer. “And just what kind of men would we be if we didn’t? I’m with Einar on this one, Renny. I’m sure he can manage on his own, but if he couldn’t, I’d help him with the dragging and locking up.”

I closed my eyes briefly to compose myself.

“Alright, Dave, we'll split up then. You and Kev can wait it out. Einar will take me to Lausanne via St Bernard,” I suggested once I opened my eyes again.

All three opened their mouths to protest, but to my surprise, Kevin spoke first, “No, Renata. We owe our lives to you, and I for one would like to pay the debt. Einar may need a backup on theway, and you may need medical attention. We’re coming with you whether you like it or not.”

I looked him up and down like I was seeing him for the first time. Slightly overweight, pasty, bespectacled Kevin with his mousy, prematurely receding hair, who always stayed quiet and did what others told him to. Somehow, hearing him exert his authority over me, questionable as it always had been, finally broke me down.

My eyes stung as I choked with anger at being in no condition to do anything but obey those three men meekly and then let myself be rescued by them like a child with no faculty of her own, robbed of my own body by an affliction I had so readily brought upon myself.