008 A Fiery Ending

(Maya)

My baby is tiny in that bed, a tangle of wires and tape and damp curls.

Her skin is too pale. Her chest lifts in shallow, stubborn breaths.

A doctor’s voice is soft. He says words that mean we’re out of time.

I climb into the bed against every rule they have and I pull her onto my chest. “Hi, my love,” I whisper into her hair. “Mommy’s here. I’m here, I’m here.”

I sing the song I sang at two a.m. feeds.

I tell her I’m sorry. Over and over until the words break.

She warms in my arms and then she doesn’t. Her hand curls around my finger and loosens. The world narrows to the weight of her and the silence that follows.

I do not pass out. I do not scream the ceiling down. I press my mouth to her hair and I memorize it.

I put my palm over her heart and feel her being gone.

I swear, somehow, I will make them pay.

Someone comes to take her and I say no. They try and get me to leave. I say no.

I’m sobbing silent tears.

The nurse with the tired eyes says, “give her a minute,” and blocks the door with her small body.

Why didn’t I listen to Tessa? To Rhett? Why didn’t I go help my father when I could’ve?

I can’t change any of that now. If I could, I would do it so much differently.

If I’d just gone to be with Dad, maybe I could’ve helped him live.

If I’d gone with Rhett, he wouldn’t have been on that mission. Even if it never worked out for us, he’d still be alive.

Now, I think back to what Jade just said. They can get marrow from my baby girl’s lifeless body…

I can change that.

I’m barely strong enough to walk but I know what I’m going to do.

***

“Maya! You lunatic! Give me that child’s body!” Jade’s voice cracks through the front window of the mansion I used to live in with Cole.

I got her out. The nurse helped me. I told her I just needed some more time. I’m in the wing I used to live in. My fingerprint still opened the door. The party is way around the back.

They never saw my taxi come in. Lucy was hidden under a blanket. Her body so tiny and easy to hide against me.

The fire roars behind me, a living monster swallowing the walls, chewing through every memory in this place.

I’m in the bay window. Cole and Jade are on the other side of that window now.

Jade continues to scream like it will suddenly change my mind. “Do you want my son to die? Is that what you want? We still need marrow from Lucy!”

To them my daughter is nothing more than a tool.

A resource to be used until she was empty.

Now she is empty. She’s crushed against my body. Lifeless.

I’ll burn her body with me before I let them get any part of her again.

I laugh, the sound tears at my raw throat. “You’ll never get another piece of her! Not now. Not ever!”

Jade’s face twists. “You selfish witch—”

The firefighters shout from the drive. Heat presses at my skin in waves. I shift Lucy in my arms and kiss her temple.

I fix Cole with my gaze. “I know you loved me, Cole. I know you did.”

“Maya,” he says, softer, and there it is—the man I married, buried under layers of pride and anger. “Please.”

I hold his gaze and shake my head. “No more.”

Jade’s voice spikes, shrill, panicked. “Cole! Do something.”

“One day,” I say to Jade through the smoke, “even if I have to claw my way back from hell, I’ll make you choke on this.”

I look at Cole one last time. His anger is back. His doubt of me is clear.

No forgiveness. No softness.

“If you loved Owen at all, you’d do the right thing! She’s already… She’s already gone, Maya! Let her save him!” Jade’s pitch rises into something even more desperate.

But joy floods through me at the thought that Jade cannot win this one.

Not this time.

Cole makes me sick. Letting his own daughter die while he ate birthday cake for his son.

I don’t care that he loved me. He still let himself be lied to by her. He still let his own daughter be spare parts. He never checked in on her.

He just took Jade for her word. I hate him too.

The smoke thickens, curling in my lungs, making the edges of my vision pulse black.

My arms tighten around Lucy. “You get nothing more.”

Cole steps forward again. “You’re out of your mind—”

“Jade is. She did all of this.”

I see his mind working.

“Come on, Cole. A wrong paternity test? Then magically, when I’m out of the way, you find out you are her father after all. The great Cole Vance is a fool. You got played alright, but not by me.”

Cole’s voice booms, his expression twisted with disgust. “You’ve finally lost it. You’re a pathetic junkie. Just like Jade said you were.”

I look at him defiantly. His words can’t hurt me. Nothing can. Not anymore.

“If you’d asked,” I scream back, “I would’ve given Owen anything. But you don’t deserve him. And you sure as hell don’t deserve Lucy.”

“You think this makes you strong?” Jade spits. “It makes you a murderer. You’ve killed Owen!”

Her scream is pure fury, her words tumbling over each other. “You’ll burn in hell for this!”

“Then I’ll save you a seat,” I shout back, my throat shredding with the effort. “Because you killed Lucy.”

And the flames take us.