Page 98 of Quasim III: King Inferno

I walked as fast I could with the nurse walking beside me. We made it down the hall, and Knoxie helped her get up on the exam table and helped to clean up the blood on her leg. She pulled a small handheld machine from the drawer and put this jelly on her stomach and moved it around, becoming frustrated that she couldn’t find what she was looking for with the machine.

“What’s going on?” Dr. Ramos came into the room.

“She’s bleeding… we need to know if the baby is alright. This doppler isn’t picking anything up.”

He touched my shoulder and then went to Anjo. “Before picking my specialty, I spent a few months in labor and delivery with my attending.”

I watched as he powered on the machine and pressed a few buttons before it was fully powered on. He gently touched Blair’s hands to reassure her. Walking around the other side, I held onto her other hand while kissing it.

“I can’t look, Simmy.” Tears slid down her face as she looked up at me.

“Don’t worry about it… I’ll look for the both of us, my love.” I kissed her hand again, while rubbing her face.

Everything felt normal today.

Capri was still shaken up, so I told Blaze that he didn’t need to worry about picking Ryder up. I was going to keep her with me, so he could spend time with Capri.

She watched someone end their life in front of her. It didn’t matter how many times she had taken a life, something like that stuck with you.

Aside from that happening, today felt like a normal day.

For the first time, shit felt regular. The kids were playing card games with me most of the day, while Anjo slept beside me. With how hard she slept, I knew sleeping was the last thing she had been doing when I wasn’t awake.

Anjo had woken up and told me she was going to use the bathroom while I went to take the kids down the hall to get ice cream in the kitchen.

We had been eating ice cream, and I left them to come check on her and she still hadn’t gotten out the bathroom. Something inside of me told me something was wrong. I couldn’t explain the feeling, but it didn’t feel right when I reentered the room again.

Dr. Ramos put that same jelly on her stomach. “I can assist with seeing if the baby is alright while we wait for the OBGYN to get here. I want to rest both of your minds and give you a sigh of relief if I can.”

“Just breathe, mama… we don’t have many devices for labor and delivery here. The sonogram machine is never used for pregnancies,” Knoxie informed us.

Ramos moved it around her stomach, and it was nothing but gray fuzzy shit. He pushed down with a bit more pressure and that’s when things became clear.

My lips rested on her forehead as she squeezed my hand, nervous. She looked away from the sonogram screen, scared because of her past. I hated that she couldn’t bring herself to look. Pregnancy had brought trauma to her, and it was something scary. While it was some women’s highlight of their lives, it was different for Anjo. She had lost her baby the last time she was pregnant, and at the hands of a man that claimed to love her.

As scared as I was, I had to be strong for my wife. I blamed myself because she had been carrying all this stress and there was nothing I could do about it. They had me laid out in bed with my balls out and a catheter, and I couldn’t be the strength my baby needed to be.

“Dr. Devoe did leave her files at the nurse’s station as well.” Knoxie remembered and quickly ran out the room to retrieve them.

While Knoxie was gone, Ramos continued to move the machine around her stomach, applying a bit more pressure each time. “There we go.”

He didn’t turn to look at us, he was pressing other buttons, and then sonogram tech came into the room. “Sorry, I was on lunch.”

Ramos moved, and she sat on the little stool and moved the machine around, pressing buttons. Lines appeared on the screen, and then a full view of the baby.

“Baby, turn your head for me,” I spoke into her ear, and encouraged her.

Her eyes were squeezed shut and I’m sure she was mentally somewhere else. Slowly, she turned her head to the other side and saw what I did. The technician hit a button and the room filled with the sounds of the heartbeat.

“Heartbeat is really strong.” She murmured.

Elijah ran into the room and came to stand by me. He held Anjo’s foot, and she looked down at him and gave him a weak smile. “Is the baby okay?” Anjo questioned, desperation in her voice.

“The heartbeat is very strong, and it doesn’t seem to be in distress. Right now, I think it’s best to keep your feet elevated until the doctor comes… do you want to know the gender?”

I looked down at my wife and she looked at me, wanting me to make the decision. “Yeah.”

She nodded her head, as Knoxie came back into the room with the file in her hand. Ramos took it and scanned over everything. “You’re a breast cancer survivor?”

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