Outcast (Supernaturals Book 2) (24 page)

Chapter 26 ~ Melissa

~~~Leigh~~~

I was sitting in Abby’s office a few weeks later when a sudden realization hit me, and I began to panic, so much so that I scared Abby enough that she called Ryan and my mother. With my vision threatening to go and no oxygen filling my lungs, I couldn’t stop her. The attack was a stupid one and brought on by the pregnancy in two ways; one being the pregnancy hormones overloading my system and the second being that I’d only at that moment realized that I had passed the three month mark in my pregnancy and I hadn’t been to the doctor. I hadn’t been taking any prenatal vitamins. I hadn’t done any of the things I’ve heard my friends say they had to do during their pregnancy.

Unbeknownst to Abby, I had been in the middle of taking notes on what I had heard her say of her relationship with Dimitri in the hopes that if one day she agreed to let me write her story, I would have a good foundation. I was writing about her pregnancy and thinking of my birthparents, and all of a sudden, the thought hit me. None of us had spent a single second thinking about what I needed to be doing for the baby in that regard. Yeah, we were trying to make her outside world better, but what about her current world? I was eating healthy, avoiding stressful situations as much as I could, and doing nothing but resting, but I was sure there were other things I was supposed to be doing.

Thinking about how bad of a mother I was turning into—and the kid wasn’t even here—caused me to burst into tears, and then the fear that I might be hurting her in some way had brought on the panic attack.

In the background of my mind, I heard Abby on the phone with Ryan then my mother as she tried to simultaneously calm me down. When my mother and mate rushed into the room seconds later thanks to magic, my breathing was easing, but I was still crying. Abby had me laid out on the floor with a cold rag on my forehead.

“What the hell happened?” Ryan asked, rushing to me and lifting my upper body so that I lay in his lap.

“I don’t know,” Abby said, relinquishing me to him. “We were working one minute and the next she was freaking out.”

“Leigh, baby, calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” Ryan said, pushing the hair back from my face and pulling my head into his lap.

“I’m…trying,” I said, through hitched breaths. “I’m sorry. I…didn’t mean…to scare…everyone.”

“Don’t worry about that. Just tell us what brought this on,” my mother said from Abby’s desk chair where she had collapsed. She looked scared, exhausted, and a bit annoyed that Ryan was the one comforting me and not her. Little things like that were starting to make me feel like family, as if I was one of her children. That thought calmed me.

“Nothing happened. I was writing. Working on the novel and thinking about your pregnancy,” I said directly to my mom, “when I realized that I haven’t been to see a doctor. I’m heading into my second trimester and haven’t been taking any prenatal vitamins. I haven’t had a checkup. Something could be wrong with me…my baby, and I don’t know it because I’m a bad mother that, until that moment, I hadn’t thought about seeing anyone.” Tears started to well in my eyes again, but Abby’s sudden burst of laughter dried them. A glance from Ryan to my mother showed that they were also relieved and were trying not to laugh at me.

“What’s so damned funny?” I demanded, glaring at Abby.

“Because you went from sitting there like you haven’t a care in the world to breathing into a plastic bag in a matter of seconds over the fact that you haven’t seen a doctor yet, and you’re only, what, maybe twelve weeks? I remember having those types of silly panic attacks. You’ll be all right. Your baby is fine. You aren’t a bad mother. A lot of women don’t even know they are pregnant until they are further along than you are now. Don’t worry. We have a doctor. I’ll make you an appointment to see him tomorrow.” She left the room shaking her head. I could hear her out in the hall talking to someone.

I turned to Ryan for help, but all he said was, “I love you,” and pulled me to him for a tight hug.

I felt like an idiot, but how was I supposed to know? I didn’t have kids. I didn’t spend much time around my mother when she was pregnant with Maddie and Grady. I wasn’t particularly close to any of my friends who had kids. All I knew was that you went to the doctor for the pregnancy test. They ran tests throughout the pregnancy to make sure things were moving along okay, and they gave you vitamins to take. I hadn’t peed on a test, so I hadn’t seen a doctor.

They could laugh all they wanted, but until I saw the doctor, I was going to worry that something was wrong with the baby. Ryan took me home shortly after that, and my panic attack was the talk of the campground. Danielle was on my side about it all. She didn’t think anything was wrong with the baby, but she understood my worry and apologized for not thinking about my needing a doctor herself.

Abby set my appointment for nine the next morning. I ended up seeing Katelyn, Dimitri’s mom, instead of the doctor because the doctor’s male status sent Ryan’s protectiveness into overdrive and our mating wouldn’t allow the man to examine me. From what I had understood of Abby’s situation was that a man couldn’t touch her in a sexual way. I didn’t think the doctor’s attempt to examine me was in any way sexual, but my body must have because it wouldn’t let him near me. Neither would Ryan. I enjoyed seeing Ryan looking sheepish at his behavior that time but was shocked at how the man had reacted to me. He didn’t show revulsion or anything like that, and he could actually examine me if he tried, but he said his brain kept screaming for him to back away from me every time he tried to get near me.

“We should have known Ryan would react that way,” Katelyn said, as she helped me into position to have my first ultrasound. “Dimitri got that way with Abby, and I ended up being the one to deliver Kayla. We don’t know why the mating with humans is so different from our mating with one another. Daniel thinks it might have something to do with how fragile the human body is, and even though you take on a number of your mate’s abilities, you don’t take them all, so you develop your own defensive mechanisms.”

“Do your men behave the way Ryan had when the doctor tried to give me a breast exam? You know, throw people across the room?”

“They can get very possessive, but I haven’t seen one act that way when they know such physical contact isn’t sexual.”

We both turned to smile at Ryan who was pacing by the door as if daring the doctor to come back. He also looked ashamed of the behavior.

“I’m betting that most of it has to do with the fact that he feels as if you are still under attack. Once you both feel safe and secure, that type of behavior might diminish. Now, let’s have a look at your baby,” Katelyn said and slid the transducer wand over my stomach. The gel wasn’t not comfortable, but the sight of the blob that appeared on the screen pushed aside my discomfort.

“He or she appears to be developing just fine. There’s a nice, strong heartbeat.” She moved the pointer over the heart as a rhythmic sound filled the air.

Ryan stopped pacing and came to the bed. He held my hand as we both stared at the screen. I had been in love with her—I was beginning to agree with Ryan that she was a girl—from the second I understood that I was pregnant, but seeing her made her so much more real than I ever thought possible. I was sure I would think the same thing when I feel her move inside me and on the day I get to hold her in my arms.

“Melissa,” Ryan murmured, pulling my gaze from the screen to him.

“What?” I asked him unsure of to whom he was speaking.

“Her name is Melissa.” This time his words came out a little clearer. “I mean, if you’re okay with that?” he asked. His look was pleading and so genuine that I had to say yes to it.

But first, I asked, “Why Melissa?” I turned back to the monitor, trying to figure out what he saw in the screen that caused him to choose that name.

“I don’t know. It was the first name that came to my mind. It feels right.”

“Melissa,” I said and squeezed his hand.

“Melissa is a beautiful name, but we won’t know what the baby’s sex is for a few more months,” Katelyn said, sounding a little shy about interrupting our private conversation.

“Ryan has been calling her a girl since the first night we found out I was pregnant. For some reason, I think I have to agree with him. Deep in my soul, I know she’s a girl.”

“Dimitri and Abby said the same about Kayla, except Abby is the one who knew her name the instant she saw her. It might be a special ability that comes with your mating, or it might be a coincidence and lucky guesses. I guess we’ll see if there are more matings like yours in the future.”

Katelyn wrapped up my appointment quickly after that and sent us back to our cabin with prenatal vitamins, book recommendations, and photos of our baby, which we promptly showed to everyone. My mother beamed at the photo, and his mother cried. Everyone agreed that the name Melissa fit her but couldn’t figure out why Ryan had chosen it. No one knew anyone named Melissa.

That night at dinner, people passed Melissa’s photos around—though by then I had put them in a small album so that no one would accidentally damage them. We talked happily of her future until my sister Maddie gave a shocked gasp that silenced the room.

“What’s wrong, Maddie?” my mother asked from her position across the table from my youngest sister.

“It’s Rachel and Gretchen. They want us to get them out of Pine Hollow the way we did the Carmichaels,” she said, handing the phone to my mother. Rachel and Gretchen were twins that Maddie went to school with, though the girls were a few years younger than Maddie. I hadn’t known they were such good friends with Maddie, but admittedly, I didn’t know much about Maddie’s social life. I had seen the twins a time or two. They’d never been mean to me, that I was aware of, but their parents hadn’t been that sociable to me.

“Their text says that they heard their parents talking about trying to find a way out of town. The Council’s edict that no one could leave Pine Hollow is hurting their dad’s business, since he has clients all over the world,” Mom said.

“Are we sure the texts are from them?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Their father is a defense attorney that focuses mostly on cases that involve humans. If he limits his business to people inside Pine Hollow, he’ll go under. Their mother writes children’s stories, so they won’t be destitute, but a number of the families working for him will,” she said, looking grim.

“Okay, but are we sure it’s the girls who sent the text? Is there a possibility that the text is a set up? The Council could be using a plausible scenario to lure us to them. The second we set foot on their land, they’ll declare war,” Mom said.

“It has to be real,” Maddie said. “Rachel and Gretchen aren’t close friends of mine. If it was a setup, wouldn’t the Council use someone closer to us?”

“Good question. But doesn’t it make even more sense to use someone like them to make things seem even less like a setup?” Dave said.

“I guess,” Maddie said dejectedly. “But if it isn’t a setup, we can’t just leave them there.”

“No, we can’t,” I said. “What do we do?” I asked Dave.

“Call them, Maddie, and put them on speaker,” he said, motioning for Mom to hand the phone to her.

Apprehensively, Maddie called the number. After two rings, a young female voice answered. “Maddie? Is that you?” she asked

“It’s me. Is this Gretchen or Rachel?” my sister asked, holding the phone out in front of her.

“Gretchen. Can you get us out?” Her words were rushed and a bit muffled.

“I don’t know. I have you on speaker. Dave and Danielle are here, and they’re a bit worried that this might be a set up.” She winced as she said this, probably feeling as if she had done something wrong, but Dave smiled and mouthed that she was doing fine.

“What do you mean, ‘a set up?’” Gretchen asked, sounding angry.

“She means that the Council doesn’t like us very much, Gretchen,” Dave said. “They aren’t happy that we left. They keep promising us that if we come near Pine Hollow they will declare war. How do we know they aren’t using you to get us to come there, so they can do so?”

“No one is using us for anything.” Her tone was fierce and believable.

“I’m sorry, but I need proof or you’ll have to get yourselves far enough away from town that the Council can’t use you to get to us before we will assist you. Can you do either of those things?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding annoyed and defeated. “Why don’t you fight them?” she asked.

“Because we don’t have the manpower nor do we want to start a war. If Pine Hollow wants to get rid of the Council, they’ll have to do that themselves. We’ll do our best to help those who want out because the Council doesn’t have the right to hold them, but we don’t have the right to make that decision for everyone else. My parents have already reported what’s going on there to the Regent. If the Regent deems it necessary for there to be a change in government, we’ll help them make the change.”

Dave told her that last part, for one to give her hope that if we couldn’t get her out, then the Regent might and two to let the Council—if they were behind this—know that the Regent knew what’s going on and may or may not be planning to move against them.