Breath got taken from her, and a stabbing pain colder than the freezing wind got buried in her chest like an ice harpoon.
The floor disappeared beneath Lucy; it was as if she had been standing on a mat someone had just pulled from. Her heart, held by the heavy hand of confusion, seemed to stop pumping blood. True terror had scratched her with its sharp claws, and it was preparing to slice her lean flesh.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…
She pivoted. Her husband came out of the elevator with a hellish grimace on his face. He was heading straight to her; his white lab coat, shaking with his strides. He’d found out! How?! The elevator! At what point had the doors been shut?!
Bernardo had come down to the always cold garage without an overcoat; his anger must have been something else to have done it in those conditions.
“No,” Lucy groaned. And her world fell apart and crashed into the concrete floor.
All was finished in a fraction of a few seconds: her fussy escape plan, her abrupt burst of bravery, and her absurd illusion of thinking she would atone for her guilt by saving someone she herself had condemned. At that moment, Lucy realized how much she wanted to leave that desolate, cold place, and how foolish she’d been in letting things get this far. She had to lose her fifth pregnancy and feel like the most miserable person on the face of the planet, for her maternal instinct to kick in, and act based on her own free will for the first time in her life, and not because her husband told her what to do. It was a pity that such an epiphany had come when it was no longer useful, when she was already lost.
THUMP, THUMP…
Goodbye, freedom. Goodbye, Broga. Forgive me, Brun.
THUMP, THUMP…
Everything occurred too quickly; for her, though, time stretched out. Lucy witnessed the moment as if she were seeing it through a blurry lens, full of white dots waving in the air, and with her ears covered by a hiss mistaken for a cry.
She had the image of Bernardo shaking his arms, pointing at the car’s trunk, pointing at the child, and screaming. And as if waking from a hypnotic trance, the wind and rage pushed her against him, and she started punching him in the face, in the chest, in the arms. She scratched him, but he fought back, taking her off by force.
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Bernardo was speaking; he said something. No, he wasn’t speaking; he was yelling at her. He showed his teeth and barked like the dog he was. But Lucy didn’t understand. The only thing she understood was something she told herself, but she heard as if someone else had said it, “I won’t let you take the child, you son of a bitch! It’s mine! It’s mine!”
Bernardo answered. Maybe he’d said, It’s not yours! He’s not your son, you lunatic! Or maybe something more hurtful. Bernardo was very hurtful with his words.
She saw him raise a hand, then lower it. Lucy understood she had just received a slap, but she didn’t feel it; her face was too numb because of the cold to feel something; the icy wind had cushioned the pain. However, the blow pushed her back, and she lost her balance. The vehicles, her husband, her car, the child, and the concrete walls, everything spun around her. Then the floor came forward and greeted her with a rough smack.
Falling on the floor—or perhaps standing on her feet, she couldn’t tell—she saw Bernardo open the trunk and pull the beautiful little Broga out. The poor child was terrified; he was about to break down and cry. The blue blanket she’d taken from her closet, and with which she had covered the child, fell to the floor and was dragged by the wind. The blanket flew away like a dark bird.
The cloaking device she gave Broga! Where was it? Was it still in the child’s hands, or had he dropped it in the trunk?
You may not be a mother, but at least you can act like one.
She tried to knock her husband down, using the weight of her own body. Didn’t make it. She was so lightweight that a gust of wind against her was enough to minimize the impact of her blow. Bernardo was also skinny, yet he outperformed her in physical strength; if not, how else had he managed to yank Broga out of the trunk, when she’d had such a hard time getting him in?
She screamed. They screamed and struggled. Bernardo said something about the Order and that they wouldn’t forget something like this; he said something about a medical board and that they would declare her insane. He didn’t speak of the betrayal she was committing, nor that she would be thrown into a ditch with a shot in the back of her head, but some things didn’t need to be specified. That they would get rid of her was almost a fact.
She didn’t think the fuss of their fight had attracted the guards from the booth.
And suddenly, Bernardo scowled, hard. The wrinkles that the years and the chilling weather had marked on his face got exposed; his glasses slipped down his hooked nose, and his mouth opened to let out a cry of pain.
In a heartbeat, Bernardo went from struggling with Lucy to be slumped on the floor. A sturdy figure had appeared behind him: Dr. Rosa Tyler.
With her hair tousled, and a cut on her lips that bled that she didn’t remember having done it—perhaps when she had fallen to the floor—Lucy looked at Rosa, and Rosa looked at Lucy, both shrouded in thousands of restless snow particles, wild-eyed, agitated, and spitting clouds of water vapor.
Rosa’s dark skin faded in the gloom and the dim light from the lamps. Her broad silhouette stood out thanks to her pink scrubs. And in her hands, there was a shaking pipe.