5.
I froze where I stood.
My parents went to prison for a crime when I was very young, and I was sent to an orphanage.
Every kind of cold look and contempt there, I had taken it all.
Even after I grew up, plenty of people who thought themselves righteous called me the spawn of convicts, some to my face, some behind my back.
Gilbert was the one who stepped up and spoke for me, condemning that behavior in front of everyone as low and vile.
I thought I had finally met my prince.
I never imagined it was only a long, beautiful dream.
And now the dream was over.
Soon the whole basin of mugwort was spent, and that friend of Selma's spoke up again.
“Good. Now Julia slaps herself a hundred times, and with each slap she says she's a jinx, that she deserves to bring ruin down on people.”
“A full hundred, and the energy she's forced onto Selma won't dare stir up trouble anymore. It'll be gone for good.”
The commotion had drawn out a crowd of family members from the other new mothers on the floor, come to watch.
Hearing this, one older woman who was there caring for someone couldn't hold back.
“A hundred slaps? Will her face even be any good after that?”
“The girl looks pitiful enough already. Ease up, don't actually get somebody killed. The rest of us are staying here too.”
Seeing the hesitation cross Gilbert's face, Selma's eyes went red at once.
“Gilbert, my friend just told me, if this energy isn't cleared out, I, I could lose the baby in the womb.”
“Do you want something to happen to our child? I'm going into labor in less than thirty minutes. If I die, that's fine, but our baby……”
Gilbert cut in quickly. “Don't talk like that.”
Then he looked at me and dangled a promise.
“Julia, be reasonable. Once you finish these hundred slaps, I'll have them start your epidural, so you don't have to keep gritting your teeth through it. By the time I'm done with Selma, it'll be right about when you deliver too. All right?”
I let out a scoff.
“Gilbert, stop dreaming. It's not up to you to order me around when I want to do something.”
Gilbert's face darkened.
“Julia, you chose this road yourself. There's not much time. If you won't do it, then I'll just have someone do it for you.”
He shot a look at his coworkers and friends.
They started to lunge at me, to pin my arms and force my own hands against my face.
But before they could lay a finger on me, every one of them was kicked flying.
They hit the floor screaming.
Several people in white coats appeared out of nowhere and closed in tight around me, shielding me.
The next moment a coat, still warm from a body, wrapped around me.
My ex, Nolan Graves, crouched down and touched my cheek, blaming himself.
“I'm sorry, Julia. It took me this long to get to you.”
I smiled at him. “No. You came at exactly the right time.”
He drew my gaze to the window. Parked at the hospital entrance was a private-hospital ambulance, its doors thrown wide, every piece of equipment inside ready.
Nolan lifted me into his arms.
“Come on, Julia. You're delivering at my hospital. The best delivery suite, the best anesthesiologist, everything is set for you.”
I'd wanted out of this awful place for a long time. I nodded. “Let's go.”
Nolan set me down on the mobile stretcher, and just then Gilbert came running over.
He was in a rage.
“Julia, our baby is about to be born, and you're running off with this man? To where?”
“I don't care who he is. I order you to get back to that room right now!?”
Gilbert tried to drag me off the stretcher, but the second his hand reached out, Nolan seized it and squeezed until the knuckles cracked.
Gilbert doubled over on the spot from the pain.
Nolan's voice was ice-cold.
“From this moment on, the baby in Julia's belly has nothing to do with you. Everything about her delivery, I'm taking over.”
“Lay one finger on her and whichever hand you use, that's the hand I take off. I mean every word.”
