“Uh...yeah. She’s okay.”
“She?” I said, stunned. I had prepared myself for almost everything that could happen when I delivered. A girl was not one of them.
“It’s a girl?” Claire squealed.
“It’s a girl?” Bex groaned.
Jared wrapped her in a clean blanket, and carefully lifted the tiny bundle to look into her eyes. He had no expression except for the smallest hint of a smile. His eyes focused on me, and then put her in my arms as if he were passing on the most fragile, priceless, precious treasure in existence.
I nestled her in the crook of my arm, and until that moment the times I thought I had sacrificed seemed trivial. Everything and everyone in my life was less important, less urgent. My life was simply an extension of the tiny, soft, innocent wonderment before me. I knew how millions of other women before me could behave so erratic, be so forgiving, and so courageous. My heart was no longer on the inside of my body. It was in my arms.
“Jared?” Bex said. With one hand he held the door closed, with other, he gently slid Kim’s lifeless body away from the door and against the wall.
A loud bang vibrated the wall, and Bex flew back, skidding across the floor. The door blew open, and creatures filed into the room, immediately attacking. A foul odor filled the room, and I held my baby close to me. Jared stayed close, violently fending off any demons that dared get close enough to his family.
Every window on the opposite wall from the door exploded. Jared covered us with his body to shield us from flying glass. When the dust cleared, Samuel stepped into the room, standing next to a familiar face in full armor.
“Michael,” Jared breathed, stunned. It was Isaac’s father; his entire army of warrior angels behind him.
The demons snarled and shrieked.
“You shall not touch this child,” Michael said, drawing a long sword.
“Come!” Samuel challenged, raising his arms. “We welcome Hell’s most terrible wrath!”
The demon that had taken me from the Sepulchre lifted his head and bleated, and then led a charge into the street.
Bex and Claire stood to the side, watching hundreds of demons surge past them, casting off wind like a freight train barreling through the room. The clash outside between Heaven and Hell was audible, like nothing I’d ever heard before, and then at once, it was silent, crossing planes.
Jared grabbed each side of my face with a broad smile. “We did it, Nina! Heaven will protect her!”
I sighed with relief and hugged my daughter to my chest. The quiet we shared was frozen in time. The end of the war around us was instantaneous. Bex, Ryan, Claire and Jared all looked in wonder at my little girl. She lay still, peering around with her big, round, cloudy eyes, blinking at the bright light.
Jared kneeled before me, still breathing hard, his face red and marked with shades of blood and dirt from his fight to reach us. Ryan and Claire crowded around us, their worried expressions softened by the sight of the child wrapped in my arms.
“You’re amazing,” Jared said. His voice cracked an infinitesimal amount as he spoke, but I couldn’t look away to see his expression. The little girl in my arms was breathtaking.
Claire took a few silent steps until she was next to me. She rubbed her palm on her jeans and then reached out her small hand, extending her index finger to touch the baby’s pinky. “She’s…here,” she whispered, in awe.
“You did it,” Ryan said with a half-smile.
Jared crawled to the opposite side of Claire, tenderly putting one arm behind my neck, the other touching his daughter’s cheek with his thumb. He kissed my hair and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I didn’t think I could love you more than I already did.”
I looked into his eyes and smiled. “You did it, Jared. You saved us.”
Jared’s blue-grey eyes glossed over, and he pulled me closer, the three of us in a tender embrace.
After a few quiet moments, Jared’s arms tensed, and he looked to the doorway. Claire flipped around, her hands balled into fists at her side. Bex stood in front of my makeshift bed, crouched in a defensive stance.
Ryan quickly cocked his gun and aimed at the door, ready for whatever the Hybrids were bracing for. “What now?” he said, his eyes focused at the same point as the others.
Claire shoved Ryan against the wall and then pointed at him. “Stay there,” she said firmly. “Don’t. Move.”
Ryan lowered his weapon, and waited.
The door opened slowly, and a man in a white suit walked, slow and lithe, through the threshold. His hair was shiny and black, his eyes deep-set and calm. He was beautiful and grotesque at the same time; a baby-faced supermodel with eons of hate and bitterness flowing through his veins.
Bex took a step, but Claire held out her hand and flattened it against his chest, restraining him. “Stand next to Ryan.”
“But…” Bex protested.