Blood for Lover, Tears for Luna

Chapter 2: The Plan

I stay in the shadow of the corner. The wall is cool on my cheek. The lounge light spills a thin square across the floor. I do not move. I do not speak. I listen.

Two voices. His first. Low. Careful. “Eve."

Hers next. Soft. Close. “You hardly come anymore."

My breath climbs up my throat and waits there. Eve. I know that name. She used to be his first love, the story people whispered when they thought I could not hear. When we married, he looked me in the eyes and said the past was over. He said he had broken it clean. He said he would not speak to her again. I believed him. I wore that belief like a ring.

I make myself smaller against the wall. The square of light shows the edge of his shoulder and the fall of her hair. Their heads tilt toward each other. I keep my hands at my sides and count my own breaths. One. Two. Three.

“You're always with her," Eve says. Her voice is a little laugh and a little knife. “With your Luna."

“I am where I must be," he answers. “She's pregnant."

The word sits in my chest like a stone. I touch my belly once with the back of my hand and pull my hand away again. I do not want the sound of my skin to give me away.

“Then why are you here?" Eve asks. Her words curl like steam around a cup. “Why do you come to me in the night?"

“Because you need me," he says. “Because this only works if I am careful."

A pause. The heater hums and the vending machine clicks. My world is small. It is a corner, a square of light, a whisper I cannot stop listening to.

“You told her we were over," Eve says. “You said it to her face."

“I did," he says. “I had to. She believes me because I make it easy for her to believe."

My spine pinches where the wall meets it. I remember the kiss on my forehead. I remember the way he tucked the blanket to my waist. The gestures that felt like home. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth until the taste of lemon and paper fades.

“She thinks the baby is a gift," Eve says. “An accident that became a blessing."

“It is not an accident," he says. Every word comes out neat. “It is the plan."

The word lands like a metal tray. Plan. I breathe in quiet through my nose and let it out slower than the vent.

“Say the plan again," Eve tells him. “Plain words. No clouds."

“Your blood type is rare," he says. “Hers matches yours. I married her because we needed that match."

“And the first idea?" Eve asks.

“Bone marrow," he says. “We tested. It failed."

“So you drew a new line," she says. “The next idea."

“Cord blood," he says. “From a baby born to a mother with your blood type. The stem cells can help you when marrow won't. It is the best shot left."

“And to get cord blood," Eve says, “she had to be pregnant."

“She had to be pregnant," he repeats. He does not choke on it. He does not soften it. “Four months now."

I swallow nothing. The square of light tilts a little as the building shifts. Somewhere a printer wakes and goes back to sleep.

“She thinks you made her feel safe," Eve says. “She thinks you honored her choice. Did you touch her?"

“I told you I wouldn't," he says. “And I didn't."

“Then how did you make her pregnant?" Eve asks. The words are simple. They are also a cliff.

He waits just long enough for the quiet to grow teeth. Then he steps over it. “I hired a rogue," he says. “I brought him here. I set the time. I set the place. He did what I paid him to do."

I stop breathing on instinct. The hallway narrows to a line. My heart forgets its count and then forces itself to remember. The first love. The promise. The lie. The word plan. The word hired. They line up and make a shape I do not know how to hold.

“For me," Eve says. “For my life."

“For you," he says. “It was the cleanest path to the result we need."

“And the baby?" Eve asks. “What is the baby to you?"

“A chance," he says. “The cord is a chance. I will not waste it. I need her calm. I need her compliant. I keep her safe so nothing stops the due date."

Safe. The word tastes wrong in my mouth now. It tastes like a hand over a jar, keeping the air from moving.

“She trusts you," Eve says. “She looks at you like you are the last good thing."

“She trusts me," he says. “It keeps the house quiet. Quiet gets us to birth."

“And after?" Eve asks. “What happens to her after?"

“After, I will do what keeps order," he says. “If she accepts a quiet life, I will provide one. If she fights, I will end it quickly."

The vending machine hums. A nurse laughs far away and then lowers her voice. I stare at the tiny crack in the paint by the baseboard and feel my ribs make a small cage around my lungs.

“She will ask one day," Eve says. “Why you chose her. Why you came so fast. Will you tell her the truth?"

“I will tell her the true parts that don't hurt," he says. “I chose a family. I chose her. I kept my word."

“And me?" Eve asks. “What am I?"

“You are the reason for the math," he says.

I can see the outline of his hand on her shoulder through the glass. His thumb moves in slow circles. I know those circles. They have lived on my skin.

“Hold me," Eve says.

He pulls her in. The embrace is sure. It is practiced. It is not shy. For a second, all I can hear is the fabric of his shirt as it slides under her fingers.

“Tomorrow," he says into her hair. “I'll bring the papers the doctors need."

“Bring honesty," she says, but she says it like she is not worried at all. “And bring the guard who stares. She makes me feel safe."

He almost laughs. “You like Norrie."

“I like a guard who sees a task," Eve says. “Tasks get done."

He steps back. The light catches his profile. He looks the same as he did at my bedside. The same calm. The same clean lines. He looks like a man who would carry any weight for his pack. He looks like a man who would set down any truth that slows him.

“I have to go," he says. “Emma needs to sleep."

“Emma needs to stay useful," Eve answers, light and cruel at once.

He does not scold her. He does not correct her. He just nods. He reaches for his phone when it buzzes, glances down, and pockets it again.

“Before you go," Eve says, “tell me the worst thing one more time. Say it so I can stop making it prettier."

He does not resist. “I married her because of her blood type," he says. “We tried marrow. It failed. I needed cord blood. I would not touch her. So I hired a rogue and made sure he found her. I did it to keep you alive."

Eve closes her eyes like a prayer landed. “There," she says. “Now it holds still."

They do not notice the woman in the corner of the hall. The woman who keeps breathing in a slow, even line so she will not make a sound. The woman who is, at once, a wife, a patient, and a plan someone drew with a straight edge and a cold hand.

My baby turns under my palm, a small fish in a clear bowl. I do not press down. I do not stroke. I do not comfort with touch because touch makes noise. I comfort with thoughts instead. Hello, little one. I am here. I hear. I am still.

Eve lifts her chin. “Kiss me," she says.

He does. It is brief. It is not a secret kiss and not a shy one. It is a line they cross because they have always crossed it. Then he checks the hall with a quick glance and straightens his shoulders the way he does when he is about to walk into a room and make it obey.

“I'll come back after rounds," he says.

“Don't be long," she answers.

His steps fade the way footsteps fade when someone knows exactly where he is going. Eve touches her mouth with two fingers and smiles a small, tidy smile. She smooths her cardigan. She turns her face toward the glass and lets the window give her a perfect reflection.

I do not move. I do not speak. I stand inside the corner and let the picture print itself in my head with hard, clear lines. I used to pray to the moon for a safe house. Now I understand that the house I live in was built to save someone else.

The heater clicks off. The hall goes soft. The nurse at the far desk hums a bar of a song and stops. Eve shifts on her feet like a dancer waiting for a cue. The cue is a phone buzzing in her pocket. She checks it, smiles at something I cannot see, and slips the phone back into her sweater.

My skin feels too tight. My teeth ache from not clenching. I hold still anyway. Still is what keeps me hidden. Still is what keeps the hour from breaking.

Behind the glass, Eve speaks again. Her voice is almost sweet. “He promised you nothing," she tells her own reflection. “He promised me everything."

I think about the first day he called me by my name like it was the answer to a riddle. I think about the night under the trees when the world forgot its manners and someone's hands made my body feel like a door anyone could open. I think about the day the strip turned a color I did not have a word for and he said, We will build something soft enough to hold it. I think about belief, and how it fits until it doesn't.

I do not turn away. I let the last piece of the scene settle into place, the piece that will not let me pretend the story is different from what it is.

Eve leans her head back against the window glass and says it in the simplest way, like a fact on a chart, like a note you leave for a nurse to read at shift change. “The rogue who hurt her," she says, “was the one you hired."

And he answers, without shame, without pause, without any word that sounds like regret. “Yes."

The hallway does not gasp. The vending machine does not stop humming. The light does not flicker. Only my breath counts itself again and again, steady and small, inside a corner that holds me like a secret I do not share.

I do not walk away. I do not step forward. I do not speak. I stand where I am.