"Yvonne Navarro - One Among Millions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Navarro Yvonne)

there, and he followed us home."
McShaw leaned forward. "Ms Underwood, if he followed you home last night,
why did you wait until this morning to call us?"
Sondra looked at her hands, the knuckles red from scrubbing furiously at the filth
of this place, the fingernails strangely white under the edges from baby powder. "I-I
don't know," she whispered. "I guess I was hoping he would just go away, but when
I got up this morning and I thought about it, I realized that's probably not going to
happen."
"Has he ever tried to make contact? Threatened you?" Walters's voice was
smooth and vaguelyтАж sweet, like one of those expensive frozen drinks the upscale
restaurants served. She thought she heard all kinds of innuendo in it, as rich and
varied as the variety of liquors dumped into the exotic glasses edged with garnishes
made of fruit and plastic sticks.
 Sondra's gaze found his unwillingly and she lost herself for a single, panicked
moment, snapped back in time to answer before McShaw noticed her lag. "No."
With a dying feeling, she realized how lame all of this must sound and she had to
force the answer past her stiff lips. She had called too soon, they would never
believe her; she was alone in her efforts to protect Mallory and Meleena, as she had
been from the moment of their birth:
"We're going to have to call a doctor" the midwife said grimly. Sondra lifted her
head and saw the woman's heavy, black face peering back at her through the
inverted triangle of her spread legs and over the spasming mound of her bloated
stomach. Apprehension made her southside accent run the words together. "
You're bleeding too much and you've been in labour way too long."
"No doctor," Sondra hissed. The refusal ended in a scream as agony rippled
through her uterus, as if the child inside were trying to tear its way through the
prison of tissue and mother's blood. Had it heard the midwife's words and realized
the danger of prolonging her agony? "It's coming now!" she screamed and
pushed, bore down as she had never done before to expel the thing within her
body that was trying to kill her.
"I see it тАФ push again!" The midwife's hands were warm and wet with
Sondra's blood and they pried at her ravaged flesh for a moment, then locked
around something huge and painful. "I've got the head. Come on, Sondra тАФ if
you don't keep pushing you'll kill it and yourself besides!"
Sondra screamed again and dug into the sides of the mattress with her
fingernails, felt the decrepit fabric tear at the same time as the child shot from her
body with a wave of pain that nearly made her lose consciousness. Dear God, she
thought disjointedly as she fought to find her breath, why hadn't the mound of her
stomach grown smaller? Was it afterbirth тАФ could the fruits of her coupling have
filled her with that much dark debris?
She was still panting from Mallory's birth when deep within her belly the fire
began anew, making her writhe on the soaked sheets and open her mouth in a
scream too huge to be heard. The midwife was there in an instant, her large, slick
hands working at Sondra's belly, kneading and pressing.
"Twins!" she declared. "Hold on, girl тАФ there's another one coming!"
Sondra's wail found substance as a second child forced its way free. Something
deep inside her relaxed and let her breathe, disregarded the short, puny cramps
that followed as the midwife worked her stomach to get Sondra's body to eject the
bloody afterbirth. "What?" Sondra finally managed, sucking in welcome air as she
fought to sit up. "W-what are they?"