How to Slay a Beast (Book 1)

Chapter 25

"Why don't you come tell your son why his mother isn't coming home?"

"Stop saying that---Merry where have you been?" my dad called, as I walked up the stairs. h\He was talking to my grandfather in the kitchen.

"I'm talking a shower," I said, going into my room. The sword was laying on my bed. I stared at it. I'd left that in the river bed.

"Take your time, I left something up there you might like," my grandfather called. I picked it up, scabbard and all, and walked into the bathroom. I was a mess, they'd cut the jacket off of me to get to my wounds and the pants were ruined. I took them off, putting on jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt. Then I strapped the sword across my back. My hair was still a mess, muddy and bloody from my own and my mother's blood. Brushing it would take forever. And it was all in my face. I looked over at the electric razor my dad used to shave. I picked it up. time to go to battle.

**

"Richard," I said, waking. He wasn't there---I was in a hospital, "Where's Merry? Where are they?"

"She went home to change, she's fine," my mom said, she was sitting in a chair, "What were you doing out there with him?"

"It's complicated---where is he?" I asked.

"Did you know you are pregnant?" she asked.

"What---that's stupid I can't get pregnant," I said, shaking my head and attempting to get out of the bed. I needed to go find Merry. 

"You are, here's the ultrasound," she said, handing me a set of pictures, "Is it his baby? That crazy man?"

"Yes, yes that crazy man," I said, staring at the blurry, black and white photos of a child that was never supposed to be. just like it's father. something that shouldn't exist. "Is he dead?"

"Yes," my mother said, "They said he was in a coma for a while, but he's brain dead now."

"Sweet Richard," I said, putting my hand on my stomach. His unborn child, already formed in me and we didn't know it. I could still smell him, feel him holding me.

"I've never been in love before," he said, quietly, laying next to me in the grass.

"I don't think neither have I,' I said.

"I didn't know it hurt this much," he said, kissing me. holding me, pulling me over on top of him. that was when Merry was first in kindergarten, we could finally meet during the day, because she was at school. I'd missed her at school, but I had him.

"Neither did I," I said, stroking his hair as we lay in the late summer rays. Happy, free. His eyes shining so bright in the light. Eyes I would never see again. I felt tears run down my cheeks. One of our children already dead, and the living, one inside me now his last precious gift to me and Merry---

"Oh God Merry---no you need to go and find her and stop her listen to me she's going to go back out there," I said, urgently. She was his daughter through and through she would. "I can't lose her too. Not her too."

"Okay, I'll go check on her," she said, standing up, "But you need to rest. They said you were lucky not to have lost the baby after what happened."

"I didn't know," I said, quietly. Of course I didn't know after Del they swore I would never have another child. Oh Richard why couldn't you be here congratulating me on adding to the already overpopulated world with that stupid smile on your face? I know it's over populated---but it could have you in it. It needs to have you in it.

**

I walked down the back stairs quietly, and out the back door. The air felt cool and weird on my head. I'd shaved most of my hair off, leaving a longer bit down the middle, in a mohawk. The sword felt heavy on my aching shoulders.