Chapter 1: Stop

Pregnant.

That's what the result said between all the numbers and long words. I was pregnant.

I stared at the results for so long that the doctor cleared her throat from across the room, a gentle reminder that she had other patients and I was sitting frozen on the edge of her examination bed like someone had unplugged me from her wall.

"Miss Elenora." Her voice was careful, like she didn't want to scare me."Are you alright?"

I wasn't, or I was. I couldn't tell which one was the louder emotion to hold on to.

"Yes." I said. "Sorry. Yes, I'm fine."

It sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than her. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and failed miserably.

She gave me the kind of smile that said she had seen this exact face on this exact type of girl more times than she could count. Then, she slid a pamphlet across the desk and started talking about prenatal vitamins and first trimester checkups and I heard maybe every third word because the rest of them kept getting swallowed by the sound of my own heartbeat and the voice in my head.

Two months.

I was two months pregnant and I hadn't even known. I had blamed the nausea on the dining hall food. The exhaustion on finals. The way certain smells made me want to walk in the opposite direction I chalked up to stress. I had an explanation for everything because I had always been good at explaining things away when it concerned me. Never digging deep until it was critical.

I thanked the doctor. I don't remember exactly what I said but she smiled again and told me to book a follow up before the month was out and I nodded and picked up my bag and walked out of the school clinic into the afternoon sun. I stood on the pavement outside the clinic and felt the weight of my world rock.

There was a baby inside me.

I thought pressing my hand flat against my stomach, just for a second, just to feel something solid. And underneath all the fear, underneath the cold crawl of what does this mean and what do I do and how did I let this happen, something else was there. I could feel it, something small and warm and stubborn. Something that felt dangerously close to joy.

One that terrified me, but a joy I wanted to feel anyways.

I moved forward deciding to stop at the grocery store on the way home.

I didn't know how I came to that decision. One moment I was standing in front he clinic, feeling confused and the next I was grabbing pasta and garlic bread and a bottle of sparkling juice into my basket, a plan forming in the back of my mind that felt equal parts brave and completely and totally insane.

I was going to tell him tonight.

Lucian

Campus favourite and captain of AUS basketball team. He was someone I thought was out of reach until I spilled my drink all over him after a game night in the beginning of the school year and was too spooked to apologize. The rest as they say, was history. He was my first and only love and I knew he felt the same. But a child changes alot and I didn't know how much change it would bring to us.

Lucian had been asking me to cook for him for three weeks. I had been putting it off because cooking for someone felt intimate in a way that made me nervous even after everything we had already shared. But tonight felt right. Tonight I needed something in my hands, something to do, something that wasn't just sitting alone in my apartment with this secret pressing against my ribs.

I would make dinner. We would eat. And then I would tell him.

The plan was simple enough. I called him on the walk back.

"Hey." His voice came through low and rough like he always sounded whenever he was stressed.

"Hey." I said. "Don't come over until eight. I need time."

There was a pause. "Time for what?"

"Don't ask questions, Ice. Just come at eight."

He was quiet for a second and I could almost imagine the small pull at the corner of his mouth when he was thinking."You're cooking."

He said that with a finality that says he knew me well enough. So much for the surprise.

"Goodbye, Lucian." I huffed feeling like a disappointed teenager.

He laughed then, "I'll be there at eight, Icy."

Icy and Ice, those where the nickname we came up with because of how similar our eyes were. We kept to it ever since.

I walked home gingerly with renewed energy. I felt like the evening could never go wrong.

Lucian was responsible. That was obvious with the way he treated his team, his friend, Rivel and his cousin, Jake. He would never reject me and our child.

By seven thirty the apartment smelled like garlic and butter and something that almost resembled a real meal. I had changed twice, settled on something simple, then changed back into the first blue dress I chose, the one Lucian got for me on our first month anniversary. My hair was down the way he liked it. The table was also set and I had even lit a candle, which I immediately felt self conscious about and almost blew out before deciding to leave it.

Lucian knocked at exactly eight o'clock. I felt like he was here earlier and decided to wait the rest of the time outside. He was right on time.

I opened the door and he looked at the candle on the table behind me and then back at my face. I didn't give him much of a time as I walked into his opened arm. He wrapped his arms around me tightly.

“Looks like someone missed me so much.” he teased into my hair.

“Ice.”

“Okayy. Sorry love... It does smell nice in here.”

I pulled out of his arms and dragged him to the dining table in the corner. The smell in the room wasn't that pleasing and I decided that was probably hormones.

He decided to serve the food and we ate talking through it. Our conversations had always being easy and unhurried. He told me about practice. I told him about my thesis. He stole food off my plate even though he had more than enough on his own and I pretended to be annoyed and he pretended not to notice that I wasn't.

This was my favourite version of us. The quiet one. The one that didn't need anything to be happening for it to feel like everything.

But you still have to tell him about the pregnancy.

The thought stole in breaking the atmosphere we had but the meal was done with and I had an excuse to leave the table.

After cleaning up, we ended up on the couch. His hand found my waist and mine found the front of his shirt as the distance between us close in.

One little make out don't hurt nobody right.

He kissed me and I kissed him back and for a few minutes I forgot entirely that I had something important to say.

His mouth moved to my jaw, my neck, and I tipped my head back and told myself I would say it in a minute. Just one more minute. His hands were warm through the fabric of my top and the candle on the table had burned down an inch and the whole apartment felt like it was holding its breath with me.

Then his mouth dipped lower and I lost the sentence completely. Almost.

"I have something to tell you." The words came out more like a moan than a sentence because he chose that exact moment to suck my nipples through the soft fabric of my dress.

He didn't hear me. Or he heard me and decided to pretend he hadn't.

"Lucian." I tried again.

He hummed against my skin.

"Stop." I said.

He stopped immediately. His head came up, eyes finding my face, and the warmth in them shifted into something careful.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"No." I said. "No, you didn't. I just need to tell you something and if I don't say it now I'm going to lose my nerve completely."

He pulled back and gave me the space to breathe, one hand still resting lightly at my waist, his eyes steady on mine.

It's now or never. It's easy. I'm pregnant. Simple.

I opened my mouth.

My phone chose that exact moment to ring.

I almost ignored it. I looked down at the screen meaning to reject the call and felt the intention die in my chest when I saw the name.

Elira. My aunt. It was past ten o'clock and she never called this late. Not once in twenty one years had my aunt called me after nine pm.

I picked up.

"Aunty—"

I didn't finish. The sound that came through the speaker stopped every word I had.

Furniture. Something heavy hitting the floor. Footsteps, fast and uneven, like someone running through a house in too much hurry to care about what they hit. A voice in the background, low and urgent, that I didn't recognise. And underneath all of it, my aunt's breathing, ragged and close to the speaker like she had the phone pressed right against her mouth.

"You don't have much time." Her voice was stripped of everything except urgency. "They are going to come for you. I can't explain right now, just listen to me. Find the Elenora history book. Find it and read it." A crash. Closer this time. "And Lena, stay away from Alphas. Do you hear me? Stay away from—"

The line went dead.

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard in my entire life.

What was that? What was going on?

I was still staring at the screen when Lucian's hand tightened slightly at my waist.

"Lena." His voice was quiet. Careful. "What's going on?