AFTER YOU SAVED ME // ZESSA

Chapter 30: Stop Calling Me Anna

Tessa's POV

Anna begins pushing on the little boy's chest with two fingers, blowing in puffs of air over his mouth and nose as I watch his chest rise and fall, then lay still.

"What's wrong with him, Anna?" I ask, the adrenaline of birth and my son's health causing me to shake uncontrollably, as if I were freezing to death.

"I think his lungs are under-developed. He's small," she says without looking up, continuing the CPR.

I cannot hold in the tears that poor down my face as I cling to my newborn daughter's healthy little body. She is looking up at me as if I were the only thing in the world right now. Is it possible for your heart to break into a million pieces while simultaneously feeling more love than you ever imagined?

Looking into her eyes, I feel all my fears of motherhood slipping away. But looking up at my son who still has yet to take his first breath, I feel all my fears coming true.

Then, a miraculous sound echoes throughout the room.

A tiny, high pitched cry escapes my baby boy's mouth, as his chest finally fills with air. Anna lurches back, holding him out in front of her in awe.

"He's breathing!" she says relieved, looking up at me with joy.

"Thank God," I whisper, leaning back against the wall as I feel the tension in my body release.

"His color looks good too," she adds, as I feel my body start to clench again.

"Ow," I moan, sitting up and moving back to my knees.

"You're delivering the placentas," Anna mumbles, nodding towards my knees.

"Wonderful," I grunt, holding my baby in one hand and bracing myself against the ground with the other.

"Let me have her," Anna says, lying my son on her lap only a few inches from me, and reaching for my daughter.

I hand her over and return to all fours again as I feel the urge to push. Very quickly, a disgusting sac of who knows what comes out of me, the umbilical cord attached to my daughter coming out with it.

"One more, and you'll be done," Anna encourages, tending to the babies, lifting their limbs to check for anything out of the ordinary.

"This sucks," I say through gritted teeth as I push the final placenta out.

With it, comes a wave of thick, red blood.

"That's normal," Anna says as I stare at her in shock. "It should stop bleeding as your uterus contracts back."

However, as I lean back onto the wall, I feel the steady stream of blood continue.

I see Anna's eyes grow wider as the blood pools, and the worry in them becomes apparent.

"What's wrong? It's not stopping," I ask her nervously, as I begin to feel a bit lightheaded.

"Your uterus isn't contracting properly, I'm sorry," she says, placing the babies on the ground and standing.

"Aren't you supposed to do something? Like... push on it? I remember reading that," I say frantically, as I push on my lower abdomen. However, the area is extremely tender, and I find massaging it almost impossible as my body screams for me to stop.

"Yeah...you are," she says, turning for the door.

"Where are you going?" I ask, panicked. "Help me."

Then, she opens the door and I see something I must have missed before. Just outside the door is a large brown bag which anna quickly snatches off the ground and brings into the room.

"What is that?" I ask, my vision growing blurry.

"My things," she says without looking up, instead rummaging through the bag until she pulls out a pair of scissors.

"How did you get that?" I ask.

She ignores me, using the scissors to cut the cords between the babies and their placentas. Then, pulling out what looks like string, she quickly ties off the ends near their would-be belly buttons.

"Did Dan give you all that?" I ask confused, continuously pushing on my pelvic area as my teeth begin to chatter again.

"Yeah," she says, pulling out two thin blankets and wrapping them with it.

As I watch her expertly swaddle the babies, I feel the trickle of blood coming out of me begin to slow, though my vision only grows blurrier as my arms begin to feel heavy.

"Help me up, and we can figure out how to get out of here," I say in a strained whisper, feeling the blood slow even more.

"I'll come back for you," she mutters, placing the babies inside the large cloth bag.

My eyes go wide as I look up at her in disbelief. "No," I demand. "You can't leave me here. Dan is going to come back and kill me," I plead.

Standing with the bag draped over her shoulder and the babies comfortably at her side, she turns to me and utters two words that will forever haut me.

"I know."

Shaking my head and swallowing hard, I sit up, trying to follow her out, though my body protests. "No. Please, Anna. Please don't leave me here!" The words come out in rushed squeaks as I try to force them out of my raw throat.

She just about opens the door when a familiar ding rings throughout the room. The ding of cellphone.

Reaching in the bag, she pulls out a phone and answers it quickly.

"Hello. Yes, she delivered them," she says into the phone sounding somewhat annoyed. "But the boy isn't doing well. We'll have to get them to the nursery quickly. I'll be up in a minute, brother," she says, before hanging up and placing the phone in her pocket.

Brother? Why did she just call who ever that is on the phone brother? How did she get a phone?

"You have a phone? Who was that? Your brother is here?" I ask frantically, painfully trying to stand but only managing to get to my knees.

However, she just ignores me and walks through the door.

"Anna, wait! Call the police! We can get out of here. We must try! Anna!" I scream out in raspy broken sentences, lurching forward to stand, but failing miserably. Instead, I fall forward, grabbing onto her leg to prevent smacking my face on the door frame.

Anna looks down at me in what appears to be revulsion, and I almost can't believe my own eyes when she roughly shakes me off.

Landing hard on my bottom back inside the room, all I can do is stare up at her in disbelief.

"Why are you doing this? We're friends? We can finally escape," I cry through broken sobs as my hands shake against the hard ground

"WE are not friends. WE are not going anywhere. Not after what you tried to do to my brother," she says, walking out the door. "And stop calling me Anna," she adds coolly, before closing the door behind her and locking me in to die alone.