Chapter 4 Shadows Return to New York

She waved towards the digital sketch on her iPad, saying, "I think the soft walnut panelling here will create a grounded contrast."

The customer nodded, intrigued.

Cathy started to explain, but her stomach turned upside down. From nowhere, a sudden, stinging coil of nausea shot through.

She fast blinked and gasped hard.

She murmured, voice weak, "Excuse me."

Turning before anyone could see her stumble, she ducked towards the toilet down the hall. Her back was covered with cold sweat prickers. She hardly got to the washbasin when her knees shook and bile surged into her throat.

Her hands braced on the marble counter, she gazed at her mirror, lips pallid, pulse racing under her jaw.

She was changing within.

It was not only nerves as well.

She had not had anything since morning. Food started her stomach to twist. She had gotten green even from the aroma of toast earlier. There seemed to be something off. Her body felt alien, weighty, slower, as though it were running on a cadence she had not agreed to.

She blamed the flight, the tension, the sleepless nights she had spent revisiting everything, Maximo's voice, his hands, the pressure of his lips, the things he murmured when she thought she wasn't listening. She attempted to ignore the weight of his attention, his fragrance imprinted on her clothing.

But forgetting didn't seem to be working.

Her phone hummed on the coffee table, an email from a client, a reminder from her mother's former doctor's office, and a discount offer from a perfume brand she never bought. She leaned back, sighing, and swiped them away.

Her hand floated to her belly. She meant not to do it. It simply occurred. Like her body knew something she hadn't appreciated.

A sharp cramp made her stiff. Not misery. Just... a change. Something subtly different.

She turned to check the calendar kept on the refrigerator. Her fingers stilled.

Her gaze grew narrow.

She worked backwards through the days.

Only once.

Twice.

Her pulse stopped.

Three weeks past due.

Silent, she sat there staring at the thin red circle she had marked one month ago-the date of her last cycle. Her face lost blood so quickly that she felt she would pass out.

She murmured, "No," and shook her head. Not at all, not at all, not at all.

She answered her name on the nurse's call. She followed silently.

Inside the test room, the air was cooler. The walls came in a faint, clinical blue. Between breaths, the silence was broken by a low hum from the overhead light. Cathy sat at the edge of the padded table, fingers tightly curled in her lap.

The doctor arrived with friendly smiles and quick hands.

Small Talk.

Regular questions.

The test comes next.

Minutes gone.

Cathy counted them with her pulse serving as a guide.

The doctor came back, face calm, clutching a copybook.

You are pregnant, she murmured.

The words were like a razor.

Cathy blurted.

"I..." Are you certain?

The MD nodded. "It is confirmed." You run roughly six weeks ahead.

Cathy silence. Her fingers grabbed the paper sheet under her like a lifeline.

"We will do a scan," the doctor said. "Just to be sure everything is moving forward."

She nodded in slow motion.

She turned and lightly pressed her palm to her tummy. Still flat, it remained unaltered by the storm building underfoot. She sensed, nevertheless, an aching, a pulse, something fresh fastening itself to her body. And concerning her future.

She had Maximo's face flashing in her head. That stare is cold and thunderous. Like he had marked her without even attempting, his attitude towards her following a contact seemed to reflect this. Like he anticipated her staying his.

She bent forward, fingers running over her hair.

Could she produce a child linked to that world?

Maximo would drag the child into his realm of secrets and blood.

Could she yet keep this from him?

Her pulse tightened. The remorse was already a live creature regardless of her efforts to quiet it.

Pulling open the side table's drawer, she got a notepad and pen. Her hand hung for a long period over the paper. She started writing afterwards.

Maximo,

I never expected to say, least of all like this. But I need you to know... I carry a pregnancy.

Her hand quivering with every stroke, the pen tore the paper. Hesitancy moulded the slow-bled words.

It's yours.

Her chest constricted.

I might not have known how to get in touch, and perhaps I should not have. Perhaps I should not be dragging you back into this. I have no idea what this implies for any of us. Alternatively, assuming your involvement, what sort of future this child will inherit?

She stopped. Her fingers gripped the pen so firmly it hurt.

From you, I have no expectations. You are entitled, nevertheless, to know.

Catherine

Setting the pen down, she focused on the letter. It appeared little. minor. But every phrase she had cut off from her essence.

Her fingers shook as she neatly folded the page into an envelope and gently pressed it shut.

She stopped just at the corner postal box. The red paint faded and dented from years of use and appeared normal. For her, though, it might as well have been a detonator.

She pauses.

There wouldn't be any retrieving the letter if she dropped it. Not any silence to cover behind. Not any distance between her from the man able to undo her once more with only one word.

Her thumb swept the envelope's edge.

She dreamed of him carrying it. Reading her remarks. Ordering the truth.

Would he drop by for her?

Would he pull her back into the darkness he controlled?

Or worse would he overlook it?

She closed her eyes momentarily and bit her lip. She then slid the envelope into the slot on one last breath. It vanished softly, sucked into metal and finality.

Finished.

Wanting to keep as much distance between herself and that choice as possible, she turned away fast. With arms crossed firmly, chin tucked low, her coat blew in the breeze as she returned towards the main road.

She failed to see the car stopped across the street.

Black, black. Tints in windows. Engine off: the kind unfit for this area. The kind that never happened by mistake.

Two eyes trailed her every motion behind the windscreen.

Rafael Moretti dropped his sunglasses, his lips just quivering at the corner. Holding his phone on his lap, he had already typed a message but not yet sent it.

Identified her.

She back-off.

She also mailed something you would find interesting.

He turned back towards the mailbox and then towards Cathy vanishing along the street.