Chapter 11: Born in the Hollow

Ransom stepped back from the water.

Emmett was on his knees beside me before anybody else moved.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Look at me. That was your water."

"I know what it was."

"She's coming now. She's not waiting."

"Get her to the truck," my father said.

"No time." Emmett had his hand low on my belly, and his face was very calm, which scared me more than anything. "She's dropped. She's coming here."

"Here?" Ransom said. "In the Hollow?"

Nobody answered him.

The next pain hit me.

It wasn't the warning kind. It came from my back and wrapped all the way around and squeezed.

Rue came up in me snarling.

For the first time in nine days I had a wolf's strength to push against it.

"Not on the stone," I gasped. "Emmett. Not on that stone."

"Never on that stone," he said. "Coats. I need coats."

Every hunter in the back of the Hollow took off a coat.

They passed them forward hand to hand, along the cave wall, through three packs of wolves.

There were canvas barn coats and wool coats and somebody's good leather jacket.

Emmett made a bed of them on the floor by the candles.

Dagny got down behind me and pulled me back against her chest.

"I've got you," she said in my ear. "I've got you. I'm right here."

"Are you writing this down?"

"Later," she said. "Squeeze my hand."

I squeezed her hand. I heard something crack.

"That's fine," Dagny said, very calm. "That was mine. Keep going."

My father walked to the mouth of the cave.

He turned around and stood in it, filling it, with his rifle across his chest, facing in.

Facing Ransom. Facing the Renderer, who was sitting on the stone floor where Dagny had put her, holding her wrist.

"Nobody comes near my girl," my father said. "Nobody leaves."

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