Chapter 8 Complications
Elara's vision blurred as she carried the coffee pot to table six, her feet screaming inside shoes that had fit perfectly last week but now cut into her swollen ankles.
She poured coffee for the construction worker who came in every day at noon and his face multiplied into three versions that swam in front of her eyes before snapping back together.
"You okay?" he asked but his voice sounded underwater.
"Fine," she said and turned back toward the counter except the floor tilted sideways and rushed up to meet her face.
Marcus caught her before she could hit the floor, his arms solid around her shoulders as her knees loosen and the coffee pot crashed to the floor, hot liquid splashing across tile while customers stood up and someone yelled for help.
"I got you," Marcus said, lowering her into a chair.
"Let's go to the clinic."
"No hospitals Marcus," Elara managed through the ringing in her ears. "I can't afford.."
"Shut up about money," Marcus snapped and pressed his hand to her forehead. "You're burning up."
The world kept tilting and Elara felt wetness between her legs, panic spiking up because it seemed blood was the wetness, was she losing Adrian, but when she looked down her jeans were just damp not red and that was somehow worse because what did it mean if it wasn't blood.
Marcus helped her to his truck and drove too fast through borderlands streets while she gripped the door handle and tried to breathe but it seemed impossible.
The clinic doctor took her blood pressure twice like he didn't believe the first reading, then checked her urine sample and his jaw went tight.
"Get on the table," he ordered.
Elara climbed up with Marcus's help and lay back while the doctor pressed his hands against her stomach, checking Adrian's position and heartbeat through methods that hurt more than they should have.
"Your blood pressure is 180 over 110," the doctor said, pulling off his gloves.
"You've got protein in your urine and your ankles are retaining dangerous amounts of fluid, this is textbook preeclampsia."
"English please," Marcus said from the corner where he'd been hovering.
"Her kidneys are failing and if we don't get this under control in the next two weeks, both she and the baby will die," the doctor said.
"She needs medications to lower blood pressure and prevent seizures, a diet with specific protein and sodium levels, complete bed rest, and monitoring appointments three times a week."
Elara's mouth went dry. "How much?"
The doctor wrote numbers on a prescription note and handed it to her—the medications alone totaled eight hundred dollars per month, not counting appointments or the special food requirements.
"I have three hundred dollars," Elara said.
"Then you're in trouble," the doctor replied and walked out, leaving her sitting on the examination table with a prescription she couldn't fill and a death sentence she couldn't afford to fix.
Marcus drove her home in silence and helped her up the stairs to her room above the laundromat, but he kept checking his phone every thirty seconds and wouldn't meet her eyes.
"What's wrong?" Elara asked when they reached her door.
"Nothing."
"You're lying."
Marcus leaned against the wall and rubbed his face with both hands.
"I borrowed money six months back to keep the diner running, ten thousand from someone who charges interest that'll one can't think about imagining, and it's due by month's end."
Elara's stomach dropped. "Mandivus."
"Who else lends that kind of money out here?" Marcus said.
"I thought I could turn the business around, make enough to pay him back, but the interest keeps growing and now he wants full payment or he takes the diner."
"What happens then?"
"Then I've got nothing and you've got no job," Marcus said. "And knowing Swathi, he'll probably burn the building down just to make a point about what happens when people don't pay."
Elara sat on her bed because her legs were shaking and her head still felt like someone was squeezing it. "We're both screwed then."
"Yeah, pretty much."
The door slammed open hard enough to crack against the wall and Mandivus walked in with two of his men behind him, filling the small room with cigarette smoke.
"I heard you had some health troubles," Mandivus said, looking at Elara. "Preeclampsia, that's bad news for pregnant omegas."
"How do you already know that?" Elara demanded but her voice came out weaker than she wanted.
"The clinic doctor works for me," Mandivus said and pulled her only chair away from the small table, sitting down and spreading his legs like he owned the space.
"And I know Marcus here owes me money he can't pay, which creates an interesting situation."
"Leave her alone," Marcus moved between them. "This is between us."
"Everything in this settlement is between me and someone," Mandivus said. "But I'm feeling generous today so I'm offering a deal that solves everyone's problems."
"I don't want your deals," Elara said.
"You want to die?" Mandivus asked. "Because that's the alternative, you can't afford the medications and Marcus can't pay his debt, so here's what's happening.
“I will forgive Marcus's debt completely and I will pay for all your medical care, medications, appointments, special food, everything you need to keep that baby alive."
"And what do you want?"
"The timeline changes," Mandivus said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Our deal was you mate with me when the kid turns two, but I'm moving that up to three months after birth."
"That's not what we agreed…"
"The agreement changed when you became expensive," Mandivus interrupted.
"Three months after you pop that kid out, we do the mating ceremony and you become my luna officially, or I let the preeclampsia kill you, take the diner from Marcus, and claim your baby under rogue property laws anyway."
Marcus lunged forward but Mandivus's men grabbed him, slamming him against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
"Don't," Mandivus said without looking away from Elara.
"You get one day to decide, accept my new terms or I start collecting what's owed the hard way, and trust me, you don't want to see how I collect them."
He stood and walked out with his men dragging Marcus behind them before throwing him back through the doorway.
Marcus picked himself up, blood running from his nose. "Don't accept it."
"What choice do I have?" Elara pressed both hands to her stomach where Adrian kicked against her palms like he was trying to tell her something.
"If I don't accept this, I die and he takes Adrian anyway or Adrian and I will die."
"There's always a choice."
"Not in the borderlands," Elara said and felt something shift inside her chest, something that felt like ice settling where her heart used to be.
"I accept his terms and use the three months to plan."
"Plan what?"
"My escape," Elara said. "I let him think he's won, use his money to stay alive and keep Adrian healthy, and then before the mating ceremony I disappear."
"He'll hunt you down."
"Let him try," Elara said. "By the time he realizes I'm gone I'll be back in Crescent Falls with evidence of everything Kai did, and once I reclaim Adrian's inheritance Mandivus won't be able to touch me."
Marcus wiped blood from his face with his sleeve. "You sound different."
"Good," Elara said and meant it. "The girl who cried at that rejection ceremony is dead, and what's left is going to burn Kai's entire world down.”