Chapter 62 Trigger and Gunner in the Aftermath pt 2

Chapter 62 Trigger and Gunner in the Aftermath pt 2
“I’ll have to carry you,” Shepherd said seriously, standing beside Cue as she strapped on all the stuff Trigger had been carrying.
“I don’t know, I can try walking,” Trigger said hesitantly, trying to stand and having to stop halfway up to gasp and hold her stomach in pain.
“Stop being difficult,” Shepherd huffed in annoyance and picked her up princess style, whether she liked it or not.
Trigger screeched in protest, but he ignored her. He began leaping from one car to a lightpost, to a fallen brick wall as if he wasn’t holding an entire pregnant woman. Cue followed along slower, her body still twinging where the sharks bit into her.
It didn’t take them long to get to the ferryboat with Shepherd holding her. They leapt from floating object to object, jumping with ease over obstacles that would have been impossible for regular humans. 
The ferryboat was rusted everywhere, and skeletons still sat as if waiting to arrive at the other shore. Cue frowned as she stepped onboard, saddened by the sight of so many uninfected dead. But then, she was one of the infected, wasn't she? Should she be sad about these dead people or glad? She didn’t understand the role she had now, but she was thankful for the quick healing that came along with it. 
She sat on a nearby bench seat on the edge of the boat with Trigger and fingered the pink, fresh scars left behind by the sharks. Her eyes were wide, relaying the scene over and over again. If she weren’t a Cretin, she’d be dead right now. Her body shook with adrenaline, her hands unable to hold still.
“Gunner is on the ocean floor with the anchor. He will pull us to the island,” Shepherd told them, breaking Cue out of her thoughts.
“Gunner is here?” Trigger asked, trying to stand but doubling over in pain instead.
“We'd better hurry,” Cue said, putting her arms around Trigger and rubbing her shoulders.
At that moment, the boat lurched and began to slowly move out into the choppy ocean waves. The boat lurched and rocked, fighting every inch for the shore, but it was no match for the mechanical man with his mind set.
Trigger looked up at the statue as it slowly began to get closer and closer. “Do you think there are really women in there?” she asked.
Shepherd shook his head while he stroked his chin, deep in thought, but did not answer.
“I don’t know,” Cue said. She looked down at Trigger’s belly and sighed. “I really hope there is, though.”
Storm clouds rolled in above them, dumping rain on the already wild ocean. Thunder cracked, and lightning flashed over the Statue of Liberty, making her stand out in stark contrast against the dark horizon. The darker it got, the more clearly they could see the small lights peaking out of the cracks of the old statue, her facade slowly flaking away to show the skeleton of her form within.
“There are lights inside!” Cue pointed out, jumping up from her seat and tugging Trigger under the roof of the ferryboat and out of the rain.
“Lights mean people,” Shepherd said, standing behind them and shielding them from the wind.
“You don’t sound happy about that,” Trigger growled between clenched teeth as she rode through another contraction.
“Happy for you, dangerous for us. If they find out what Cue and I are, we’re either dead or experiments.” He winced at the last word, remembering being captured by that madman. He was lucky these two helped him escape; there was no surviving that place.
“They won't find out then,” Trigger said with a woosh of breath. “Easy peasy. It’s not like you two have a sign on your head that says ‘Cretin’.”
Cue looked between Trigger and Shepherd and almost laughed. He looked nothing like a regular survivor. For one, he was hardly wearing clothes. For two, he looked feral and scary, if you didn’t know who he was as a person.
Activity around the base of the statue pulled their attention away. People came out with torches and lit fires along the edge of the island. In the light, they could see cannons lined up along every edge of the island, with cannon balls stacked neatly next to them. 
They watched in horror as they began loading the cannons and preparing to fire.
“We have to do something!” Cue shouted. “They don’t know we’re not a threat!”
Trigger took a deep breath and threw herself against the edge of the boat and screamed, “Help!” She took another deep breath. “Please help us!” she cried.
Someone on shore put their hand on the shoulder of someone manning a cannon. Activity exploded all around them, people scrambling around and moving cannons out of the way. Instead of firing, people in all white ran out with bright red bags, running towards them and waiting.
“Please help us!” Trigger screamed again, and Cue joined her. Together, they screamed for help over and over. They didn’t stop until the people on the island were getting into boats and rowing out to them.
“They’re coming,” Cue said, breathing a sigh of relief. 
Trigger screamed and fell to her knees, more blood flooding out of her. A lot more.
“Trigger!” Cue shouted, crouching next to her. 
“What's wrong with her?” A woman asked, appearing out of nowhere and climbing over the edge of the boat.
“She’s having a baby!” Cue screamed, panicking as Trigger didn’t stop, crying out in pain.
The woman looked at them with wide eyes for a moment, frozen, before her eyes flicked to Shepherd. “Is this the father?” She asked, moving towards them and assessing Trigger.
“Yes!” Trigger lied, knowing it would be easier to explain than the long story they truly had, and maybe afford him some safety.
Shepherd cleared his throat. “That’s right, I’m the father.”
With tears in her eyes, Cue could just nod.
More people came on board and helped get Trigger to a rowboat. She screamed the entire time, her back bowing in their arms as pain wracked her strong body.
It seemed like the blink of an eye as they rowed to the island. One minute, they were on the ferry, and the next, they were on land, scrambling up the shore to a hospital bed set out in the rain for Trigger.
A stern-looking woman met them on the shore and hovered over Trigger, smoothing the hair out of her face. “The doctor is ready in the head, get her up there asap! We’re gonna have a baby, people!”
They ran next to Cue to the foot of the statue, running inside where they found the old elevator was now set up on a pulley system run by a giant wheel that people moved by running inside it. 
No one looked at Cue or Shepherd askance; they only had them back up against the wall as everyone focused on Trigger. They cut her clothes off her to expose any wounds she may have, and then covered her with a blanket.
The stern woman looked up, trying to gauge how far they had to go. “We’re about to have a baby, can't this thing move any faster?”
On command, it did, the elevator lurching up faster and faster until the doors opened and they looked out great windows into the eye of the storm as it raged over Brooklyn.
They ran out of the elevator as lightning flashed. When thunder cracked, it almost seemed to shake the entire statue. Waiting for them by the windows was a doctor fully gloved up and masked and ready.
“Get her on the table!” He ordered, his voice calm and sure. “Let's deliver the first baby in decades, what do you say?”