Read Online Vanishing Rain (Blue Spectrum Chronicles Book 2) by L.L. Crane - Free Book Online

my life.  Well, images of Orion drifted into my head just then, how he wrapped me softly in his thick arms, always making me feel safe.  That definitely felt better than a shower.  But Orion was gone. I had to settle for hot water and steam.
    I sighed, scrubbing my hair with the expensive shampoo that was on the shower shelf.  Suds appeared along with a heavenly vanilla scent. I rinsed my hair, remnants of the soap pooling onto the shower floor, little bubbles that each seemed to have a personality of its own, wanting to tell me a story of some sort.  I watched with fascination as they cycled down the drain, as if I had killed them.
    I glanced down and placed my hand on my stomach.  It looked the same.  If they had killed my baby, wouldn’t the little bit of swelling down there be less?  Who knew?  I certainly wasn’t a doctor.
    I dried off with the softest, thickest towel I had ever used in my life.  Suddenly I was hungry, as if I hadn’t eaten in days.  Who knew, maybe I hadn’t.
    I stepped out of the shower, and Blush was waiting.  She shoved a robe at me.  “Here, put this on,” she gruffly ordered.  I took the robe from her and wrapped it around my body.  Then I tucked my long black hair into the towel.
    “Follow me,” Blush said as she walked purposefully out of the bathroom.
    We entered the dark room where Sergio was kept, and I stepped back, suddenly afraid. Panther was standing in the room right next to Garment looking all white and doctory.  Beside them was some kind of a small machine on a chrome cart with tiny black wheels.  I took a step back.
    “It’s okay,” Blush soothed, which sounded odd coming from her lips.  “It’s an instrument doctors use to listen to a baby’s heartbeat.”  She grabbed me none too gently by the shoulders.  “Do you think I would let anyone hurt that baby…after all I’ve been through?”  Her hazel eyes were piercing into me.  I didn’t know who to trust, but at that moment, my options were limited.
    “Lie down,” Garment told me.  “I will do it if you don’t want Pan to.”
    I glared at Panther as I stretched out on the beige couch. “You do it,” I told Garment.
    Panther handed Garment the instrument, which looked like a large pen that was connected to the machine somehow.  “Put some gel on her lower abdomen,” he ordered.
    Blush pulled my robe open a bit and applied some kind of clear gel onto my stomach.  She spread it around quickly and I felt violated again, like I was some kind of science experiment. I fought the urge to get up and run again, but the baby’s heartbeat was something I wanted to hear more than anything else at that moment.
    Garment leaned down toward me with the pen-like instrument.  “I’ve never done this before,” he gushed.  “But I watched Pan do it several times.” His deep blue eyes were focused on me, two orbs of life I didn’t know if I could trust, yet so much like Orion’s that I was mesmerized by them.  I nodded in agreement, though.  I wanted to hear that heartbeat.
    Garment set the instrument on my stomach and moved it slowly around.  I could hear whishing noises, but that was it.  “I’ll turn up the volume,” Panther suggested in what must have been his doctor voice.  I shot him another nasty look.
    Garment placed the odd instrument back on my stomach.  I glanced over to the other couch, afraid of what I was going to hear.  Or not hear.
    Sergio was seated at the couch, the fat folds of his stomach spilling out over his pants.  He was quiet, though, and of all the people in the room, he bothered me the least.
    The instrument was back on my stomach, moving in slow circles.  The whishing noise continued and then I thought I heard something. “Stop,” Panther almost shouted.
    Quickly but gently, Garment held the instrument in place.  There was no denying what I heard.
    A strong, steady heartbeat sang a lullaby to its mother through an instrument I had never heard of before.