Poisoned. The word sat in the middle of my mind and didn't move. I turned it over, pressed against it, tried to make it fit into something real — and couldn't. It belonged to a different kind of story, a different kind of life. Not mine. Not this.
"Carl, are you sure? I've seen the prenatal reports. The pups and I are both healthy. Did someone alter the data?" I heard how desperate I sounded, the words tumbling out before I could shape them properly, but I couldn't stop. Part of me had already begun to wonder if I was losing my grip on reality entirely — if everything I thought I knew had been quietly rearranged while I wasn't paying attention. My hand dropped to my belly without thinking, the way it always did now, automatic and instinctive. Rounded and noticeably so, carrying two lives I could feel even when everything else felt uncertain and shifting beneath me. They were still there. Solid and real and entirely themselves. That much I could hold onto.
