CHAPTER 159: IN HER SHOES...

Kieran’s body trembled as he leaned forward.

Every breath he took seemed to scrape through his chest like gravel,his gasps were broken, but none of it mattered as his fingers slowly reached for the edge of the blanket covering Autumn’s middle.

He paused.

His hand hovered above her womb, unsure... afraid... reverent.

And then, with a motion as gentle as dusk settling on the sea, he peeled the blanket back...just enough to reveal the soft, subtle rise of her belly.

His heart leapt to his throat.

He pressed his palm, lightly, to her skin... and waited.

Seconds stretched like lifetimes.

And then he felt them kick.

Kieran gasped.

His hand flinched, instinctively.

Another kick...stronger.

He stumbled back, nearly losing balance as if something had struck him from inside. His lips parted in utter shock. His fingers shook.

And then...he started laughing.

Or at least, something like laughter cracked out of his mouth...broken and trembling with disbelief.

He was crying too. He didn’t even realize it.

Tears streamed down his face as if someone had opened the floodgates of every emotion he had ever buried.

He looked down at her stomach again, hands reaching...desperate now.

"They are strong," he whispered through the thick wall of his tears, his voice hoarse, fractured. "So strong...our babies are doing alright.Autumn,our babies are fine...I thought...I thought I nearly lost them..."

He laughed again...this time more like a sob choking on sunlight.

"They kicked my hand," he said to no one and to everyone. "They... they know me.I feel them...they feel me too! "

He dropped to his knees beside the bed and crawled to her head. His hands moved up, slowly,brushing her hair off her forehead like he was touching pliable clay.

Her face.

His world.

His whole damn world.

"Thank you," he whispered.

His voice cracked on the second word like it couldn’t carry the weight of the gratitude behind it.

"Thank you for... for them. For keeping them safe. For surviving... for staying strong,Autumn.Thank you! "

His fingers returned to her belly again.

And unmistakably he felt another movement.

He laughed again, and this time he wiped the tears falling from his eyes.

He was on the edge of joy so violent it felt dangerous. A kind of madness that made him want to tear open the walls and scream at the skies that he was the father. That she gave him this gift.That they were his!

But she hadn’t moved a single inch yet.

Autumn was still unmoving.

And suddenly, the joy twisted into a blade.

It cut through the laughter, cleaving the air in half as his body folded in on itself and dropped to the cold floor.

His breath hitched.

He buried his face into his palms and shook.

"She didn’t even flinch," he whispered to himself. "She didn’t even..."

His eyes turned up to her again, wide and desperate. "Do you know I am here? Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

He imagined the worst again...like a curse he couldn’t stop replaying.His thoughts turned dark.

His heart spun into that same abyss he had been running from.

Lyla...

That night.

Her voice.

Her pregnancy.

His guilt.

He could barely breathe now.He knelt there, useless, a war inside his own chest.

He tried to touch Autumn again, feel the babies to find some grounding...But his hand slipped away from her belly, as though even touching her now was too sacred for someone like him.

And then another thought crept in.

Ugly. Vicious. Uninvited.

He didn’t want it, didn’t ask for it, but it came anyway.

What if it was Autumn with someone else?

The image flashed in his mind like a jagged blade.

Autumn... standing beneath soft candlelight, her face tilted up...not to him...but to another man. A stranger. Taller. Stronger. His hands around her waist. His mouth whispering into the curve of her neck. His scent all over her skin.

Kieran clenched his jaw.

He saw her laugh...not the way she used to with Kieran, wild and unguarded...but soft, cautious, like she was falling again... for someone else.

Then...

That stranger’s hand moved to her abdomen... to their children.

No!!!

"NO!!!"

Kieran’s body jerked.

He almost retched from the inside out.

The stranger bent his head down to her belly, whispering to the twins. His mouth brushed where Kieran dreamt of kissing. As though he had the right...

And Autumn...She let him.

She even smiled at him.

She pressed her hand over his.

Kieran snapped back to reality with a broken sob that sounded more like an animal being slaughtered.

His breath came out in short, heaving gasps. He shoved both palms into his eyes as if he could claw the vision out of his skull.

"I deserve it!!!"

He whispered into the silence.

"If she ever did that to me, I would die. I would die right there and take the damned world down with me."

And yet... she hadn’t. It was him!

She was still in this frozen world of silence because of what he did.

The thought alone ruptured everything...

"NO!"

The scream tore out of him like an explosion.

Raw. Wild. Unhinged.

He slammed a fist onto the stone floor, and then...without wasting another moment...he scrambled back to her side.

Closer this time.

He crawled up beside her legs, his hand trembling as he brushed it along her calf.

Slow. Feather light.

Like tracing sacred scripture.

"I will make you laugh again," he whispered.

His voice cracked.

"I will make you angry."

A breath...ragged... begging.

"I will bring back every bit of fire I stole from you."

He leaned forward, forehead against her legs once more, like a penitent.

"If you could just..."

His words collapsed into broken syllables.

"...just give me a sign, Autumn. Anything. Please."

There was no answer.

Just the incense smoke curling into the air behind them, and the fading echo of his voice in the stone chamber.

He bowed again, folding his arms across her legs as if to shield her from the cold world beyond those walls.

And there he remained.

Still.

Silent.

Waiting for the heartbeat of a miracle.