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Danny sat on his stool, drinking a beer, face dropped into a too-serious mask. Johnny had laughed when Danny had first brought the step stool to the warehouse, and moved Danny’s needle and pliers and change of clothes to the top shelves. But when Danny had dragged the stool over, perched on it, and watched Jorel prise a man’s teeth out, Johnny had reorganised the shelves back down as an excuse not to look at them. Not that either of them had been paying him a scrap of attention.
The woman in the chair was dolled up like a teenage girl trying to pass herself off as a grown woman, but the crow’s feet and smoker’s teeth and recent pricks to her elbow gave her away as much older. Several of her acrylics had popped off, heavy make-up had smeared around her mouth, and her hair hung in hairspray-heavy rattails. Her slump couldn’t hide the lump in her stomach, around six months along. Her crop top revealed a thick bruise and deep scratches along the base of her belly. Johnny wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking, showing off a bruise like that.
Danny finished his beer and threw the bottle away from him. The glass smashed on the ground. The woman jolted awake and snorted.
“Mornin’ sunshine,” Danny said, “The Earth says ‘hello’.”
Johnny had to check his phone, but sure enough it was 3am. He’d been asleep on the couch after a vodka-fuelled existential crisis in the privacy of the warehouse when Danny had barged in with the woman unconscious on his shoulder. Not the craziest thing Johnny had witnessed in the this warehouse, but it was up there.
“Who are you?” the woman said, her head whipping about at wild random, “Where am I? What is this?”
The woman tried to stand up. The straps clung to her wrists, upper arms, thighs, lap, below her knees and crossed over her chest. The chair was bolted deep into the concrete. Danny had to admit he was impressed with the space Matty had built.
“What the fuck is this?!” the woman shrieked.
“Judgement Day,” Danny said.
“Let me go!”
“What’s their name?” Danny asked.
“What? Who?”
“The baby.”
The woman looked down herself, and gasped like it was the first time she’d seen her stomach bulge “I don’t have a baby.”
Danny stood. Johnny stepped out of the kitchen, hands moving at random, totally unsure how to handle Danny. Until now, he’d never seen Danny work alone, and it was hard to know where to stand with him. While Johnny agreed that ‘bad’ people needed to be punished, who the fuck was Danny decide who was ‘good’ and who was ‘bad’. Who the fuck were any of them to make that sort of judgement?
“So when you were loudly proclaiming to the entire bar that you were gonna drink your baby out, that was a lie?”
“Okay, so I’m pregnant,” the woman spat, “I don’t want it. I can’t afford a baby. I don’t want to be a mom! Foster care sucks! I don’t even want to give birth-”
“So you drown yourself in booze and heroin to hopefully kill your mistake, is that it?”
“What else can I do? What other solution is there? I can’t abort legally, my aunt protests-”
“Spare me,” Danny said. Johnny could picture the unamused curl of his lip. “You decided to take booze and drugs in an attempt to kill an innocent life.”
“I didn’t want it!” the woman screamed, “He said he had a condom on! He fucking lied!”
“So you fucked a piece of shit and refuse to deal with the consequences?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your goddamned baby!”
The woman took a deep breath. Her surroundings were sobering her up, and now she could sit up straight and hold her head up. “Let me go, and I’ll get it done humanely. I’ll say I’m only 21 weeks. I’ll do it.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’ll get an abortion.”
“What? No!”
“Then what the fuck do you want?!”
“I want you to regret your actions.”
The woman’s jaw dropped, “You think I don’t?!”
“No, I don’t.”
Danny pulled the weapon from under his stool. It was a cross-head screwdriver, power-filed and finished by hand into a shiny needle point. He stabbed and twisted, burying the shank into the woman’s shoulder and yanking it back out.
The woman gasped, then screamed as the blood gurgled out, soaking down her crop top and curling around the lump of her stomach.
Johnny dove over and grabbed Danny around the body. Danny flinched and writhed, jolted into remembering Johnny’s presence. Johnny snatched the screwdriver from him and tossed it away. It spun off into the bathroom, leaving a spiralled trail of blood at it.
Danny kicked out. Johnny swung him away from the woman before he kicked her.
“Get off me!” Danny yelled, “Put me down!”
Johnny opened his arms and Danny slumped graceless at his feet. Danny glared up at him as Johnny relaxed, stood firm between Danny and the woman.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Danny said.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Johnny said, “This is a pregnant woman!”
“She’s gonna kill the baby!”
“So you wanna kill them first? Have you gone fucking insane?!”
The woman panted behind Johnny.
“No!” Danny stood up and tried to square up to Johnny, “I’m not gonna hurt the baby!”
“You think torturing a pregnant woman isn’t going to hurt the baby?!” Johnny said.
Danny blinked. “Not if you only torture her a little.”
“A little? Are you fucking sure?”
“Look-”
The woman wailed. Water splashed on the concrete.
Johnny turned, and Danny peered around him. The woman’s legs were taut in the straps, water still spraying down between as she screamed, panted, and screamed again.
“Fucking shit,” Johnny muttered.
Danny dove past Johnny to pull on the buckle of a wrist strap. Johnny stammered, blinked, and began to unbuckle the opposite strap.
The woman snapped her hands to her stomach as her wrists came free. Danny and Johnny worked up her arms, then Johnny skipped to her legs as Danny unfastened her chest. The dripping water made the buckles slippery, and the thick belt seemed to squelch in Johnny’s grip.
The woman fell forwards, almost landing straight on Johnny. He caught her in a bear hug and eased her onto her back, one leg propped up on the chair, other slug up on his shoulder, Johnny in between. Danny dropped behind her and propped her shoulders in his lap.
“Okay, just breathe,” Johnny said.
“You fucking breathe,” the woman smacked her shin against the side of Johnny’s head, and her shoe dropped with a clunk.
Johnny smacked the woman’s leg away. He curled a hand under her underwear and pulled. The wet fabric in his grip, and clung to his fingers in a stringy clump.
Danny clung to the woman’s hand as she wailed. Her nails dug into his skin and dragged.
The woman’s legs spasmed with effort. She pulled and twisted on Danny’s arms. Danny held her tight as she screamed and pushed. Her stomach seemed to be quivering.
Johnny pressed the legs further apart. His face pinched in confusion, then softened with worry. His hands dropped into the curve of the woman’s lap. Danny murmured empty encouragements, lost in the woman’s hands. Johnny shuffled in closer.
The woman almost wrenched himself from Danny’s grip as she spasmed. Water splashed, the woman gasped, and the baby cried.
Danny gasped. The baby seemed to hang in Johnny’s hands, writing and crying at the shock of the world. The woman panted in Danny’s arms.
“It’s a girl,” Johnny said, “She’s a girl.”
Danny squealed in excitement and wrapped the woman in a hug. The woman huffed and tried to bat him away, arms heavy with exhaustion. She clumped him weakly in the shoulder.
Danny pulled away from her and scrabbled to the kitchen. He slammed through the drawers until he found the scissors and came running back. He practically slid over the woman, over-eager to cut the cord.
The baby girl continued to cry and kick as the scissors closed with an audible snip. The woman gasped like the cut hurt her, and the remaining cord hung limp between her legs.
Danny took the baby. She seemed to shrink into his forearms, flailing and wailing. Her screams echoed through the warehouse. Danny bounced her gently as he headed back over to the kitchen.
The woman groaned. Johnny took her shoulders and pulled her up. She whined, legs twisting at random, defeated angles.
Danny laid the little girl down in the kitchen sink and ran the water on warm. He took a clean cloth and rubbed it in small circles over the girl’s red skin, down her arms and legs to her little hands and feet, and over her soft skull. Thin blue veins webbed under feet, cool blue in the raw red.
The girl’s crying stilled to a curious whine. Danny buffed at her hands like he was playing with a cat’s paw. His thumb was the length of her forearm. Her pin-prick fingers tried to flex and grip at him, not even able to curl the knuckles.
Johnny half-lead, half-hauled the woman to the shower and dumped her in its corner. He ran the water and the woman sat, numb and vacant, as the water ran down her matted hair and soaked into her sweat-stained clothes.
The little girl’s eyes opened and she peered in the harsh warehouse light. Her eyes were a little wide-set, lash-less with pale irises. She blinked, staring up at Danny. She opened and closed her mouth like a confused fish, lips thin and nose upturned. Her arms stayed tucked in tight to her chest, and she would whine when Danny coaxed her arms to wash her.
Danny rubbed the cloth gently over the baby girls stomach, cooing. She kicked at him and spluttered.
Johnny dropped the dollar-store body-wash in the woman’s lap and left her to wash herself. He headed over to Danny and the baby.
“How is she?” Johnny said.
“We’re okay,” Danny said, “Getting a wash and a tickle. We’ll have to pick up some proper baby soap and then figure out what we’re going to do with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can’t stay here!”
“Danny, she can’t stay anywhere. She’s three premature. She’s not gonna survive. Even if we rushed her to hospital right now, it’d still take a miracle.”
Danny stared at Johnny. “You can’t be serious.”
“Look at her. You’ve held babies before,” Johnny ran a feather-light finger along the underside of the girl’s foot, “She’s tiny. Her head’s so small she looks like her body’s swollen. Her skin isn’t even formed, it’s so thin. She’s not a healthy baby. She probably doesn’t have much more than a few hours.”
Danny stared back down at the girl. She had closed her eyes again. Her breathing was rapid, chest rising and falling under her folded arms.
“But she’s breathing,” Danny said.
“Barely,” Johnny said.
Danny bounced the girl in his arms. She kicked and yelped at him.
“What do we do?” Danny whispered.
“Take her outside,” Johnny said, “Let her go naturally.”
“I want to name her.”
“Then name her.”
“I want to bury her, too. I don’t want to give her to Jorel. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We’ll bury her in the forest. Near the sword lilies.”
Danny nodded. “Zooey. I wanna call her Zooey.”
“Hi, Zooey,” Johnny rubbed gently at Zooey’s stomach. His hand covered her body, easily. She folded her arms around his fingers like she was trying to hug him.
“She’s so pretty,” Danny whispered.
Zooey gasped and kicked. She scrunched her eyes and flailed like she was crying, but no sound out.
“I’ll take her outside,” Danny said.
“What are we doing with Mommy?” Johnny said.
Danny glanced over his shoulder at the woman. She was still sat in the bottom of the shower, water raining down on her, wet clothes pulled off and tossed in a pile on the lino.
“I don’t care,” Danny said, “Put her down. However you want.”
“This is a frightened woman,” Johnny said.
“So? You’ve killed women before.”
“Not when she’s just given birth!”
“Does it matter? What else you gonna do?”
Danny bounced Zooey and carried her away from the sink, leaving Johnny to turn the water off. Zooey blinked and kicked at him as opened the door and stepped out into the sunshine.
Johnny pulled a long carver’s knife from the drawer. He held it behind his back as he headed back to the woman.
The woman flinched as Johnny switched the shower off. She looked up at him, old make-up streaked down her face in thick lines.
“Where is it?” she said.
“Danny’s taken your daughter outside,” Johnny said, and crouched down to her height, “Letting her see the sunlight.”
The woman nodded.
“She’s not gonna survive long.”
“No,” the woman said.
“He’s named her Zooey Did you have a name for her?”
“No. I didn’t want her.”
“You really fucked up then, didn’t you.”
“He said he was wearing a condom. I didn’t realise he was lying until he came. I can’t get into the Planned Parenthood, my aunt protests there. If she saw me, or one of her friends saw me, they’d tell my mom. I can’t do that to my mom. I can’t break her heart like that.”
“So you drank yourself into a stupor?”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Johnny nodded. The woman shook, not even bothering to cover herself, cord still hung between her legs. Johnny coaxed her forwards and she collapsed into his front and face-planted his shoulder.
The woman cried into Johnny’s shirt, hands fisting the fabric on his back, arms tight around him. Johnny patted her head with his free hand, shushing her.
He drove the carver’s knife in at the base of her neck, straight into her spine and angled down into her chest. The woman tensed in his hold. Johnny pulled the knife out with a squirt of red. The woman gurgled, shoulders shaking like she was still sobbing. Maybe she was. Johnny dropped the knife and hugged her tight.
Outside, Danny bounced Zooey in his arms, humming a lullaby as he stood in the sun. Zooey blinked and gasped in the light until she didn’t, and Danny rocked her until the last little breath left her undeveloped lungs.