Artificial Insemination

Chapter Two

Three days later, Layla was feeling fine and after the trip to the hospital, she was given the all clear from them too.

So, that was that.

There hadn't been any obvious changes.

In fact, whatever they'd put into her seemed to be as useless as injecting water.

She hadn't noticed any increase in her senses at all. Eyesight and smell had remained regular and the shakes had dissipated after a day.

All in all, the testing seemed to be an overwhelming success on Layla's part and the extra money sitting in her bank account was the icing on top of the cake.

A month later, after vomiting out the contents of her dinner for the tenth day in a row, she was reconsidering her opinion of the injection. Not only was the vomiting becoming a disturbing recurrence, she was also tired and achy all over, her lower back especially.

At first she hadn't put the pieces together, but after the fifth day of retching up her entire stomach, she was certain that it wasn't a simple case of food poisoning.

She felt miserable and bloated and overall sick of being sick.

So the next day, she finally agreed with her mother that they should go back to the hospital. She had been putting it off for the last week, thinking that the symptoms would eventually disappear, but if anything they'd gotten worse.

"What did you say your name was?"

Layla turned around from the receptionist to look at the passing female nurse who had just addressed her.

"Uh." She hesitated. "Layla Martin."

"You were here for the gene testing last month? On Friday the-"

"-sixth. Yes, that was me."

The nurses face went a bit pale and then she was shaking her head, "get Tom." She said to the receptionist who immediately understood and picked up the phone. Then she looked back at Layla. "If you can just take a seat, I'll be back in a moment."

Layla looked at her mum with an alarmed expression and they went to walk to the seating area, the girl quickly assuming the worst.

"The nurse said to take a seat, not pace a hole into the floor." Her mum said, adjusting the sunglasses over her eyes.

Layla shot the woman an incredulous stare and kept pacing despite the aching in her back, "she knew who I was." That couldn't have been a good sign. "She recognised me just by my name. You know what that means, right? It's not the first time my name has come up in conversation. They've been talking about me."

"Calm down." Her mother tried, not sounding overly sympathetic.

She was sweating, shivers in her arms increasing as she stared up at the ceiling with her mouth open. "Oh God, please tell me I'm not going to die."

She could almost see the rolling of her mum's eyes despite the dark glasses, a pointed scoff coming from the woman's throat.

"You're not going to die."

Layla opened her mouth to disagree when the lobby door burst open, banging against the wall with an heart-jerking thud.

She jolted in surprise, turning around to see what the noise was about, only to be stunned into shock by the view of crazed eyes and a man so big that he almost took up the entire doorway.

Her heart lunged in her chest, thrashing painfully against her ribs, and she barely had a moment to process the view of the man speeding towards her as she was pressed up against his chest, his strong arms caging her into an embrace.