He thought I was heading to the local hospital down the street, but my sister was waiting at the end of the block to smuggle me two hundred miles away.

Interstate 70 East out of Columbus at 6:00 a.m. was a long ribbon of gray asphalt carving through misty farmland. Heavy semi-trucks threw plumes of cold spray against our windshield, their red taillights glowing like dying embers in the pale dawn light.

Rachel kept her hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel, her eyes darting between the road and the digital clock on the dashboard every forty seconds.

6:42 a.m.

Another contraction seized my lower stomach. I grabbed the leather grab-handle above the door, squeezing until my knuckles turned white. I pressed my teeth together, determined not to scream.

"Breathe, Clara," Rachel murmured, her voice tight with suppressed panic. "In through the nose, out through the mouth. Remember the classes."

"I skipped... the last three classes," I managed to say through clenched teeth, my breath coming in short, ragged hitches. "Derek... said they were a waste of eighty dollars."

"Derek is a miserable, narcissistic worm," Rachel said, her knuckles turning white against the plastic steering wheel. "I should have flattened his tires the night of your rehearsal dinner."

The contraction slowly ebbed away, leaving my muscles shaking with exhaustion. I leaned my head back against the headrest, staring out at the flat, gray fields of eastern Ohio rolling past.

On the console between our seats, my phone began to vibrate.

The screen lit up with a high-resolution photo of Derek in a black-tie tuxedo.

DEREK VANCE — CALLING.

Rachel glanced down at the screen, then up at me. "Do you want me to throw it out the window?"

"No," I said. I picked up the phone.

I didn't answer. I watched it ring until it went to voicemail.

Ten seconds later, the phone buzzed again. A text message popped onto the lock screen.

DEREK: Arthur Vance asked where you were during the breakfast introduction. Why haven't you checked in at Riverside yet? The intake desk says there is no record of you. Answer your phone.

I stared at the black text on the bright white screen. Even now, miles away, his primary concern was his standing in front of his senior partners. He hadn't asked if I was safe. He hadn't asked if the contractions had intensified. He had called the hospital only to verify that his cover story was intact.

A second text arrived two seconds later.

DEREK: Clara. This is unacceptable. Call me immediately.

I didn't reply. I slid my thumb across the screen, accessed the power menu, and powered the device down. The screen went completely dark.

"Is he still calling?" Rachel asked.

"Not anymore," I said, sliding the dead phone into the glove compartment.

Around 7:15 a.m., just past the exit for Zanesville, a sharp, sudden warmth flooded down my thighs.

I gasped, sitting up straight in the seat. "Rachel."

Rachel’s eyes widened in the rearview mirror. "What? What happened?"

"My water broke," I said.

Rachel’s foot hit the accelerator, the Honda’s engine whining as we surged past a flatbed truck going seventy miles an hour.

"Okay," Rachel said, her voice dropping an octave into a forced, steady calm. "Okay. That's fine. We're thirty miles from the Pennsylvania line. There’s a regional medical center in Wheeling, West Virginia, right off Exit 2B. We're not going to make Pittsburgh, Clara. We're stopping in Wheeling."

"Is it... is it outside Ohio?" I asked, another wave of pressure crushing my hips together.

"It's across the river," Rachel said. "It's West Virginia. It's a completely different judicial circuit. He has no authority there, Clara."

"Then go," I whimpered, closing my eyes as the contractions merged into one continuous, relentless tide of pain. "Just get us across the river."

The sky opened up as we climbed the long hills leading toward the Ohio River valley. Rain lashed against the windshield in heavy sheets, the wipers working at top speed to clear the road ahead. I lost track of time. Minutes stretched into endless cycles of pain, breath, and the steady, rhythmic roar of the engine beneath us.

Through the mist, the high steel arches of the Fort Henry Bridge rose over the brown waters of the Ohio River.