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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The scream bounced off the walls, reverberating in his ears. The woman’s face contorted in pain and she groaned, her legs curling up.

He rushed forward, his gaze roving over her swollen belly, the muscles taut. “What's wrong? What’s happening?”

“The baby…” she gasped, her eyes fluttering open, wide with fear. “It’s… Oh, God!”

Her back arched violently and she gritted her teeth against the pain racking her body. “The baby is coming,” she panted out.

Panic surged through him and he shook his head. No. It was too soon. She was only a few months along; this couldn’t be happening.

Sweat broke out along her forehead and chest as her lungs heaved with effort. “Do something!” she begged. “I need…”

Pain rippled across her face again, and another ear-shattering shriek broke free.

“Help her!” screamed the second woman from her place in the corner. “She needs a doctor!”

That wasn’t possible. He tried to remain calm, to think clearly. This happened sometimes, didn’t it? Surely there were just false contractions. “Take a deep breath,” he said, though his own breathing was becoming erratic. “Just breathe through it.”

Minutes turned into an agonizing eternity. Her cries grew louder, her body writhing in pain. His mind raced, trying to recall any fragment of first aid or emergency birth procedures he might have heard or read.

Then, the bleeding started. A dark, ominous stain spread across the blanket. His heart thudded painfully in his chest. This wasn’t right. This was too much blood.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Oh God, you’re bleeding.”

“I can’t... I can’t stop it,” she gasped, tears streaming down her face.

His stomach pitched violently. He had to help her. He had to do something. Wadding up the sheets, he pressed them between her legs.

Her cries turned to whimpers, her grip on his hand weakening as red saturated the dingy white sheets.

She looked at him, her eyes filled with a mixture of pain and fear. “I can’t…”

“No,” he choked out. “You’re going to be okay. You have to be okay.”

But deep down, he knew. He knew this was beyond his control, beyond his ability to fix. Her body convulsed, then went limp. Panic gave way to cold, hard fear.

“No, no, no,” he repeated, his voice breaking. “Stay with me. Please, stay with me.”

He felt her pulse, weak and fluttering like a trapped bird. He tried to remember CPR, tried to do anything that might keep her with him. But the blood kept coming, soaking through the sheets and pooling around them.

He was losing her. He was losing both of them.

Hours felt like seconds. He held her, sobbing, as the life ebbed from her body. Then, she was gone. Her body went slack in his arms, her breathing stopped. He clung to her, rocking back and forth, his heart shattered into a million pieces.

The sun rose higher, casting a harsh light on the scene. The dream of their future lay broken, like shattered glass on the floor. Daniel sat there, holding Emily’s lifeless body, the weight of his loss pressing down on him like a suffocating blanket.

Killer: Blood everywhere. Gasping for breath, begging for help. Tragic loss. Mother and baby dead.