Chapter 3
I laid my cheek against the cold hardwood floor, staring blankly at the front door. The silence of the house was oppressive. Ethan was likely pulling into the valet at the country club right now, handing his keys to a teenager, smoothing his tie, preparing to smile for the cameras.
The distant, wailing shriek of sirens pierced the quiet suburban night. The sound grew louder, more frantic, until red and blue lights began flashing violently through the sheer curtains of the living room window, painting the walls in panicked colors.
I heard heavy boots pounding up the porch steps.
“Ma’am! Can you hear us? Paramedics!” A fist pounded brutally against the thick mahogany wood.
I tried to scream, I tried to tell them I was right here, just a few feet away, but only a pathetic, gurgling whimper escaped my lips. I couldn’t move my arms anymore.
“The door is locked dead! It’s an electronic deadbolt, we can’t kick it!” a deep voice shouted outside.
“Look through the sidelight! Can you see her?”
“Jesus Christ. Yeah, I see her. She’s down in the hallway. Massive hemorrhage on the floor. She’s unresponsive.”
The urgency outside escalated into a chaotic shout. “We don’t have time to wait for a locksmith or PD! Grab the Halligan bar from the truck! Take out the glass, we need to breach now!”
I closed my eyes.
A deafening CRASH exploded through the house. The heavy, decorative safety glass framing the front door shattered inward, raining jagged, heavy fragments all over the entryway rug and across my legs. Through the haze, I saw a heavy metal tool smash through the remaining glass, followed by a thick, gloved hand reaching blindly through the jagged hole, frantically feeling for the interior emergency latch.
The lock clicked. The door ripped open.
The freezing night air rushed over my sweat-soaked skin. Suddenly, my living room was flooded with blinding flashlights and men in high-visibility jackets.
“I’ve got her! Pulse is incredibly thready, she’s going into hypovolemic shock!” a paramedic yelled, dropping to his knees right in the pool of my blood. He didn’t care. He pressed a thick trauma dressing against me and barked orders. “Get the backboard! We have a suspected placental abruption. We need to move, now!”
They moved with frantic, coordinated violence. I was rolled onto a rigid board, strapped down tight, and hoisted into the air. The transition from the quiet, bloody floor of my home to the chaotic, blindingly bright interior of the ambulance was jarring.
Doors slammed. The siren screamed to life, a frantic heartbeat echoing the terror in my own chest.
“Where… my baby?” I managed to choke out, staring blankly at the metal ceiling of the ambulance as it swayed violently around a corner.
The paramedic holding a pressure bag of IV fluids looked down at me, his face grim, his uniform stained with my blood. “We’re going to get you to the hospital, Madison. We’re doing everything we can. Just hold on.”
The next twenty minutes were a terrifying blur of medical jargon, flashing lights, and the squeak of rubber wheels on hospital linoleum. I remember the frantic shouting of trauma nurses in the ER bay. I remember the freezing swipe of iodine across my swollen stomach.
I remember a doctor yelling, “Fetal heart rate is in the sixties and dropping! We have a complete abruption. We need her in the OR for a crash C-section right now! Put her under!”
A plastic mask was clamped hard over my nose and mouth. A nurse leaned close, her eyes wide with urgency. “Count backward from ten, sweetie.”
“Ten…” I whispered. “Nine…”
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Then, the world dissolved into absolute, silent, terrifying blackness. I didn’t know if I would ever wake up. And I didn’t know if my baby would be alive if I did.
I did not wake up gracefully. I dragged my consciousness up from a deep, chemical trench, fighting through a suffocating fog of anesthesia.
