Chapter 2

Two security guards blocked me at the door. Leslie struggled to get out of bed at once.

"I want Mommy!"

The gauze at the small of his back was already soaking through with blood, and a nurse rushed to hold him down.

I tried to force my way past, but the guards wrenched my arms behind me and dragged me to the end of the corridor.

My baby, no!

I fought them like my life meant nothing, and Leslie cried out for me the whole way, but no matter how hard we struggled, the door to his room swung shut.

Dr. Dickerson, his attending physician, came running out and pushed a test result into my hand, frantic.

"Leslie's mom, his fever won't break, his platelets are at half the normal count, the first harvest has already damaged his body. He cannot go back on that operating table anytime soon. It will kill him!"

Kill him?

The world went black in front of me.

"Does Patrick know?"

Dr. Dickerson was silent a moment.

"He signed the risk consent form himself."

So Patrick had allowed everything that was being done to Leslie.

My legs gave out, and a cold sweat broke over me from sheer terror.

No. I had already lost Sophie. I could not lose Leslie too.

I took that paper and went to arrange his discharge, but the nurse told me Patrick had put a hold on Leslie's paperwork, citing a dispute between guardians.

Even Sophie's death certificate and medical records couldn't be released until the hospital's investigation was finished.

Melanie came toward me carrying Irvin's coat, tears still in the corners of her eyes.

"Stephanie, Patrick only wanted to save one more child. Sophie was never going to make it. If Irvin can be saved, both Patrick and I will be grateful to you."

I stared at this woman who couldn't hide her triumph. She was flaunting my son's life to my face.

I slapped her across the cheek.

She let herself fall against the treatment cart, and Irvin's IV pump started blaring. Melanie flung herself into the room, sobbing that I'd tried to pull out Irvin's line to avenge Sophie.

Patrick came quickly.

He didn't ask a single question about what had happened. He just had the guards pin me against the nurses' station, my face pressed to the cold counter, my wrists cinched until they bled.

He looked at me, the guilt gone now, nothing left but endless irritation.

"I know you're grieving Sophie, but no matter what, you can't take it out on a child. Irvin is innocent. He lost his father when he was little. He's more pitiful than Sophie ever was."

As he spoke, he pushed a document in front of me. It said Leslie had donated his marrow to Irvin's recovery of his own free will, and that Sophie's death had nothing to do with Irvin.

The more I read, the more something broke loose in me.

"Patrick, Sophie is dead, and now you want to force Leslie to his death too! He can't survive a second harvest. It will kill him!"

"Don't sign, and you don't take Sophie, and you never see Leslie."

I looked up at this man I no longer recognized. He knew I would give my own life for my two children, so every single time he used them to force me to my knees.

In the end, I signed.

In front of everyone in that room, I told Melanie I was sorry.

At last she was satisfied. She handed me Sophie's death certificate and the bag of her belongings.

Inside there was only a hospital gown, a hairclip with the paint worn off, and that paper on which she'd written that she would protect her little brother.

After the cremation was done, I carried Sophie's ashes through the lobby. In the patient families' group chat, the surveillance screenshots Melanie had posted were already everywhere.

I had become the villain who deliberately harmed her and her child. People pointed at me and cursed me, saying my own daughter had died so now I wanted to kill someone else's child.

A woman rushed over and shoved me.

I went down hard onto my knees, the urn in my arms striking the steps. I didn't care about the blood on my knees. I only pulled it tight against my chest.

Patrick stepped out of the elevator, and his face changed in an instant.

He drove off the people crowding around and handed me a document envelope.

"Stephanie, I'll make it up to you for what happened to Sophie. The fertility center has already scheduled your appointment. Once your body has recovered, we can have another matched-donor child, just like Leslie."

Trembling, I opened the file, looked at the egg-retrieval date printed in bright red, and closed my eyes.

Six rounds of ovarian stimulation, two miscarriages, a postpartum hemorrhage. To him it all came down to one notice that could restart everything whenever he wanted.

Sophie had never been in his heart. Neither had I.

I quietly put the file back into his hand, turned, and carried Sophie away.

It rained all night at the cemetery.

Alone, I set up Sophie's headstone and laid her favorite hairclip beside her photo.

"Sophie, Mommy didn't keep you safe."

Once the words were out, I finally couldn't hold on, and collapsed into the mud and rain.

When I opened my eyes again, Patrick was sitting beside the hospital bed, playing the video of me collapsed at the grave on his phone.

"Melanie's been getting cursed at all night. Stephanie, did you let someone film all this on purpose, just to blow the whole thing up?"