Chapter 2 - Cold Metal And Flatlines
The silence of the machine felt louder than the blaring intercom. For one second, the air inside Room 4 evacuated entirely, leaving Julian suffocating under the cold glare of fluorescent tubes.
The door banged back on its hinges again as two private hospital guards tackled Victoria by her upper arms. She didn’t scream anymore. She merely stared at Julian, a hideous, satisfied smirk twisting the corner of her crimson lips as they wrenched her wrists behind her back. "It’s over, Julian," she whispered as they dragged her out. "Nature always course-corrects."
A team of green-clad trauma nurses and Dr. Vance, the attending obstetrician, swarmed the room like a tactical unit, pushing Julian bodily out of the splash zone.
"Get him back! Sir, you need to stand outside!"
"That's my wife!" Julian shouted, his back hitting the door jamb. "That's my child!"
"And we need to save them! Out!"
Nurse Ramirez shoved him through the doorway and pulled the curtain shut, the metal rings screeching along the ceiling track. Julian was left stranded in the corridor, chest heaving, his wool coat stained with floor dust and his mother’s spilled perfume.
Through the narrow glass observation panel, he watched the nightmare unfold in pantomime. Dr. Vance slapped cold conductive gel across Elena’s bare abdomen, dragging the ultrasound wand in frantic, sweeping circles. Elena was crying silently, biting her bottom lip until blood seeped down her chin, staring at the ceiling as if begging the plaster not to collapse on her.
"Fetal bradycardia," Vance's muffled voice cut through the glass. "Heart rate is down to sixty. She’s abrupting. The trauma caused a placental tear. Prep OR Two right now! We are converting to an emergency crash C-section!"
"No, please," Elena wept, her voice carrying through the door crack. "Not yet, she’s only thirty-two weeks... please..."
"Elena, you’re bleeding internally," Vance said firmly, his hands already unhooking the bed's locking casters. "We take this baby in five minutes, or we lose both of you. Move!"
The bed was shoved through the doors, wheels rattling like a freight train on track. Julian reached out, catching Elena’s clammy fingers as she rolled past. Her grip was surprisingly fierce, digging into his skin with desperate, terrified strength.
"Julian," she gasped, her eyes wild, pupils dilated from shock. "Your mother... before you walked in... she whispered something to me."
"Don't worry about her, Elena, just breathe—"
"No, listen to me!" Elena pulled his ear down as orderlies shoved the gurney faster toward the surgical bay. "She told me this wasn't the first time. She told me she took your sister thirty years ago... and made it look like a stillbirth."
The sterile air of the surgical doors hissed open and slammed shut, wrenching Elena’s hand from his grasp.
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Julian stood frozen in the middle of the empty hallway, the blood rushing in his ears deafening him. His sister. Clara. The baby his mother had wept over every Christmas of his childhood, the tragedy that had allegedly driven his father to drink and an early grave.
At his feet, amidst the scatter of Victoria’s spilled items, lay the heavy leather backpack. One side pocket had ripped open, exposing an old, weathered manila file folder tied with faded red string.
