Beautifully Broken: If You Leave Part 42

I absently s.p.a.ce out, lost in my thoughts; thinking about Gabe, and about what he might do. Will he maybe move in with me? It's all so exciting and new and terrifying.

Suddenly Mila startles, grasping at her stomach, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"What's wrong?" I ask anxiously. "Are you in labor?"

She shakes her head, flinches as she curls over into herself.

"Ow. No, I don't think so. This isn't right," she mutters. "Labor is supposed to be a gradual thing. This... owwww." She moans, clutching at her stomach again. She glances up at me, her face suddenly pale. "Maddy, this isn't right. Something's wrong."

s.h.i.+t. It's because she was up yesterday.

"Pax," I shout in panic, but I quickly realize that he won't be able to hear us from in here.

My hands are shaking so much that I can barely get her out of the shower. Somehow I manage, but just as I reach to turn the water off, she screams, loud and shrill, before she completely doubles over.

Looking down, I see that the sudsy water swirling around the drain has turned red with blood.

Within seconds it turns into more blood than I have ever seen.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Gabriel

Pax is just telling me how interested his grandfather is in DefenseTech's armor when we hear a bloodcurdling scream. I can't tell if it's Maddy or Mila, but it doesn't matter.

We both lunge to our feet and race down the hall.

As we burst into the bedroom, Maddy is pulling Mila out of the bathroom. Mila is completely naked, dripping wet and covered in blood.

"Pax," Maddy shrieks. "We need an ambulance."

I immediately pull out my phone and dial 911 but Pax shakes his head as he scoops up his unconscious wife.

"There's no time," he shouts over his shoulder as he runs down the stairs with his b.l.o.o.d.y wife in his arms.

f.u.c.k.

Mila rips a sheet from the bed and we follow Pax as fast we can. Mila is bleeding so much that there is a wide trail of blood on the stairs. Maddy slips in it, tumbling to the landing, smearing blood onto her clothing, her hands and her face.

I pull her up and we race to meet Pax at the car.

"Here," Maddy tells Pax, thrusting the sheet at him. "At least cover her up."

"Hurry up," he grunts, holding Mila out so that Maddy can ram the sheet down around her. "We've gotta hurry. What happened, Maddy?"

"I don't know," Maddy admits, her voice shaking. "I was giving her a shower and then she screamed. There's way too much blood."

And there is. It's gus.h.i.+ng everywhere, dripping through the sheet and onto Pax, saturating his clothes.

"I'll drive," I offer, leaping into the driver's side door. Maddy dives into the back and Pax collapses into the pa.s.senger seat with Mila on his lap. It's tight, but in his desperation he makes it work.

"Hurry," he commands me, although there's no need. My foot is already on the floor.

The wheels on the Charger barely touch the ground as we fly toward the hospital. As I drive, Maddy calls up to Pax, "Do you know her doctor's number?"

"Of course not," Pax snaps back. "I don't know that s.h.i.+t. Just call 911. They can let the hospital know that we're on the way."

So Maddy does, her voice shrill as she tells the dispatcher the situation.

Mila doesn't open her eyes for the entire ten-minute drive to the hospital, regardless of Pax's pleading.

"Mila, just look at me," he begs, pus.h.i.+ng her hair out of her face. He tries to wipe the blood from her cheek, but he only makes it worse. "Please wake up," he mutters helplessly.

There is blood everywhere.

Way too much blood.

"She's not breathing," Pax suddenly blurts, dropping his ear down to listen at her mouth. "She's not breathing. Jesus Christ."

Maddy scrambles to try to help from behind us, to try to see, just as I pull into the parking lot. Before I've even come to a stop at the curb, Pax has the door open and is laying Mila out on the sidewalk.

"Breathe, baby," he begs as he kneels and gives her a breath. "Breathe."

He's frantic and desperate and covered in Mila's blood.

"Pax," Maddy cries, pulling at his arm. "We've got to get her inside. We don't have time for this."

She pulls at him, but Pax isn't thinking clearly and he shakes her off, turning back to Mila, trying to breathe into her mouth.

He's interrupted by a team of people bursting through the doors with a gurney. Pax lunges up with Mila in his arms and thrusts her at the medical team.

"She's not breathing," he tells them in desperation. "Please-help her."

The doctors and nurses close in around Mila as they lay her out on the gurney and rush her inside.

As they do, Maddy clings helplessly to the side of the gurney. Looking down, I see that Mila's eyes are still closed and she is as pale as I've ever seen anyone. More terrifying than that, though, are the words coming out of the nurses' mouths.

She's unresponsive.

There's no pulse.

We need the paddles.

Maddy flinches as she hears them, tears running down her cheeks.

"It's going to be all right," Maddy tells her sister as the team shoves the gurney through the double doors and out of our sight. "Mila, you're going to be all right."

"Mila, I'm here!" Pax calls after her, when a nurse blocks his way. But Mila stays motionless. She couldn't hear any of it.

f.u.c.kkkkkk.

I've never felt so helpless as when I watch them take her away. I know there's nothing I can do and from the looks of all that blood staining the sheets covering her, I'm not sure there's anything anyone can do. There's no way she's not going to die.

There's so much blood.

h.e.l.l. All of a sudden the blood reminds me too much of that night in Afghanistan and my senses threaten to overtake me: the smell of blood, the taste of fear, the feel of panic.

The smoke.

The death.

The b.l.o.o.d.y children.

I fight it off, trying to breathe.

Maddy needs me. I can't lose my s.h.i.+t.

I take a deep breath, sucking in the fear and releasing it on the exhale.

I suck in the panic, releasing it on the exhale.

It's a trick Dr. Hart taught me and it seems to work.

By the time Maddy collapses into my arms a minute later, turning her face into my chest, I've calmed down. I can breathe again.

I'm fine, even if Mila is not.

What the f.u.c.k? Where's the justice in that?

Maddy hides her face as if she's hiding from what is happening, hiding from the world, hiding from death. I choke as I realize something.

Loss is her greatest fear. She just lost Tony and now she might lose Mila too.

Her bad thing has caught her.

I close my arms around her. It's the only thing I can do.

"She's going to be all right," Maddy says for the hundredth time as we all pace in the hospital waiting room. "She's going to be fine. I can't lose her too. I just can't. She'll be fine."

I don't even think she knows she's speaking. The words just automatically come out of her mouth at timed intervals, wooden and lifeless. I agree with her. I tell her that Mila will be fine, even though I don't believe it myself. Maddy doesn't even notice.

Pax is in his own world. They wouldn't let him back with Mila and he's like a caged lion out here. His muscles coil as he walks in tight circles. The tension in this room is palpable. I can taste the fear in the air, but no one acknowledges it.

"They're doctors," Maddy tells Pax. "They can fix her."

Pax looks up, his eyes completely stark, but doesn't answer as he paces past Maddy.

In turn, Maddy paces past me.

It's a continuous, nerve-racking cycle.

We're left out here alone, wondering what the f.u.c.k is going on. The worst thing is the not knowing. But knowing will be even worse. I feel so certain about that. Because there's no way Mila can survive.

There's no way.

And as I look at Pax and see how his face is drawn, how he's so pale, how he's pacing and flexing his hands and trying to breathe, I know he knows it too.

His bad thing has caught him too.

The very worst possible thing.

Seconds tick by. Then minutes. Then an hour. Then two. A nurse comes out a time or two to tell us that the doctors are still working, that they'll come back out when there's more news.

More time pa.s.ses.

I get Pax and Madison coffee. I get them water. I go to the restroom and bring them back wet paper towels to wipe the blood from their faces. Neither of them even notices.

They are immersed in fear.

"She was so cold," Madison tells me, her voice almost emotionless. "She was so cold, Gabe."

I rub her back, I pull her close. I watch the clock.

Another half hour pa.s.ses.

There's no way she survived. There's no way.

Finally a doctor emerges from the double doors. He looks exhausted.

But more than that, he looks gutted.

s.h.i.+t. I suck in my breath.

Pax leaps to his feet and Maddy freezes, both waiting for the worst, praying for the best, afraid to know which it is.