Page 251 of Savior
“Dean, I can’t breathe,” she pants as hospital workers talk in code and scramble around the room. I’m able to decipher a few things here and there. They’re taking her in for an emergency c-section. She’s hemorrhaging, severely… The words full placental abruption are being thrown around.
I squeeze her hand tighter, pressing her fingers to my lips, willing her all the strength I’ve got within me. Wishing I could somehow transfer it into her being, or take whatever this is, unto myself. I don’t know why this is happening, but I’ve never been more afraid in my life.
Her other hand rips the oxygen mask from her face as if it isn’t working, gasping desperately for air… Her lips are no longer a rosy pink… they’re quickly turning a nightmarish shade of blue… The nurse shoves the oxygen mask back over her face, holding it against her.
The doctor is barking more frantic orders… Saying things I don’t want to hear…
Time… time… time… They’re running out of time…
I try not to focus on their words… I zero in on Vanna… My world… My whole life…
I squeeze her hand tighter, pressing my lips against her ear.
“Vanna, listen to me… Don’t you fucking leave me...”
I watch this horror play out before me through blurry eyes.
Once again, we’re trapped in a nightmare together, and I’m right by her side, unable to do a fucking thing to save her.
One of the monitors goes off again. A nurse shouts that they’ve lost the heart beat… That the baby has to come out, right now… That she’ll be lucky if they have enough time to put her under...
Oh, Jesus fuck, no…
Vanna screams inside the oxygen mask. Tears streaming down her terrified face…
Someone is ripping me away from her as she’s wheeled quickly out of the room… More than someone… someones…
They’re telling me that I’ll be updated shortly… That I cannot go into the O.R. with her…
Logically, some distant part of my mind comprehends that… But I struggle against them, hauling them with me as I make my way slowly towards the door. The logical part of my mind is shutting down. I drag myself and whomever is trying to stop me, towards the hall that will lead me back to Vanna’s side. Where I belong…
My boots slip in something wet, and I crash to my knees. The people restraining me lose their grip, and I’m able to scramble back to my feet and take off down the hall, in time to see Vanna being pushed through a set of double doors on her hospital bed.
They lock shut before I can reach them… But I can hear her screaming for me as I pound on the plexiglass window, barely registering that I’m somehow smearing the glass with blood.
They shove her through another set of doors on the other side, under a bunch of bright lights. Those doors close too, but I can see through the windows, just enough. A doctor is shouting for them to put up a sheet. Another is saying there’s no time…
She’s unceremoniously dragged onto a metal table beneath the bright lights, her gown ripped away as nurses restrain her arms with padded leather cuffs. A doctor dumps a bottle of iodine over her stomach…
The scalpel in his hand glints in the lights above the operating table, just before he presses it into her body…
Oh God… No…No! No!
Hands are pulling on my arms again as my own scream tears from my throat in unison with hers…
So much pain… so much fear…
My knees give out and I hit the floor again, pressing my bloody hand against the door that’s blocking my way to her side.
Vanna isn’t screaming anymore… and I’m terrified of what that might mean…
“This can’t be the end.” I whisper to her, though I know she can’t hear me.
Images of the first time I laid eyes on her flash through my mind, playing like a movie reel behind my eyelids. Her smile. Her laugh. Our first real kiss in the rain. The first time she said she loved me. The first time we made love. Waking up from a coma to her smiling face… Sitting on our kitchen floor with my hand pressed to her belly. Flying down the highway on Serene…
Her thanking me for delivering our Happily Ever After…
What a cruel twist of fate that it should end like this!
