Chapter 3 - Between Two Worlds
The blinding lights of the emergency room ceiling passed by in a blur of white. The pain was no longer just a wave; it was a continuous, suffocating ocean.
“Blood pressure is plummeting!” a nurse shouted as I was transferred onto a hospital bed. “Fetal heart rate is dropping. We have decels. We need an OR prepped for an emergency C-section, right now!”
“Evie, stay with me,” Mara’s voice cut through the sterile chaos. She was running alongside the bed, holding my hand so tightly my knuckles ached. “You have to fight. For the baby. Do you hear me?”
“I'm so tired, Mara,” I whispered, my eyelids feeling like they were weighted with lead. “It hurts too much.”
“I don't care how much it hurts, you stay awake!” she demanded, tears finally breaking through her stoic facade. “You survived him. You don't get to give up now. You are going to meet your daughter.”
The doors to the operating room swung open, and Mara was forced to let go of my hand. I was plunged into a terrifying world of masked faces, bright lights, and the sharp sting of an IV needle going into my arm.
“Count backward from ten for me, Evie,” an anesthesiologist said softly, placing a mask over my nose and mouth.
“Ten,” I mumbled, the room already spinning. “Nine… please save her. Please save my baby.”
“Eight…”
The darkness took me.
When I finally opened my eyes, the world was quiet. The harsh lights were gone, replaced by the soft, dim glow of a recovery room. I felt numb from the chest down, and my throat was dry, but the crushing agony was gone.
I turned my head slowly. Mara was sitting in a chair beside the bed, her head resting on her arms.
“Mara?” my voice was barely a croak.
She jerked awake instantly. “Evie! Oh my god, you're awake.” She pressed a button on the wall to call the nurse and then grabbed a cup of ice chips, feeding one gently to me.
“The baby?” I asked, panic suddenly spiking in my chest. I couldn't feel my stomach. It was flat. “Where is she? Is she…”
“She's alive,” Mara said quickly, stroking my hair. “She’s in the NICU. She was born premature, and she’s tiny, Evie. Barely four pounds. But she's a fighter, just like her mother. She's breathing on her own, and the doctors are very optimistic.”
Tears of absolute joy leaked from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks into my hair. “I want to see her.”
“You will. As soon as you're cleared to move into a wheelchair, I'll take you myself.”
The door opened, and a doctor walked in, followed by a detective I didn't recognize.
“Mrs. Miller,” the detective said gently. “I know this is a terrible time, but I need to ask you some questions about what happened this morning. Adrian's defense attorney is already trying to spin a narrative that you were suffering from pregnancy-induced psychosis and that your injuries were self-inflicted during a manic episode.”
I closed my eyes. Even behind bars, Adrian was trying to control the narrative. He was trying to make me look crazy, just like he had done for the past two years.
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But I wasn't the scared, isolated woman I was yesterday. I had a daughter now. A daughter who would never, ever know the monster that was her father.
I opened my eyes, looking the detective dead in the face. “I’m ready. Turn on your recorder. I’ll tell you exactly who Adrian Miller really is.”
