Chapter 5

The curtains were drawn shut. On the nightstand, her phone looped the sound of a fetal heart monitor alarm on repeat.

Scattered across the floor were several torn ultrasound photos — the ones I had waited alone in line for, at six months.

Mia pressed her hands over her ears and thrashed across the bed.

"It's her! She texted me a curse!"

"She said she and the baby are never going to let me go. She said she's dragging me to hell with her!"

Jason crossed the room in a few long strides and pulled her tight against him.

"It's okay. It's okay. It's just in your head."

"It's not in my head! Look at the phone!"

Mia's hand shook as she pointed to the floor.

Jason picked it up. On the screen was a text from an unknown number.

"You took my husband. Me and my baby will haunt you."

Jason's expression darkened instantly.

He knew that tone too well. When I'd been pushed to the edge, I had used that same desperate register before.

"She's lost her mind."

He said it through his teeth, eyes full of disappointment.

"Scaring a sick person with the baby — is this what kind of doctor she is?"

I hung in the air above them and watched Mia bury her face against his chest, the corner of her mouth curling into a quiet smile.

She knew, of course. She had known since last night that I was dead.

When she fired the shot, her eyes had been frighteningly clear.

She had even pressed the gun handle into my hand afterward, calm and deliberate, staging the scene to look like a struggle.

And now, using a dead woman's name, she was still playing the victim in front of Jason.

Jason raised his phone and dialed the medical administration office.

"Dr. Carter, it's me. About Caitlin's fellowship placement next year — put it on hold for now."

"She's been emotionally unstable throughout the pregnancy. Paranoid tendencies, signs of aggression. She's not in a position to work with patients."

"Yes. I'll submit a psychiatric evaluation form."

In a few sentences, he had erased three years of my work and labeled me mentally unfit.

He hung up, then sent me an ultimatum.

"You have ten minutes to get to the hospital and apologize to Mia in person."

"Otherwise, after the baby's born, I'm not letting you behave like this anymore. I'll pull you from the military hospital and have you stay home with the baby."

Message delivered. No response.

Mia clutched his sleeve, crying so hard she could barely breathe.

"Jason, I'm never going to have children. Why would she use the baby to hurt me like this?"

Jason looked at her pale face, and something flickered across his eyes — a trace of guilt.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the velvet box he had meant to give me.

It clicked open.

The silver bracelet caught the light. The name "Annie" engraved on it looked suddenly unbearable.

"Don't be afraid. I'm not going anywhere."

Jason took Mia's hand and placed the bracelet — the one that belonged to my daughter — into her palm.

"This is for you. Call it her way of making it up to you."

Mia's tears gave way to a soft smile as she closed her fingers around it.

Then a crash shook the room.

The door slammed open from the outside.

Dr. Helen stood in the doorway, out of breath, hair loose, eyes so red they looked raw.

She stormed across the room and swung her hand hard across Jason's face.

The crack of the slap rang through the hospital room.

Dr. Helen's voice broke as she said it:

"Caitlin and the baby are dead — and you're giving her daughter's bracelet to the woman who killed her?"