Horror, cold, consuming, paralyzing, flooded through him in a sudden rush that made his limbs tremble. He had faced danger, fights, losses, but none of it had ever co close to this. Nothing had ever reached inside him and torn him open like this mont did. He didn’t know if she was bleeding because of the fall, because of labor, because of sothing worse. He didn’t know if the baby was in danger. He didn’t know if she was dying in his arms.
He only knew he couldn’t lose her.
"Help!" he shouted, his voice cracking across the empty park as he looked around wildly for anyone, anything, any sign of movent. "Sobody, HELP!" The words tore out of him with a raw, guttural desperation that echoed through the quiet space, bouncing off trees and pavent without answer.
He gathered her closer, one hand supporting the back of her head, the other wrapping around her belly instinctively, protectively, as if he could physically hold her and the baby together with sheer force of will. The grass was cold beneath his knees and damp where the blood had begun to soak through, and he didn’t dare shift her too much for fear of making sothing worse. He cradled her against him, rocking slightly in a helpless attempt to keep her conscious, his breath coming fast and uneven.
"Willow, please wake up. Please. Stay with . Don’t do this. Just hear . Please." His words spilled into her hair, into the night, into the cold air between them. He pressed his cheek to her temple, trying to warm her, trying to feel so sign of response, so flutter, so sound. Her body remained limp, her head resting heavily against him, her breathing still shallow and frighteningly light.
The distant blur of lights from passing cars made everything feel unreal, as though they were suspended in a small, terrible world separate from the rest of the city. The wind rustled the leaves around them, carrying a faint chill that seeped into his bones. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, drowning out the quiet hum of the street beyond the trees.
And for the first ti in his life, Zane felt truly helpless, trapped in a mont he couldn’t fight his way out of, holding the woman he loved while the life inside her fought against sothing unseen and unstoppable.
But the blood kept spreading.
Slow at first, then faster, an irregular, sickening seep that darkened the white fabric until it no longer looked like clothing but a wound she was wearing. The grass beneath her had already begun to glisten, wet and tallic under the streetlight, and Zane felt the earth turning sticky beneath his knees. Every second that passed carved deeper panic into his chest. Blood like that wasn’t normal. Not at this stage. Not this much. Not this fast.
Her body twitched once, a faint jerk of her fingers, as if so part of her was still trying to respond, to wake, to fight her way back. But instead of strength, the motion dragged a tiny groan from sowhere deep in her throat, barely a breath, barely sound at all. A ghost of pain.
Her head lolled, her lips parted. Her breathing hitched, stuttering, and he felt the dizziness still clinging to her even unconscious, her body swaying faintly against him as though her equilibrium had simply vanished. He brushed her forehead with shaking fingers. She was cold. Too cold. Not the cold of weather. He knew this kind. The cold that frightened doctors. The cold that terrified families.
"Willow... please," he whispered, but the blood kept coming.
The contractions weren’t stopping either.
He felt another one seize her abdon under his palm, her body tightening with involuntary force even while unconscious, her breath catching in a tiny, broken gasp that tore through him like shrapnel. The pain she wasn’t awake to feel still carved itself into her muscles, her spine bowing slightly even in his arms.
She was fighting two battles at once. Consciousness slipping, her body convulsing, the baby inside her caught in a storm that was getting worse by the second.
And he could not stop any of it.
He had never felt panic like this. Not the kind that steals your breath for a second and then fades, but the kind that sinks into your bones and locks your body in place. It pressed down on him like weight, crushing his spine, tilting the world slightly off balance. Every sound seed too loud and too distant at the sa ti. His thoughts raced, then scattered, then returned in fragnts that made no sense. Each heartbeat slamd painfully in his chest, heavy and frantic, as if counting down to sothing final he could not prevent.
He looked down at his hands, one trembling beneath her head, the other stained red to the wrist.
For a mont he could not recognize them as his own. The blood glistened darkly under the streetlight, slick across his skin, warm and terrifying. His fingers shook harder as the reality of it sank in. That blood was hers.
"Sobody, PLEASE!" he scread again, but now his voice cracked with sothing deeper. Pure fear.
Because Willow was not just unconscious now. Sothing deeper was happening beneath the stillness of her body, sothing that made the mont feel fragile in a way he had never experienced before. As he held her against him, he felt the subtle changes that no one ever notices until it is too late. The weakness in her pulse beneath his fingers. The shallow rise and fall of her chest. The unnatural heaviness of her body resting in his arms. It was as if the thread keeping her anchored to the world had begun to loosen, strand by strand, and the realization crawled slowly through him with sickening certainty. She was slipping, and he could feel it happening even though he had no idea how to stop it.
He could feel it and it shredded sothing inside him so violently he almost doubled over with her. His body wanted to move, to act, to fix, but there was nothing to fight, nothing to grab, nothing to tear apart except the rising terror choking his lungs.
He was utterly, brutally powerless.
"Co on, baby... please," he whispered against her hair, his voice shaking so hard the words barely ford. He adjusted his grip, terrified to jostle her, terrified not to. Her head lolled again, her cheek saring a faint streak of red across his collarbone. Her arms were limp, her fingers curled loosely in the air, as if frozen mid reach for sothing that wasn’t there.
He pressed his hand lightly to her belly again, helplessly, instinctively, because it was the only thing he could do. She didn’t react. Not even a flinch. And that terrified him more than the blood.
Another contraction rippled beneath his palm, violent and out of sync with her unconscious body. He felt her abdon tighten, her breath stutter in a fractured half gasp, and his heart slamd against his ribs so hard it hurt.
"Please, God, no..." he breathed. Not a prayer. A plea.
The world spun around them in a blur. Traffic, wind, leaves whispering, lights flickering. Everything felt too fast, too loud, too far away from the tiny, collapsing universe in his arms.
"HEY! HEY!" a voice suddenly shouted from sowhere near the path. Footsteps pounded across the pavent. "I’m calling 911! There’s an ambulance on the way!"
Zane barely heard the words. He couldn’t look up. Couldn’t shift his gaze. Couldn’t loosen his grip even for a second.
Because in that mont he could do nothing except hold her. Every instinct that had ever taught him to fight, to act, to take control of a crisis suddenly had nowhere to go. There was no enemy to confront, no problem he could force into submission, no imdiate action that could undo what was happening. All he had was the fragile weight of her body in his arms and the terrible understanding that if he loosened his grip, even for a mont, she might slip further away.
He held her as though the strength of his arms alone could anchor her to the world. His hand remained pressed carefully against her back while the other stayed protectively over her abdon, as if by sheer will he could keep both her and the child inside her safe. Everything else felt impossibly distant. Every solution, every rescue, every miracle he desperately needed existed sowhere beyond his reach.
He tightened his arms around her without realizing he had done it, his hands trembling while his chest felt as though sothing inside it had cracked open. The faint wail of sirens began to echo sowhere far beyond the trees, thin and distant against the night air. He lifted his head slightly when he heard them, hope and dread colliding inside him at once, because even as the sound grew slowly closer it still felt impossibly far away.
It was not fast enough.
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