“Look at me,” he says each time I start to spiral. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Good.” His voice is too calm. That scares me more than if he yelled.
By the time we get to the hospital, I’m crying without really noticing. The lights are too bright. Everything smells like antiseptic and metal and bad news.
“Aleksei,” I gasp, another cramp tearing through me so hard I can’t breathe through the end of his name.
“I know,” he says, voice low and sharp at once. “I’ve got you.”
He storms through the emergency entrance with me in his arms, and the entire room changes the second people see his face. Nurses move. A doctor appears. Someone reaches for a wheelchair and he snaps, “No,” without even looking at them.
“She’s eight months pregnant,” he says. “Severe abdominal pain. Now.”
They get me onto a bed. Hands everywhere. Questions. When did it start? Any bleeding? Any dizziness? Did I eat anything unusual? Can you rate the pain? Is the baby moving?
I answer what I can.
Aleksei answers the rest.
I don’t remember when they separate him from me. One moment he’s there, one hand wrapped around mine, and the next I’m being wheeled through double doors under harsh lights while nurses talk over me.
They hook me to monitors. Press cold gel to my stomach. Someone checks dilation. Another nurse takes blood. I hear the baby’s heartbeat first, fast and frantic, and then my own starts to race harder because no one in the room looks reassured by it.
The first doctor frowns at the screen.
The second one asks again, “Did she eat anything outside the house tonight?”
I close my eyes and try to think. Nothing weird. Nothing dangerous. A third wave of pain hits me and I cry out before I can stop myself.
The doctor looks at the nurse. “Page OB and toxicology.”
Toxicology. The word cuts through the pain like ice.
I turn my head sharply. “What?”
No one answers me immediately, which is answer enough.
The doctor finally looks down at me, too calm. “We need to rule a few things out.”
My whole body goes cold. Rule things out. That means they already think it’s possible. That means this might not just be labor. That means something is wrong with me, not just the baby, and the room has changed from worried to urgent in a way I can feel even through the pain.
When Aleksei gets back into the room, he looks like he’s one bad sentence away from dragging the entire hospital apart with his hands.
“What’s happening?” he says.
The obstetrician doesn’t waste time. “She’s having contractions, but they’re too intense for what we’re seeing clinically. Her blood pressure is unstable, and some of her symptoms don’t fit straightforward preterm labor.”
Aleksei goes still. “Say it clearly.”
The doctor glances at the chart, then at him. “We think she may have ingested something.”
The room goes silent. I feel it before I see it.
Aleksei’s face changes. Not fear. Something colder. Deadlier. “Poisoned?” he asks.
The word doesn’t sound real.
