Chapter 4 - The Fight for Baby HopeDr. Vance sprinted out of the room without a word.

“No!” I screamed, tearing off my IV lines, blood spilling onto the white bedsheets. “No! Take me to her! TAKE ME TO MY BABY!”

“Maya, no! You have fresh stitches! You can’t move!” Alejandro cried, trying to hold me down gently, but the adrenaline spiking through my veins gave me terrifying strength.

“I don’t care about my stitches!” I roared, pulling myself off the mattress. A sharp, searing agony ripped through my lower abdomen as my surgical wounds stretched, but I ignored it. “If my daughter is dying, I am going to be there!”

Alejandro realized there was no stopping me. He grabbed a wheelchair from the corner, pulled me onto it, and began pushing me down the corridor as fast as he could, the IV pole rattling loudly behind us. Elena ran behind us, wiping tears from her swollen eyes.

We burst through the double doors of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Inside, three doctors and four nurses were crowded around a tiny glass incubator. Red lights were flashing everywhere, accompanied by the horrific, steady tone of a heart monitor that had flatlined.

“Clear!” a doctor called out, holding two tiny, coin-sized defibrillator paddles over a baby that was no larger than Alejandro’s two hands combined.

THUMP.

The tiny body jolted on the plastic mattress.

“No pulse! Charge again to three joules!”

“Hope! Hope, please!” I screamed from the doorway, trying to push myself out of the wheelchair. “Mommy is here! Hope, please don’t give up!”

Alejandro gripped the handle of the wheelchair, tears pouring down his face as he watched his daughter’s tiny, translucent body fight for life.

“Clear!”

THUMP.

Silence hung in the air for three agonizing seconds. The only sound was the hum of the air filters.

Then... beep.

... beep.

... beep... beep... beep.

“We have a sinus rhythm!” the nurse shouted, letting out a massive breath of relief. “SpO2 is climbing back up—75... 80... 85 percent! She’s stabilizing!”

Dr. Vance wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and turned to us. “She made it through the crash. But her lungs are extremely underdeveloped due to the premature rupture, and her brain sustained severe stress from the toxic contractions.”

He stepped closer to me, his tone grave. “The next forty-eight hours will tell us everything. If she survives the night, we need to run an MRI to see if the chemical toxicity and lack of oxygen caused irreversible neurological damage.”

I pulled myself up, holding onto the glass of the incubator with trembling hands. Inside, covered in wires and tubes, was my baby girl. Her skin was almost see-through, her chest rising and falling rapidly under the push of the mechanical ventilator.

“She’s going to survive,” I whispered, staring into the incubator with a cold, fierce determination. “She’s stronger than the people who tried to destroy her.”

Elena stepped up behind Alejandro, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder. “Alejandro... son... we need to hire a lawyer for Paola. We need to explain to the police that she didn't mean for it to go this far—”

Alejandro turned around and slammed his hand against the glass partition wall, making Elena jump back in horror.

“If you say her name in front of my wife again,” Alejandro said in a low, terrifying voice that sent a chill down my spine, “I will make sure you never see me, or your granddaughter, for the rest of your life.”

“Alejandro! She’s your sister!” Elena sobbed.

“She tried to murder my child!” Alejandro yelled, his voice echoing through the sterile unit. “Get out. Get out of this hospital before I have security throw you out!”

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Elena backed away, horrified by the absolute rage in her son’s eyes, and fled down the hallway.

Alejandro turned back to me and knelt beside my wheelchair, taking my hand in his. “I’m hiring the best criminal prosecutor in the state,” he vowed softly, his eyes filled with dark resolve. “Paola will never see the light of day again.”