Page 28 of The Golden Hour

“That one is full—where can we bring her?”

“We have to get her into a room now!”

“Why are we just standing here?!”

“Dr. Carpenter, what do we do?”

Everyone is yelling over everyone, everyone looking to him to make a decision, to fix it. He is the best fucking emergency physician in this goddamn hospital. He knows exactly what to do with a bleeding pregnant woman on a stretcher.

He was just explaining it to Lowell as if it were a fucking card game.

Mom first.

Save the mother, give the baby the best chance.

But he can’t fucking focus. He can barely breathe. He can’t think of anything but her name and the word please.

Please don’t die.

Please don’t leave me.

Please stay with me.

Please wake up.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Please.

His breathing shortens in his chest, the weight of everyone’s eyes on him suffocating, but the one pair of eyes he wants are closed and slipping away. He can’t look away from Honey’s face, too pale, mouth slightly parted, blood on her face and neck in the shape of Melissa’s handprints.

“Dr. Carpenter, what are we doing?” Lowell yells, the sound panicked now. “Carpenter! Dr. Carpenter, I don’t know what to do! What do we do?”

Mason opens his mouth.

Nothing comes out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MASON

“Mason!” Melissa screams. “Do something!”

This is why people don’t treat their family.

Because they can’t focus. Because protocol goes out the window when the patient is not a patient but the woman you promised to love forever, bleeding out on a stretcher. All the training, all the repetition, all the calm words he’s said to terrified families over the years fly out of his head like they were never there at all.

Because this is his wife and his baby. His entire life was soaked in blood.

Mason was always arrogant enough to think he could do it. He was Dr. Mason Carpenter, St. Mary’s golden boy. He could treat anybody for anything. He could keep his head in the middle of a nightmare.

But as he looks at his wife, bleeding out and dying, all he can do is beg.

Not his Honey.