“We need a doctor in here now,” the nurse said into her shoulder microphone.

Megan let out a sharp, ragged scream, her body stiffening against the mattress.

A dark stain began to spread across the white sheet beneath her.

I stared at the red pool widening on the sheet.

It looked like spilled ink on snow.

“Get her flat!” the nurse shouted.

She hit a blue button on the wall.

An alarm began to blare in the hallway outside, a rhythmic, deafening honk.

Megan’s grip on my fingers suddenly went limp.

Her eyes rolled back, showing only the whites.

“Megan!” I cried, leaning over her. “Stay with me, Meg. Look at me.”

She didn’t move.

Her breath came in short, wet rattles.

The door swung open so hard it hit the drywall with a loud crack.

A tall doctor with sharp eyes and a green scrub cap rushed in, followed by two more nurses.

“What do we have?” the doctor asked, his voice cutting through the noise of the monitors.

“Abrupt spike in maternal heart rate, sudden fetal bradycardia down to eighty-five,” the first nurse said.