The red numbers on the screen flickered down to seventy-two.

“The baby is suffocating, Jake,” the doctor said. “And your wife is bleeding internally.”

“Fix it,” I whispered. “Please, just fix it.”

“We need to deliver this baby immediately,” he said.

He turned to the nurses.

“Prep OR four. Get the anesthesia team down there now.”

The room became a blur of motion.

Nurses began unlocking the wheels of Megan’s bed.

One of them threw a plastic bag containing Megan’s clothes into my arms.

“Wait,” I said, stumbling backward as they pushed the bed toward the door.

The doctor stopped me, putting a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Jake, look at me,” he said.

I looked into his eyes.

“Because of the poison, your wife’s blood might not clot properly,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“An emergency cesarean section is her only chance of survival, and the baby’s only chance,” he said.

He pulled a paper clipboard from a rack on the wall.

“But the risks are extremely high. She could hemorrhage on the table.”

He held out a black pen.