Page 323 of Wicked Brutal

Her breathing changes. “He thinks she’s coming home.”

I can’t lie to her. “Yeah.” Her face crumples. Mom gets out of her chair. “He’s waiting for her. I promised him.” Her voice breaks. “I promised all three.”

“You promised you’d come back,” Mom says gently. “And you did.”

Ally starts crying, and Mom pulls her carefully close, and it all comes out of her small and broken — he’s going to be so sad, he’s going to want her, I can’t give her back to him, I should’ve gotten her out sooner.

Mom pulls back and cups her face. “No. You do not put this on yourself. Your mother made a choice today. She chose you. She chose Tobias. She chose that baby. And Roman took her life for it. That belongs to him. Not you.”

Ally breaks against her. Darla reaches for them both.

I sit there holding Ally’s hand while all three of them cry, and I look at the ultrasound picture on the blanket. Tiny. Grainy. Alive. Jane saw pictures like this. She knew exactly what Ally was trying to save — exactly what she was risking everything for. And when the moment came, she shoved Tobias toward safety. Put herself between Victor and Ally. Between Roman and both of her children. She got all three of them out. She just didn’t make it out with them.

I look at the list on my phone. Symptoms. Medication. Appointments. Numbers. Heartbeat. Stay.

I can’t fix what happened today. I can’t bring Jane back. I can’t make Tobias understand why his mother isn’t coming home. I can’t promise Ally our baby will be okay. But I can memorize every instruction. I can watch every symptom. I can get her to every appointment. I can make sure she rests. I can stay.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

The house is quiet when we get home. Most of the cars are gone. A few still sit in the driveway, but nothing like earlier — no people spilling through the front door, no phones ringing, no Arthur talking over three other people while Dad tries to talk over him. Just the porch light. The kitchen light. The lamp Mom always leaves on beside the stairs.

Dad is at the kitchen table, his phone in front of him, a cup of coffee beside it gone untouched. He looks up when the door opens. Mom comes in first. Then Ally and me.

Dad’s chair nearly hits the floor. “Ally.”

He crosses the room before I get the door shut behind us.

Ally makes a tiny, broken sound. “Walter.”

He catches her carefully — one arm around her back, one hand cradling the back of her head. Ally doesn’t give a damn about careful. She wraps both arms around him and clings. Then she starts crying again.

“I’ve got you,” Dad says.

“I tried. I tried to help her. She wouldn’t wake up. I kept telling her to.” Dad’s eyes squeeze shut. “I couldn’t—“

“No.” He pulls her tighter. “Don’t do that.”

Ally buries her face against his chest. “I couldn’t save her.”

Dad’s voice breaks. “That wasn’t yours to do.” He just holds her, his hand moving slow over her hair, again and again, until her sobs finally quiet. Then he pulls back, brings his hands up to her face, and his eyes move over her bruises. Her split lip. Then lower. “Baby?”

“The baby’s okay.”

His eyes snap to mine. “Heartbeat?”

“Strong. One-sixty-one when they measured it — right where they want it.” Some of the tension leaves his shoulders.

“Measuring right?”

“Yeah. Right on track.”

“The bleeding?”

“Slowed. Not stopped.” His face tightens. “They found a subchorionic hematoma — a pocket of blood along the uterine wall. Small. Low, away from the placenta, which is what you want. They can’t say for sure the wall caused it, and they can’t promise it won’t get worse. So we watch her.” I pull out my phone before he can ask. “Heavy bleeding, large clots, worsening pain, dizziness, weakness, fever — any of it, we go straight back. Pelvic rest, no lifting, no stairs she doesn’t need. OB follow-up and a repeat scan. I wrote down the medication, the dosage, and the time they gave it. It’s already in your phone — I sent it.”

Dad looks at me for a long second. Then, quiet: “You sent it.”

“To you, Mom, and Darla. Phones die.”