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Maggie closes her eyes as relief takes her under. Her shoulders shake, and she covers her face with one soot-blackened hand before the paramedic gently moves it away to keep the mask sealed.

I stand beside her stretcher, one hand wrapped around hers, while the other throbs with pain I refuse to acknowledge. My shirt sleeve has burned away near the forearm. The skin beneath is red, blistered, and already swelling.

A paramedic reaches for me. “Sir, your arm.”

“Later.”

“Now,” Maggie says, her voice weak but stubborn.

I look down at her.

Even on a stretcher with smoke in her lungs, she glares at me as if she can command obedience through sheer will. Under different circumstances, it would almost amuse me.

“Let them look,” she rasps.

The paramedic begins cutting away the ruined fabric from my sleeve while another checks Maggie's blood pressure and asks questions she answers between coughing fits.

Across the parking lot, I catch sight of Sam already sitting in the back of an ambulance, an oxygen mask covering his face while a paramedic examines a deep cut along his forehead. He notices me watching and gives a weak thumbs-up.

I return it.

The ambulance ride to the hospital passes in fragments. Maggie's hand in mine. Her breathing ragged through the oxygen mask. The paramedic asking how far along she might be.

Maggie looks at me then, fear plain on her soot-streaked face.

“Not far,” she whispers.

The paramedic nods with professional calm. “We’ll have them check the baby when we arrive.”

Baby.

The word turns the space inside the ambulance into something fragile and terrifying.

At the hospital, they take us through separate curtains, but I don’t allow them to move me far from her. A nurse cleans the burn on my forearm while another checks Maggie’s lungs, oxygen levels, and vitals. Jules occupies the next treatment bay, where he argues with a nurse about whether smoke inhalation affects bone structure.

“It absolutely could,” Jules insists. “My cheekbones are part of my brand.”

The nurse gives him a look over her chart. “Your cheekbones are fine.”

“For now,” he says.

Maggie turns her head toward his voice and manages a tired smile. Seeing it eases the pressure around my ribs a fraction.

A doctor enters Maggie’s bay with an ultrasound machine, followed by a nurse carrying fresh gloves and a folded towel.

Maggie’s fingers find mine before I reach for her. Her grip is weak, but she holds on as if letting go might change the outcome.

“We’ll take a look,” the doctor says gently. “Smoke exposure can be frightening, but your oxygen numbers are improving. This will help us check on the pregnancy.”

Maggie swallows. “Okay.”

I stand beside her bed while the doctor prepares the monitor. Jules’s curtain slides halfway open.

“Do not even think about excludin’ me,” Jules calls, his voice rough but determined.

Maggie lets out a breath that trembles. “Jules.”

“I’m emotionally invested,” he says, then winces when a nurse adjusts his ankle. “Also trapped here anyway, so really, it would be rude.”