Consciousness slipped away in pieces.
The ER gurney stopped beside me, and several people in white coats rushed over.
They lifted me onto a stretcher.
Blood poured from between my thighs, soaking the white sheet beneath me red.
The surgical lights overhead seared my eyes shut.
“Massive hemorrhage! Late-stage organ failure complications! Blood pressure below 50!”
“Get the Rh-negative blood from the bank! The last two units in the city came in yesterday. Go, now!”
Monitor alarms screamed from every direction.
I lay beneath an oxygen mask, too weak to lift a single finger.
Minutes bled into each other.
Dr. Lambert, the attending physician leading my resuscitation, answered a phone call. The color drained from his face, and his eyes went red.
“What do you mean the blood's been taken? That blood is keeping someone alive! Who authorized this?!”
The nurses wheeled my bed forward, trying to rush me to the ICU.
At the far end of the corridor, right at the entrance to the hospital's VIP wing.
From a few meters away, I heard that familiar voice.
Katherine Fox sat in a wheelchair, a small Band-Aid on her knee, dabbing at her tears.
“Reginald, I just took a little fall. My stomach really hurts……”
Reginald held her close, his face tight with concern.
Dr. Lambert charged over and seized Reginald by the sleeve.
“Mr. Dickerson! You used your connections to commandeer those two units of Rh-negative blood from the bank? That blood was for a critical patient in the ER!”
Reginald shook him off, his gaze cold as iron.
“I don't care about some critical patient. My privilege exists to protect my family.”
He pointed at Katherine's belly.
“She's carrying a Dickerson heir. Her stomach hurts, so this blood stays right here. Just in case.”
“If she loses a single hair on her head, this entire hospital will answer for it!”
Dr. Lambert was shaking with rage：“This is two lives versus a scraped knee! You'll pay for this!”
I lay on the gurney.
Through the cold air, I watched my husband at the end of that corridor, losing his mind over his mistress.
My body temperature was plummeting. Beneath me, blood pooled into a river.
But the moment I heard his voice, something in me went quiet. I had never felt this free in my entire life.
Dr. Lambert ran back to my side, eyes rimmed red, barking orders for a bloodless resuscitation protocol.
“Doctor.”
I spent the last of my strength pulling the oxygen mask from my face.
My voice was barely a thread, but every word was clear.
“Stop the resuscitation. I signed the consent form.”
With trembling hands, I pressed a bloody fingerprint onto the electronic tablet the nurse held out.
【Do-Not-Resuscitate Consent Form.】
【Full-Body Organ Donation and Cremation Authorization.】
“Do it now. Before the organs fail.”
I closed my eyes.
The heart monitor flattened into a single, steady line.
A long, piercing wail tore through the entire ER corridor.
At the same time, in the VIP ward.
Reginald was peeling an apple for Katherine, careful and attentive.
Without warning, a tearing pain ripped through his chest, sharp and sourceless.
The paring knife slipped from his hand and clattered against the floor.
Then his phone buzzed.
The screen read 【City Central Hospital Morgue】.
He answered.
