The nurse shoved the mask harder against the tiny face.
The baby went from blue to gray. The struggle in the tiny limbs ceased.
Limp.
Karly's vision tunneled.
She didn't see a baby. She saw a patient. She saw an airway that needed to be opened now.
She body-checked the nurse.
The woman went flying, crashing into the paper towel dispenser.
"You crazy bitch!" the mother shrieked, clawing at Karly.
Karly shoved the mother back with one arm, snatching the baby with the other.
"Hold her down!" Karly ordered. The command in her voice was absolute. It was the voice of a Chief Resident.
The mother froze, stunned by the authority.
Karly flipped the baby over her arm. Whack. Back blow.
Nothing.
Whack.
Dr. Vance grabbed Karly's shoulder. "Let go of the child! You are assaulting a patient!"
Karly spun. Her eyes were wild, terrifying.
"She's dead in ten seconds unless I cut!" she roared at Vance. "Give me a scalpel!"
Vance recoiled. "You're insane."
Hakeem was in the doorway now, holding up his phone. Filming. "Look at her! She's killing that baby!"
No time.
Karly reached into her sleeve. She pulled out the utility knife from her desk.
The mother screamed. "She has a knife!"
Karly flicked open the lighter Hakeem had been using at the quarry. The flame licked the steel blade, turning it orange for a split second. A crude sterilization, but better than nothing.
Karly pinned the baby to the changing table. She hyperextended the neck.
She felt for the landmarks. Thyroid cartilage. Cricoid cartilage. The membrane between them.
A space smaller than a fingernail.
"Don't do it!" Vance shouted, lunging forward.
Karly sliced.
A vertical incision. Precise. One centimeter.
Blood welled up, dark and terrifying.
The mother fainted, crumpling to the floor.
Karly didn't look. She grabbed a suction straw from a juice box on the counter-trash left by someone else. She jammed it into the hole.
She put her mouth over the straw and sucked.
Metallic taste. Blood. And something sweet.
She spat onto the floor. A bloody lump of hard candy.
She put her ear to the straw.
Silence.
One second.
Two seconds.
Vance was reaching for her arm.
Then-
A sound. A wet, wheezing gasp.
Then a cry. Thin, weak, but unmistakable.
The baby's chest heaved. Pink color flooded back into the gray cheeks.
Karly slumped against the sink. The utility knife clattered to the floor.
