MY MOTHER THREW BOILING MILK AT MY EIGHT-MONTH-PREGNANT BELLY—THEN DEMANDED I SIGN AWAY MY BABY’S FUTURE. BUT WHEN MY FATHER SAW WHAT WAS ON MY PHONE, HIS FACE TURNED WHITE...

The paramedic, an older woman with iron-gray hair and name badge that read Sgt. Martinez, moved with mechanical speed. She had already cut away the soaked shoulder of my dress, slathering a thick, cooling hydrogel over the second-degree burns blistering along my collarbone and neck.

“Blood pressure is 165 over 110,” the younger paramedic shouted over the roar of the diesel engine and the deafening wail of the siren. “Contractions are ninety seconds apart, lasting fifty seconds. Fetal heart rate is tachycardic—185 and fluctuating!”

Mateo sat on the narrow bench beside my stretcher, his knuckles white as he held both of my hands. His face was streaked with sweat and dried milk, his eyes never leaving mine. “Stay with me, Kay. Keep looking right here. Don't look at the monitors.”

“It’s too early, Mateo,” I wept, crying out as another contraction gripped my hips like an iron vise. “He’s only thirty-three weeks. His lungs... what if his lungs aren't ready?”

“The steroids will help,” Sgt. Martinez said firmly, slipping an IV needle into the back of my hand with a swift, practiced pinch. “We’re giving you a loading dose of betamethasone and magnesium sulfate right now to protect the baby’s brain and lungs. Westchester Medical Center has a Level IV NICU waiting for us. Dr. Chen is already scrubbing in.”

The ambulance banked hard onto the hospital expressway, the siren shifting to a frantic, piercing yelp as it parted weekend traffic.

Every jolt of the suspension sent agony radiating through my pelvic bones. But worse than the pain was the terror—the cold, creeping dread that Valyria’s boiling milk had harmed my child. I remembered the sound of the liquid hitting the silver tray, the concussive splash that had sounded like grease dropping into a campfire. If that metal had been an inch lower, if my reflexes had been half a second slower, the boiling milk would have saturated the thin cotton over my bare stomach, cooking the amniotic sac through my abdominal wall.

My mother had known that. She had looked at my belly with eyes stripped of all humanity and tilted the pot.

“Police are at the house,” Mateo whispered, leaning down until his forehead rested against mine. “Leo called while they were loading you. They took Arturo in handcuffs. He tried to claim it was an accident, but half our neighborhood saw him run out with the wire cutters before Leo tackled him. And Mrs. Gable gave them her phone—she was recording a video of the dessert table through the window when Mom swung the pot. They have the whole assault on high-definition video, Kaylee.”

I closed my eyes, letting a ragged sob escape my throat. “Where... where are Valyria and Camila?”

“The state troopers intercepted Camila’s car near the Tappan Zee Bridge,” Mateo said, his voice trembling with dark satisfaction. “She ran a toll barrier trying to get to the upstate rental cabin. They boxed her in. Mom was in the passenger seat.”

Before I could process his words, the ambulance lurched to a halt. The rear doors flew open, letting in the cool, fluorescent glare of the hospital trauma bay. A team of six nurses and doctors in blue scrubs surrounded the gurney, hands reaching in to disconnect monitors, transferring lines, shouting clinical shorthand that sounded like an alien language.

“Thirty-two-year-old primigravida, thirty-three weeks gestation, traumatic placental abruption suspected post-fall and assault,” Sgt. Martinez reported as they wheeled me through the sliding double doors. “Partial-thickness thermal burns to right shoulder and neck. Active labor, crowning imminent!”

“Get her into OR 3!” a sharp, commanding female voice cut through the chaos. It was Dr. Chen, my OB-GYN, her face masked and shielded behind plastic. She leaned over my gurney, her eyes calm and fierce. “Kaylee, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” I gasped, crying out as a contraction tore through me with the force of an oncoming train. “Save my baby. Please, Dr. Chen, just save him!”

“We’re taking him out right now,” Dr. Chen said, her hands already palpating my abdomen with swift, clinical certainty. “You have a concealed abruption—the placenta is tearing away from the uterine wall. We cannot wait for a vaginal delivery. We are going under general anesthesia for an emergency classical C-section. Mateo, you have to stay outside this door.”

“No! I need to be with her!” Mateo shouted, his voice cracking as two orderlies held him back in the scrub corridor.

“You can't come in, sir, it’s a crash section!” a nurse yelled, pulling the heavy metal door shut between us.

The last thing I saw before the sterile white lights of the operating room swallowed me was Mateo’s face pressed against the small glass portal, mouthing three words through his tears: I love you.

Then came the cold sting of antiseptic washed across my belly, the sharp prick of a central line, and the heavy, suffocating weight of the oxygen mask pressed over my mouth and nose.

“Count backward from ten, Kaylee,” the anesthesiologist murmured.

Ten.

Nine.

Please let him cry.