what happened to their child. But, of course, I don’t.
Baz picks up my slack again. “There’s a glass coffee table in the living room. Ava must’ve been playing, cracked the glass, and cracked her head.”
“Let’s have a look.” The doctor takes over for Baz, removing the soaked towel, and blood spurts. He quickly covers it back up. “That’s quite a lot of blood for a cracked head. Let me gather my nurses, and I’ll be back. Does she have any allergies by chance? Any blood disorders? The flow should at the very least be slowing down by now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.”
I frown, glancing at Ava, then Baz for help. I was never warned of any allergies or anything. For all I knew, when I adopted Ava, she was a healthy child.
“No, not that I know of. She’s…we’ve just finalized the adoption, so this wasn’t—nothing was mentioned to me.”
The doctor nods, pursing his lips. “I’ll be right back. Dad, please keep the pressure on the wound. I’ll have a few nurses stop in to do some blood panels to be sure nothing else is going on here.”
As the doctor pushes the curtain back before leaving, I glance at Baz and find him looking at me. There’s a moment, a single moment, when things feel like they used to. But that moment is gone in the blink of an eye. He glances down at Ava and goes back to avoiding my gaze. He’s obviously as frustrated with me as I am with him.
We wait in silence, Ava starting to drift. Worry begins clawing at my gut when I see how much blood she’s losing.
This isn’t normal, right?
I cracked my head open once and had to have stitches, but I don’t remember losing this much blood. The towel is soaked in crimson. It looks like someone dipped it into a can of red paint. It’s colored her perfect blond hair a matted red and the patient bed is soaked with it.
“Something’s wrong,” I whisper, as I look down at her. I feel it. Baz glances up at me, and by the look in his eyes, I can tell he knows it, too. This isn’t right. She shouldn’t be bleeding this much.
“Go find a doctor, a nurse, fucking someone.”
I push off the chair, before he manages to finish his sentence. I call out into the hall, probably rousing other ER patients, but I don’t care. My daughter is losing too much blood. A nurse carrying a handful of stuff skids to a halt at my panicked look.
“My daughter, she’s bleeding everywhere. There’s something wrong.”
She nods and calls back over her shoulder. “Martinez! I need help.”
We hurry back to Ava, and I almost burst into tears at the fearful expression on Baz’s face. The nurses urge us back, one taking over to apply pressure, the other twisting Ava, so they can take her vitals. It’s a mass of urgency. One nurse calls out for the doctor who comes speed walking in. The doctor looks at the nurses and the blood, and he starts giving out orders.
“Prep an OR room. For now, give her a blood-clotting agent. I don’t want to risk blood panels if she’s already losing this much blood. She might need a transfusion,” he rattles off to one of the head nurses, who’s nodding and jotting things down like his entire life depends on it. The doctor speeds off, getting ready to prep for whatever, and the nurses start wheeling Ava off. I shoot to my feet, unsteadily, tears filling my eyes. Fear claws at my chest.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“We’re taking Ava into the OR to better stop the blood flow. Mom, do you know Ava’s blood type? In case a blood infusion is needed. We just want to make sure she hasn’t lost too much. The doctor is giving her a clotting agent to help stop some of the blood flow.”
I shake my head, feeling panicked. “No, I don’t know. I think it says it somewhere in her medical file.”
The nurse nods, patting me on the arm, trying to get me to remain calm. “I’ll have a nurse look through her records. In the meantime, would one of you mind giving blood? In case either of you are matches?”
“Yes, of course,” Baz and I agree at the same time.
I’m antsy the entire time I give blood. Usually the act itself makes me nauseous, but right this second, all I can seem to worry about is Ava.