“You were warned that severe pain or bleeding could endanger her and the child,” Bennett continued. “Claire begged you to take her to the hospital. You walked out.”
Ryan felt the world tilt.
“Is she alive?”
The silence before the answer nearly broke him.
“Yes,” Bennett said. “Barely.”
Ryan exhaled shakily.
“And the baby?”
No one answered immediately.
Cold fear spread through his chest.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what happened to my child.”
General Bennett’s jaw tightened.
“My granddaughter was delivered by emergency surgery. She is alive.”
Ryan staggered back against his car. For one wild, shameful second, relief filled him.
Then the general continued.
“She is in critical condition.”
Ryan’s knees nearly failed.
“Critical?”
“She stopped breathing twice during the night.”
The words cut through the air.
Ryan gripped his car’s side mirror, suddenly seeing Claire as she had been that morning—pale, sweating, bent over in pain, whispering that something was wrong.
