And the doors of the NICU didn’t open.

They were slammed apart, hard enough to bang against the magnetic stops with a crack like a rifle shot.

Chapter 13 — Look at Me

“Where is she?!”
The voice tore the quiet in half. I spun around. A young woman stood in the doorway, no more than twenty-two, vibrating with a wild, chaotic energy — hair matted, clothes filthy, eyes wide and darting with the cornered, wired intensity of someone strung out and terrified. It was Tessa. The mother. Come back.

Behind her, two hospital security guards were catching up, out of breath, as if they had chased her up the stairs and lost the race.

“Ma’am, you can’t be in here, you have to scrub in—” one of them started, reaching for her arm.

“Get off me!” She threw him off with a strength that shocked all of us.