I pressed my hands against my stomach and held on to what I was losing, and the tile beneath me grew warm and then cool and then warm again, and I understood, with a clarity that cut through everything else, that I was alone. That I had been alone for a very long time. That the name Valente, which had protected everyone in this building, could not protect the one thing I needed it to protect most.
But not a single person noticed the blood pooling beneath me.
I lay on the floor, screaming in agony. The marble was cold against my back, and the sound of my own voice echoed off the corridor walls and came back to me distorted, animal, the kind of sound that makes strangers look away.
No one answered.
"Help... please, save my baby..."