Chapter Five — The Cruelest Lie

The world returned slowly.

First came sound — muffled, distant, as if underwater. Voices rose and fell around her: urgent, sharp, but indistinguishable.

Then came pain — a dull, dragging ache that radiated through her abdomen and lower back in heavy throbs. She tried to breathe, but her lungs felt weighted.

Then came light — harsh, white, sterile. She squinted instinctively, but the brightness pierced her skull like needles.

A monitor beeped nearby. Steady. Cold. Impersonal.

Amara Linton blinked against the blur and saw a ceiling she didn’t recognize. She felt the firmness of a hospital bed beneath her, the roughness of sheets tugged tight around her legs, the dryness in her throat.

Her first thought was the baby.

Her hand shot to her stomach.

Flat.

Empty.

Her breath caught. A panic so raw it bordered on animal ripped through her chest.

“My—my baby—” she rasped, but her voice cracked and died halfway through.

A figure moved into view, blurry at first, then sharpening into a middle‑aged doctor with a kind but carefully neutral expression. Neutral — the expression professionals wore when delivering the kind of news that shattered people.

“Mrs. Rowan?” he said gently. “You’re awake.”

“Where is she?” Amara pushed herself up despite the agony tearing through her abdomen. “My baby—where is my daughter?”

The doctor hesitated.

Hesitation — not compassion — was the loudest truth in the room.

“I’m very sorry,” he began softly, “but your daughter… experienced complications after birth. She—”

“No.” Amara shook her head violently, vision swimming again. “No—no—where is she? I want to see her. Bring her to me!”

The doctor swallowed. “She didn’t survive.”

Silence.

It wasn’t the peaceful kind.

It was the kind that hollows out a soul.

Amara stared at him, eyes wide, unable to comprehend the words.

“She—she was kicking,” she whispered. “Strong. Healthy. She was strong—she was—” Her voice broke. “My baby can’t be gone.”

The doctor murmured apologies she didn’t hear. Words like complications, trauma, hemorrhage, failed to respond drifted around her like distant echoes.

It made no sense.

Nothing made sense.

Her vision blurred with tears, her body shaking as she clutched at the sheets with trembling fingers. Her chest felt like it was collapsing inward, ribs squeezing around a heart that couldn’t contain the pain.

“Caleb,” she cried hoarsely. “Where is Caleb?”

The doctor glanced over her shoulder.

Amara followed his gaze.

Caleb stood against the far wall, arms folded, eyes carefully blank. He didn’t approach her. He didn’t comfort her. He didn’t look devastated. His posture was rigid, defensive — like a man bracing for an argument, not grieving the loss of a child.

Her child.

“Our baby is gone,” she sobbed, reaching a hand toward him. “Caleb, please—”

He didn’t move.

He didn’t even flinch.

Instead, he said flatly, “We’ll get through this.”

Not I’m devastated.

Not I’m sorry.

Not I’m broken.

Not I held her. She was beautiful.

Just We’ll get through this.

A sentence devoid of emotion, scripted, sterile.

Amara’s tears blurred everything, and she curled into herself, her body heaving with grief.

The doctor touched her shoulder. “We can provide resources—support—grief counseling—”

She shook her head violently. “No. I want to see her. Please. Let me see my baby.”

The doctor hesitated again, eyes flicking toward Caleb.

Caleb’s jaw tightened. “It’s better she doesn’t.”

Amara stared at him.

“What?” she whispered.

“The nurse already…” He rubbed his forehead. “They took care of it.”

“Took care of what?” Her voice sharpened — raw, fractured, but gaining strength through devastation.

“The remains,” he said simply. “They handled it.”

Amara’s scream tore through the room.

“No! Caleb—how could you—she is our daughter—our little girl—my baby—”

Caleb exhaled, annoyed. “Amara, please don’t start—”

“Start?” she cried. “My baby is dead! Our daughter—”

“Be rational,” he snapped. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

Her world pitched violently.

Her vision collapsed.

And before she could scream again, darkness swallowed her whole.

 

She never knew — not then, not for years — that her daughter had been born alive. Crying. Pink. Perfect.

Never knew the nurse had been bribed.

Never knew Caleb signed false papers before she regained consciousness.

Never knew Serena had been waiting outside the hospital in a car with a baby carrier in the backseat.

Never knew her newborn daughter — tiny, warm, beautiful — was placed into another woman’s arms while Amara lay unconscious and bleeding.

Never knew that her child’s soft, newborn cry echoed down a hallway she would never walk.

Never knew that as she screamed for her daughter in a hospital room drenched in grief, Serena Vale was whispering:

“You’re mine now.”