Chapter 294:

Steve’s POV

I recoiled two steps, as though her hysterical scream were a physical blade plunged straight into my chest. The words froze solid in my throat as I watched her slender, trembling fingers button that tiny blue woolen sweater over the pale, motionless body. The sight of her treating a cold corpse with such meticulous care and absolute denial tore at the very fibers of my heart, dragging me closer to the brink of madness. I turned slowly toward the door of the room only to find the doctor and two nurses standing there, their features completely draped in grimness and profound pity. They had held back from storming the room by force after witnessing the sheer emotional fury and acute denial that had taken absolute possession of Julie.

The doctor advanced with extremely slow, calculated steps, gesturing with her index finger toward the corridor. She spoke in a barely audible whisper, breathing the words directly into my ear: "Please, Mr. Steve, step out into the hallway with me for a few seconds. We need to speak immediately regarding your sister’s condition."

I cast one final, terror-stricken look at Julie, who in that exact moment was leaning her head down to press a warm, lingering kiss against the baby’s frozen forehead. Then, I followed the doctor outside with stumbling steps, feeling as though I were walking toward my own execution scaffold. The moment we pulled the wooden door shut behind us, the doctor turned to me, her eyes carrying a genuine sorrow. She pulled her medical glasses off with a heavy sigh, addressing me in a strict, grave tone: "Your sister is experiencing an acute psychological trauma known as defensive denial. Her mind is completely refusing to process the catastrophe in order to shield itself from an absolute breakdown. But this situation cannot persist. The baby’s body must be transferred to the morgue to complete the official procedures; keeping him here poses a catastrophic psychological danger to her."

I wiped my face with both of my trembling palms, pressing hard against my eyes to stop the tears from cascading once more. My voice emerged raspy, cracked, and thoroughly broken: "And what the fuck am I supposed to do, Doctor?! Didn’t you hear her screaming?! She is ready to kill me or anyone else who tries to wrench that little boy from her hands... I am terrified for her. I am terrified she will lose her sanity entirely if we resort to force."

The doctor placed her palm over my forearm, answering with an exhausted yet rational composure: "We won’t use brute force that will only worsen her state and might trigger a hysterical panic attack that could break her. Instead, you must play along with her for a while. Try to exploit any moment of distraction or sleep to take the body. Meanwhile, we will administer a powerful sedative through her IV so she sleeps, and hopefully, she will wake up once the initial severity of the shock has receded."

I nodded my head in weak, helpless surrender, then with a bowed frame, I traced my steps back inside the room. Julie had completely finished dressing him in his full woolen attire. She had placed him on her lap as she sat upon the edge of the bed, trailing her hand with supreme gentleness over the locks of his fine black hair. She was humming an old, warm melody to him in a low, cracked whisper, as though she were living in a parallel universe where we didn’t exist.

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Julie’s POV

Everything that occupied my mind and heart in those fleeting moments was Ethan. Look at him how dare they fucking say he is dead?! His features are so delicate, so incredibly beautiful. He possesses my exact little nose; he is merely drowned in a deep sleep after the torment we endured together during those grueling hours of labor.

I leaned my back into the white pillow, cradling him directly over my chest where my heart pulsed, feeling a consuming desire to warm him with every shred of breath and life I had left. I turned toward Steve, who had re-entered the room with stalling steps, his eyes heavily swollen from that pathetic, ridiculous crying.

I said to him in a calm tone that nevertheless carried a laced, undercurrent warning: "Sit here, Steve, and don’t start repeating those goddamn lies again... look, I’ve dressed him in his blue woolen sweater, and he is perfectly warm now, isn’t he?"

Steve advanced and sat on the edge of the adjacent stool, attempting to forge a smile over contorted facial features that looked ready to burst with grief. He muttered in a choked voice: "Yes, Julie... he... he looks very warm and comfortable in these clothes."

A sweet smile of pride traced my lips, and I traced Ethan’s tiny, stiffened fingers, drawing them close to my mouth to press a tender kiss upon them. I whispered softly: "I will protect him with my life, Steve. I won’t let Robert or anyone else in this miserable world touch a single hair on his head... we will live together in a distant, quiet place."

I noticed Steve watching me in absolute silence, his eyes refusing to stray from the tiny body, his gaze hiding a violent storm of pain I couldn’t comprehend. Another hour passed in that suffocating stillness, and a strange heaviness began to invade my eyelids. The dizziness and sharp, hacking physical pain in my lower abdomen returned with a vengeance, enforcing their absolute dominion over my thoroughly depleted consciousness.

My breathing slowed to a dragged pace, and I felt my body relax against my will over the mattress, though my hands remained locked around Ethan’s tiny frame in a blind, fiercely stubborn protection.

Steve whispered in an immensely tender pitch as he brought his face closer to mine: "Julie, sweetheart... you are completely exhausted, and you haven’t slept in hours. Close your eyes and rest for a little while. I will stay sitting right here, and I’ll guard him myself... no one will enter this room."

I looked into his eyes with a blurred, heavy suspicion, asking in a withered voice that had nearly vanished: "Do you promise me, Steve? Promise me you won’t let those stupid doctors take him away?"

A hot tear escaped Steve’s eye, cascading onto my hand. He nodded his head in complete brokenness, swallowing the agonizing lump in his throat: "I promise you, my soul... I promise you I won’t let anyone hurt him... sleep now."

My heart found a stroke of reassurance in his words, and I shut my heavy eyelids, surrendering to that cursed dizziness that was dragging me deep down into the abyss. In those final, fleeting seconds before my consciousness blacked out entirely into sleep, I felt Steve’s warm fingers gently touching my hand, and the black fog closed around the room, drowning me into a brand new, absolute darkness. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

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Steve’s POV

I made sure the grip of her fingers had completely slackened, watching the movement of her chest, which had become rhythmic and heavy under the influence of the powerful sedative coursing through her veins via the IV. I let out a sigh, my heart weeping blood, and turned toward the door of the room.

The nurse was standing there, monitoring the situation with extreme caution. She advanced with silent, ghost-like steps, extending her trembling hands toward the lap of the sleeping, surrendered Julie to extract the silent, tiny body. In that exact second, Julie’s facial features contorted in her subconscious, and she tightened her arm with an involuntary, raw force over her baby, as though her very soul were fighting in her sleep to protect him. I was forced to intervene. With fingers shaking from the sheer weight of sorrow and guilt, I gently pried my sister’s fingers loose, lifting the tiny corpse of Ethan myself and handing him to the nurse, who swiftly retreated outside, pulling the door shut behind her.

I sank onto the iron stool adjacent to her bed, burying my face within my tear-slicked palms. I felt a sheer helplessness I had never experienced in my entire life. How the fuck was I going to face her when she awoke? How could I look into her eyes and tell her that I broke my promise, that I had sent her baby down to the hospital’s freezing morgue? The hours of the night dragged by slow, heavy, and as desolate as a dark grave. Nothing pierced that suffocating silence except the synthetic hum of the medical equipment and the echo of the staff’s footsteps in the outer corridor.

And with the very first threads of dawn, Julie began to move frantically across the mattress, rapid and panicked breaths escaping her throat, signaling the end of the sedative’s effect and her return to this cruel reality. She snapped her eyes open, locked her gaze onto me, and said: "Where is Ethan?"

[Thank you karenmou For all the golden tickets you gave me ....Thank you, Jennifer Shawnnie]