23. Cast
23
CAST
" W illow Carter!" I slap the receptionist table, barking at the woman behind the counter.
The receptionist flinches, her eyes widening at my outburst. She recovers quickly, her expression hardening as she places her hands flat on the counter.
"Sir, I'm going to need you to lower your voice. This is a hospital."
"I don't care!" I shout, feeling the heat rise in my face. My hands are trembling, and I can barely keep myself upright. "Willow Carter was just brought in by ambulance. We need to see her. Now!"
Behind me, Damien places a steady hand on my shoulder. His voice is measured, a stark contrast to my frantic tone.
"Ma'am," he says, stepping forward. "We apologize for the commotion. Our girlfriend was brought in about ten minutes ago. Willow Carter. Can you tell us anything about her condition? "
Vincent paces nearby, his fingers raking through his disheveled hair. Tears streak his face as he mutters under his breath, "Willow’s okay, she got here in time and she is okay."
The receptionist's eyes dart between the three of us—me, wild-eyed and desperate; Damien, composed but with tension evident in the set of his jaw; and Vincent, practically falling apart.
"Our? Are any of you married?" she asks, fingers hovering over her keyboard.
"We're as good as married," I snap.
Damien squeezes my shoulder in warning. "I'm her emergency contact," he says smoothly. "Damien Sterling. It should be in her file."
The receptionist types something, her eyes scanning the screen. After what feels like an eternity, she nods.
"She's in Trauma Room 3. The doctors are with her now." She points down a hallway. "But you can't?—"
I'm already moving before she can finish her sentence, with Damien right behind me. Vincent stumbles after us, his breathing ragged.
"Sir! You can't go back there yet!" the receptionist calls after us, but her voice fades as we rush down the corridor.
A nurse steps out of a room ahead, blocking our path. "Excuse me, you can't be here. This area is restricted to?—"
"Willow Carter," I cut in. "Where is she? Is she okay?"
The nurse's expression softens slightly. "Are you family?"
"I'm her emergency contact," Damien repeats, stepping forward again, his calm demeanor a lifeline in the chaos. "Damien Sterling."
The nurse nods. "Ms. Carter is being stabilized. The doctor will come speak with you as soon as they can. Please, wait in the family room." She gestures to a small room off to the side.
"Stabilized?" Vincent chokes out, his voice breaking. "What does that mean? Is she going to be okay?"
The nurse looks at him sympathetically. "The doctors are doing everything they can. Please, wait in the family room."
As she walks away, the three of us exchange glances. The initial adrenaline is starting to wear off, leaving raw fear in its wake.
"She'll be okay," Damien says firmly, though I can hear the doubt creeping into his voice. "Willow's a fighter. She'll be okay."
Vincent collapses into a chair in the family room, burying his face in his hands. "What the fuck? Our girl-”
"Don't," I interrupt, sitting beside him. "Don't do that. Just wait until we see her ."
The waiting room feels like a prison cell. Vincent hasn't moved from his hunched position, staring vacantly at the linoleum floor. Damien stands by the window, watching the sunset paint the sky in mocking shades of pink and orange. I've worn a path in the carpet from pacing, stopping only to harass the nurses for updates every fifteen minutes.
Coffee cups and vending machine wrappers litter the table between us. None of us has spoken in over an hour .
The sound of the door opening makes all three of us snap to attention. A doctor in rumpled scrubs enters, clutching a tablet. Dark circles under her eyes suggest she's been working for far too long.
"Family of Willow Carter?" she asks, her voice gentle but weary.
We practically pounce on her. Vincent stumbles to his feet, Damien strides over, and I move so quickly I knock over an empty coffee cup.
"How is she?" I demand.
The doctor takes a deep breath. "I'm Dr. Patel. Ms. Carter is stable, but her condition is critical."
"What happened?" Damien asks, his composure finally starting to crack.
"Ms. Carter suffered a catastrophic cardiac event," Dr. Patel explains. "Her mechanical heart has essentially failed. Right now, she's on an ECMO machine under sedation—it's essentially pumping her heart for her."
Vincent makes a strangled sound. "But she'll recover, right? You can repair the damages to her mechanical heart, right?"
Dr. Patel's expression grows even more somber. "I'm afraid the damage is too extensive. She needs a new muscle heart transplant, and she needs it quickly. We've already placed her on the emergency transplant list."
The room spins around me. I grab the back of a chair to steady myself.
"There's something else you should know," Dr. Patel continues, her voice softening further. "Our initial tests revealed that Ms. Carter is approximately four weeks pregnant."
The silence that follows is deafening.
Vincent collapses back into his chair, his face draining of all color. "Pregnant?" he whispers.
Damien's jaw tightens. "How does this affect her treatment? The transplant?"
"It complicates things," Dr. Patel admits. "But not impossibly so. Heart transplants during pregnancy are rare but not unheard of. The primary concern right now is keeping Ms. Carter stable until we can find a donor heart."
"Can we see her?" I ask, my voice cracking.
Dr. Patel nods. "Briefly. She's unconscious and will remain so until we can resolve her cardiac situation. I must prepare you—there are a lot of machines, tubes, and wires. It can be overwhelming."
She leads us down a sterile hallway to the ICU. Through a glass door, I can see Willow, looking impossibly small and fragile in the hospital bed. Machines surround her, beeping and humming, keeping her alive.
As we enter the room, the rhythmic whoosh of the heart-lung machine fills the air. Willow's chest rises and falls in time with it, but it's the machine breathing for her, not Willow herself.
Vincent stands frozen in the doorway, unable to approach. Damien moves to Willow's bedside, gently taking her limp hand in his.
I step to the other side of the bed, carefully avoiding the tangle of tubes and wires. Willow's face is pale, her lips tinged slightly blue despite the machines keeping her alive. I place my hand on her forehead, brushing back a strand of her dark hair.
"A baby," I whisper, my eyes filling with tears. "You're going to be a mom, Carina."
Dr. Patel stands respectfully by the door. "We'll do everything we can for both of them," she promises. "But I need to be honest with you—we're in a race against time. Without a new heart within the next 72 hours, the prognosis is... not good."
Vincent finally finds his voice. "What can we do?" he asks, his words barely audible.
"Be here for her," Dr. Patel says. "And hope that a compatible donor is found quickly."
As we stand around Willow's bed, the machines continuing their life-sustaining rhythm, one thought echoes in my mind: Willow needs a miracle, and she needs it now.
Damien swallows hard, his mind racing. "Dr. Patel," he says before she can leave, "what does matching a donor heart to Willow even involve?"
She stops, nodding at his question. "Several factors come into play. Blood type is the first requirement—she can only receive a heart from someone with a compatible type. Then there's tissue compatibility to minimize the risk of rejection, size match to ensure the new heart functions properly in her body, and of course, overall donor health. And even if all that lines up, the heart must be viable—it has to come from someone whose organs are still functioning, but who is declared brain dead. Once a match is found, time is critical. The heart has to be transplanted within a few hours of removal."
Damien exchanges a look with Vincent. Seventy-two hours. That’s all they have .
Dr. Patel sighs. "I know how helpless this feels, but I promise, we're doing everything possible to find a match." With a final glance at Willow, she turns and leaves, her heels clicking softly against the tile floor.
A heavy silence settles over the room. Willow lies pale and still, her chest rising and falling with the help of the ventilator.
Vincent clenches his jaw. "We can't just wait. What if a heart doesn’t come in time?"
I wipe my finger across my thumb as I speak. "You're thinking we should find one ourselves."
Damien nods, his expression grim. "There has to be another way. A donor registry isn't the only option."
Vincent exhales, rubbing a hand down his face. The ethical, legal, and moral lines blur in his mind. "Are you suggesting?—"
"Anything." Damien’s voice is low and desperate. "Whatever it takes. We don’t let Willow die."