Chapter 4

The word "kowtow" hung in the air, heavy and vile. My mind couldn't process it. She wanted me to bow my head to the floor, here, in the middle of a hospital emergency room, in front of all these people.

"Look at him," Ashley sneered, pointing at Timmy. "His lips are turning blue. You're running out of time."

I looked down at my son. She was right. A faint bluish tinge was creeping around his mouth. His chest barely moved. The snake's venom was winning. My son was being stolen from me, second by second.

My pride, my dignity, they were nothing. Less than nothing.

With a sob that tore from the deepest part of my soul, I lowered my forehead to the cold, dirty linoleum floor. The floor smelled of disinfectant and sickness.

"I'm... I'm sorry," I choked out, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

A ripple of murmurs went through the waiting room. Someone snickered.

"Louder," Ashley commanded. "And I want to see some real feeling."

I pressed my head harder against the floor. "I'm sorry. Please... help my son."

"That's better," she said. I heard a click and realized she was filming me with her phone. "Now, tell everyone what you are."

Her brother Kevin laughed. "This is good, sis."

The humiliation was a fire, burning me from the inside out. But the image of Timmy's blue lips was a glacier, freezing the fire, leaving only a cold, desperate resolve.

"I'm a whore," I whispered, the words a poison I had to swallow. "I'll stay away from David. I promise."

I stayed there, head on the floor, for what felt like an eternity. Finally, I lifted my head, my eyes searching for any sign of mercy on her face.

"Is that enough?" I asked, my voice a broken whisper. "Will you help him now?"

Ashley looked at the video on her phone, a satisfied smile on her face. "Almost. One more thing. I want you to slap yourself. Hard. Ten times. Count them out for me."

She was a monster. A true monster.

My hand rose, trembling. I was about to strike my own face when I glanced at Timmy. His eyes were closed. His chest was still.

Something was wrong.

I scrambled forward, ignoring Ashley, ignoring everything. I reached out and touched his cheek.

It was cool. Too cool.

I put my ear to his chest. There was no sound. No gentle rhythm. Only a dead, terrifying silence.

The world stopped. The noise of the ER faded away. The faces of the strangers, of Ashley and her brother, they all blurred into nothing.

There was only the silence in my son' s chest.

He was gone.

The glacier inside me shattered. The fire of humiliation was instantly extinguished, replaced by a volcanic, white-hot rage that consumed everything. The woman kneeling on the floor was gone. The begging mother was gone.

Something new was born in that moment, forged in the crucible of my son's last, stolen breath.