My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes Chapter 05

My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes Chapter 05

“She was just in the waiting area.” Ethan leaned against the defibrillator, his eyes bloodshot. “She’s in profound shock. Maybe the monitor’s malfunctioning.”

He lunged toward the bed and checked for a carotid pulse.

Nothing.

The ECG had already flatlined.

He slammed his fist against the machine.

“Get another monitor in here. Now!”

Noah stood in the doorway, exhaustion in his voice and no trace of comfort in his tone.

“The machine isn’t broken. There’s barely any blood left circulating in her body. If you still think that was

paint, look at the wound yourself.”

With shaking hands, Ethan lifted the dressing.

The penetrating wound lay exposed, its pale edges no longer bleeding.

His knees gave out, and he collapsed to the floor.

Laura and Richard reached the doorway just then.

“Ethan, stop going along with her-”

Laura’s words died in her throat.

She walked to the bed and grabbed my wrist.

“Claire, get up. We’ll talk about this at home.”

My hand was cold and rigid.

There was no pulse.

She stared at my motionless chest, and her voice changed.

“Richard… she’s not breathing.”

Richard froze in the doorway, his lips slowly losing their color as the anger drained from his face.

Noah picked up the report from the floor and held it out in front of them.

“Severe clotting disorder, diagnosed by this hospital’s hematology department two weeks ago. She had a penetrating abdominal wound. Her blood couldn’t clot properly, and the only four compatible units in the hospital were being held for someone with no physical injuries.”

Ethan snatched the report from him and stared at the signature in the bottom right corner.

Dr. Amir Patel, head of hematology.

One of the hospital’s most respected specialists.

“She never told me about this.” Ethan could barely hold the report steady. “If it was really this serious, why

didn’t she say anything?”

Emma stepped out from the corner, fighting back tears.

“She did.”

“The day she was diagnosed, she called you more than a dozen times from outside hematology. You rejected every call. She even asked us not to come looking for you in the ER because she said you were under enough pressure already and she didn’t want to get in the way. Today she came in covered in blood, and you decided she was lying without even examining her wound.”

Ethan stared at the signature and remembered the night two weeks earlier when Lily had cut her finger.

My name had flashed across his phone again and again.

He had assumed I was trying to steal everyone’s attention yet again, so he had simply turned his phone off.

So that was when I had been standing alone in this very hospital hallway, clutching the report.