Page 53 of Mara
Gianna.
The phone had fallen into a pool of blood, and that was when I saw it…a man in a candy skull mask standing over my sister. Then the phone went dead. I called her back over and over, but I got a dial tone each time.
My lungs burned, my mind blurred. I couldn’t see through my tears, I couldn’t breathe through the pain, and I couldn’t hear anything but my heart.
As soon as I got to Gianna’s room, I saw the blood seeping out from underneath the door and stopped in my tracks. The silence was deafening.
“Gianna?” I called, desperately praying to whatever god there was that she’d answer and open the door, praying that nothing was wrong.
There was no answer, and I breathed deeply before opening the door.
What I found was even more horrific than I ever could have imagined—a baby lying in a pool of blood all alone, and my sister gone.
“Oh my god!” I screamed, walking up to Gianna’s son.
“What kind of monster would do this?” I cried, reaching for the infant and picking up his cold little body.
Crude writing was branded into the chest of the baby. It read “Sephtis.”
I didn’t understand anything. Why would someone pull Gianna’s baby out of her womb and leave it on the ground? It had to be that man.
The stalker…this was my fault.
I held the baby to my chest, letting their floppy body snuggle into my neck.
I gasped—a heartbeat. Gianna’s son was alive.
I snapped myself into professional mode, holding the infant close and running to the other wing of the hospital. My co-workers were ready to leave, and seeing me covered in blood, holding an infant with a cord dangling behind me, made them all pause to stare in horror and confusion.
“Help. Please. Help,” I screamed, wrapping the infant with warm clothes and dialing 9-1-1 on my phone.
Everything was a blur through my tears.
The screaming and shouting around me felt like it was moving in slow motion. I worked on my nephew. My hands felt like a ghost, my second nature kicking in while my spirit floated above me. Cops, sirens, firefighters. So much noise. People weretrying to talk to me, but my focus was only on the little life in front of me.
I didn’t stop.
For hours, I worked side by side with every medical personnel member who held my sister’s son.
I would give my life to keep him safe, so that when I found my sister, I could hand her son back to her. He would be in the NICU for a while.
He was a micro-preemie, and babies born at this gestational age only had such a slim chance as it was, much less being ripped out of their mother.
It was a miracle that he made it this far, after being left alone for who knows how long in all that blood. I had to help him fight now. I had to give him his best chance.
The name scrawled on his abdomen was so prominent. It was written with care, but made a permanent imprint that would stick with this little one forever.
Who would do this to an innocent?
It had to be the monster that left him alone to die…but what killer had a conscience to leave a baby alive?
Had Gianna marked him? It was the only thing that made any sense in this situation. Maybe this was the name of her kidnapper…
Nothing made sense, and the more I thought about the scenarios, the more confused I felt. The only thing I knew for sure was that the baby had to survive.
Please please please survive…
“Have you found my sister?” I said to no one in particular.
