His words went into me like a knife.

He was willing to use the baby as leverage. For her.

Maya's face was white against his shoulder.

"Mason, I'm fine… If Lara doesn't want to give it up, please don't make her.

"I'm brave. I'm not afraid to die."

His brow drew down hard.

The blood on me was making me cold. I forced what voice I had left.

"Mason. I am not lying to you. There is so much blood."

Maya cut her eyes to one of the men behind him.

The crew closed in around me.

There was something accusing in the way they looked at me.

One of them, a man Maya had always been close with, spoke first, his patience already gone.

"Mrs. Sterling. You are out of line. Maya is dying. Are you really going to fight her for the rig?

"And if it were that bad, you'd be unconscious by now. Where are you finding the breath to argue?"

The rest of the squad piled in.

"There's another rig coming. You really need to take this one off a dying woman."

"This isn't about jealousy, is it. You picking now to put on a show."

I started to shake. The tears came down whether I wanted them or not.

"Mason. I am not putting on a show.

"I am a mother. I would not use my own baby for sympathy. You know me."

He turned his head toward me. His eyes lingered on the blood for three seconds.

"Lara, you disappoint me."

I looked at him without saying anything, and my mind went back five years.

That was the year Maya had moved overseas with a boyfriend, and Mason had been at the bar every night drinking himself stupid.

I had taken him home. Again and again. I had sat with him through hangovers. I had let my warmth do the work of healing what she had cracked in him.

The way he looked at me had softened.

On my birthday, he had taken my hand and said, "Lara. Be my girlfriend. I know you have always been good to me. Let me take care of you for the rest of your life."

The way he had looked at me had not been an act. I had been sure of that.

I had stayed. Through the brutal training, through every bad call, through every wound he came home with.

For years, he had been a soft, attentive husband. I had thought we were going to be happy forever.

Then Maya had come back.

Within days, the way he had cared for me transferred to her, point for point.

He had said all his life that Maya was a sister to him. But what they did with each other was always a step over the line.

It took me a long time to understand. I had been the substitute. I had been the placeholder he held when he was angry at her.

Maya came back, and I was nothing.

The lead medic's voice broke me out of it.

"The fetus is in serious distress. Any further delay and we lose them both."

Mason's mouth opened. Before he could speak one of his men jumped in.

"Maya is the squad's little princess. Anything happens to her on our watch, we are not letting it slide. The next rig is coming up the road right now. Let Maya go in this one. We'll get Mrs. Sterling out."

Mason heard them and his face composed itself again.

"All right, Lara. Stop it. I'll send Maya now and come back for you."

He carried her into the rig. The lead medic tried to argue. Two of Mason's men shoved the medic into the rig with her.

The doors slammed. The siren came up. The rig was gone.

Mason did not look back at me.

The pain in my belly came in waves now. Something was peeling off the inside of me.

There was a hot flood between my legs. I screamed.

The world went black.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed.

The nurse told me, gently, that a farmer who lived nearby had finally pulled me out from under the car. He had worked at it for almost an hour.

By the time they got me to the hospital, the baby was already gone.

I held the tears back. I stared at the ceiling.

Before I had finished processing that I had lost a child, the internet was already on fire.

Someone had filmed the crash site. The clip had been edited and spread everywhere.

In the version on the internet, I was a temperamental pregnant woman who had been driving drunk and caused the accident. I had thrown a fit at the rescue site, occupied resources, and almost killed Maya.

The pile-on came overnight. The whole country wanted me dead.

"This woman is sick. How can a person be this disgusting?"

"Using her pregnancy as a weapon. Going after a rescue squad. Awful."

"I hope she miscarries."

Every kind of rot ended up in my mentions.

Mason, by sending Maya first, had picked up a fan club.

People said he had separated himself from his wife in the field, that he had not let personal life interfere with the job. People said he had handled it with grace.

He had traded my child for a halo.

I was the maniac woman every comment section in the country was throwing rocks at.

I gripped my phone hard.

I had lost the baby this time too. I had not been able to stop that. But this time I had walked into it knowing what was going to happen.

I was going to make Maya pay for him.

I called my lawyer to start drawing up the divorce papers. I started gathering evidence from the crash site, in person, while my body was still wrecked.

For all those days, Mason did not visit me once.

Every minute of his time was for Maya.

On her birthday, I scrolled to a post Maya had put up on her social feed.

It was inside the apartment Mason and I had picked together. There was a candlelit dinner on the dining table.

Next to the wine, there was a small jewelry box. Inside, the diamond pendant I had wanted for two years and never let myself buy.

She was wearing my best dress. She was leaning into Mason's shoulder. The caption read: 'Thank you for spoiling me, Mason. It's so nice to have a home.'

Open daylight provocation.

I did not call Mason crying this time. I did not push him to choose between us.

I tapped the like button. I commented one line.

[Everything in there is going to be yours soon enough.]

It took less than a minute for Mason to call me.

I had been about to bring up the divorce. He went off before I could open my mouth.

"Lara. What is this?

"Maya is a sister to me. That is all she has ever been.

"She had an accident. I bought her a present. She put on one of your dresses for the photo. What is your problem with that? Why do you have to go after her in public?"

The same script.

He was about to tell me, again, that his calculation in the field had been about how serious Maya's injuries had been, and that he had owed it to the team. He was about to tell me, again, that I should be understanding.

He knew exactly what the online mob was doing to me. He had not sent me one consoling message.

The patience burned all the way out of me.

"Mason, stop talking!"

The accusation cut off mid-word.

I let out a long, slow breath.

"My position is simple. I want a divorce."

After I said the word divorce, Mason was quiet for a long time.

When his voice came back, it was clipped and arrogant.

"Lara, what is this game?

"I didn't pull you out of the wreck first, so now we're getting divorced?

"I have told you. There is nothing between her and me. How many times do I have to explain it?"

He paused. He softened it on purpose.

"For the baby's sake, I'm not going to take this personally."

I closed my eyes. I pushed everything that was rising in my throat back down.

"Mason. I'm not interested in any of that.

"My lawyer will send you the divorce papers. Show up on the date we set and sign them."

"You!" He hit the wall on his temper. "Lara, I do not respond well to threats! Fine. We're divorced! Don't come crawling back!"

What came after that was him stalling. He would not show up. He would not sign. He would not call.

He clearly thought I was going to soften, and then I was going to come apologize.

The longer I went silent, the more it broke him.

The pile-on online got worse. I could not buy groceries without strangers giving me looks.

Later, I figured out where the new wave was coming from. Maya and her squad of friends were running it.

Mason knew. He looked the other way.

He did call me, eventually.

"Lara, you see now. I am the only one who can keep you safe.

"Withdraw the divorce. Apologize to Maya. I'll make all of this go away.

"If you don't, what comes next is worse than this."

He thought he could squeeze me into bowing.

I gave him one line back. "No. The divorce is happening."

I had my lawyer hammer through the negotiations. We set a date for the signing.

When the day came, Mason did not show.

I sat in the lawyer's office with the papers in front of me. The frustration was building in my chest.

That was when Maya's voice came in from the hallway.

"Lara, you think threatening Mason with divorce is going to make him look at you. Don't dream.

"If I had not been overseas, you would never have had your shot. Be smart. Walk away while you still can."

I turned around. I kept my voice flat.

"Mason is the one who won't sign. Not me. If you can talk him into it, by all means.

"Or maybe his feelings for you don't actually run that deep. Maybe he'd rather keep you in the dark than give you any kind of name."

The mask cracked off Maya's face.

She slammed her bag on the floor and pointed at me, screaming.

"Who said Mason doesn't love me?

"He let your b*stard die for me."

That hit the most vulnerable part of me. The child I had not been able to save was a wound that had not had a single good day to close.

Rage took the rest of my sense.

I went straight at her. Both my hands closed on her throat.

"Shut up! You don't talk about my baby!"

Maya turned a deep red and started thrashing and screaming.

"Help! This woman has lost it!

"Mason! Mason, she is killing me!"

That was when Mason came rushing in.

He shoved me off her. I went down hard.

Post-miscarriage, my body had nothing left. I could not stand up.

"Lara, have you lost your mind?!"

He cradled Maya. He glared down at me.

"Maya came here, on her own, to talk us out of getting divorced, and you put your hands on her. What is wrong with you?

"Apologize. Right now.

"Otherwise, I sign the papers. And don't come crying when you regret it."

I pushed myself up off the floor slowly.

"I am not apologizing."

"Unbelievable!"

He glared at me, then his eyes dropped, almost by accident, to my flat belly.

He stopped.

His face went through a dozen things at once and ended on something that looked like fear.

"Your stomach is flat. Where is the baby? Lara, where is our baby?"