I'm so excited. I've finally entered the seventh month of the pregnancy, and Abigail has assured me that we are well out of the danger zone. I can literally feel the stress easing from my body. My cervix is starting to thin and one of the babies has already started to drop. We've come too far to have any more setbacks.

Will and I finally discussed decorating the nursery last night. I don’t know why, but the idea of helping him decorate the babies’ room fills me with so much joy. To be a part of watching them grow is such an honor and one that I know Will wants me at his side for. He hasn’t said it … but his actions speak loud enough for him. He’s even been hinting at me moving into his room with him. The thought puts a huge smile on my face.

My bond with Will has solidified during this pregnancy, and my feelings for him only continue to deepen with each passing day.

I pull into the garage and nearly drop my purse at my excitement to call him. We've decided not to reveal the sex of the babies, even though the doctors knew when they implanted the embryos. Will was adamant that the sex be a surprise to everyone. With a pregnancy as planned out as this one has been, I can understand the need for the babies’ sex to be something we can all wonder and grow excited to discover during the delivery.

The door clicks shut behind me, and I sling my purse over a coat hook and reach to take my phone from inside ... but a wave of goose bumps rushes over the back of my neck and a deep sense of foreboding overcomes me.

"You're a difficult woman to find, Krista." His deep voice floats over my senses like a strand of barbed wire, leaving my nerves open and exposed to the fear I've long fought to overcome.

His finger glides over the prickled skin of my forearm. Up and down, up and down, he runs the tip of his finger over my arm. I fight to contain the bile rising up the back of my throat. A fear, stronger than any I've felt before, floods my veins with adrenaline laced terror. My body freezes, and my blood turns to ice in my veins. My heart racing beneath my chest, I swallow and turn my head to look over my shoulder.

There, in the very flesh, is the demon from my nightmares come back to snatch the life I've built for myself. The happiness that I've found slowly crumbles to dust. And the man who I have grown to love ... ripped away with his presence.

His cold dark eyes lock onto my wide ones. Fear coats my skin a sickly pallor as concern for the babies I'm carrying takes hold.

Slowly––so slowly––his eyes rake over my face, the rise and fall of my chest as my breathing escalates, and then finally to the swell of my stomach that is visible even with the way I have my body angled protectively.

His eyes darken to a hate filled ebony and then his hand grips my forearm, roughly jerking me to face him head-on. My hands instinctively reach to protect the babies, my body hunching in on itself slightly, all in a wasted effort to protect that which I hold so dear.

"You disgusting slut!" he yells, his nostrils flaring and spittle flying onto my face as his raised voice sends a full body shiver through me. He reaches up, his hands on my shoulders, and begins to violently shake me. My teeth rattle in my skull from the force of his jerking and shoving.

"Stop. Please stop," I beg, scratching and kicking to try to free myself from his grip.

"This is what you left for? This?" he screams. "You're mine! Mine! How could you do this to me?" He takes off toward the living room while dragging me behind him, kicking and pleading for him not to hurt me.

When we reach the living room, he slings me across the floor. My head cracks against the coffee table with an audible thunk. I scramble up onto my knees, clutching my belly with one arm as I pull myself up with the other against the couch. "Please. Don't do this. It's not what you think. Please ... let me explain." Tears fall down my cheeks as I begin to sob uncontrollably. Fear paralyzes my entire body and I'm rendered helpless against the blows that are to come.

He storms over to me and I watch, in what seems like slow motion, as his arm rears back and his fist flies toward my face.

The bone in my jaw cracks when his fist makes contact, and I fall to floor, stars blinking in my vision as I try to pull myself up. "You filthy fucking whore. After all I did for you. You leave me to whore around and get yourself knocked up by some rich prick?" His foot sails through the air before landing at the side of my stomach.

"Aghhh ...” I scream as pain explodes through my belly. I fall again, face first to the floor, sobbing hysterically. "Please ...” I beg, but it falls on deaf ears as blow after blow rains down upon my crumpled body. The rage in his eyes is like a portal to hell.

He's going to kill me. I curl into myself as his boot connects with my side. A rib breaks under the force of the impact and I scream out a blood curdling scream. His fists continue to rain down punch after punch on the back of my head, causing my face to pounce off the floor with a sickening crunch. Blood fills my nostrils and I have to breathe through my mouth to keep from choking on it.

But it doesn't stop ... the blows continue to fall on my broken body. I hear the snap of a bone when I try to raise my arm to defend against the relentless kicks and punches. When I raise my eyes to meet his that's when I see the flash of silver in his hand.

A knife.

He rises to his full height, looking down on me as if I were a piece of trash he was forced to dispose of. "I watched you ... and him." He snarls. His face twisting with an uncontrollable desire to inflict harm upon my body. "I love you. No one will ever love you like I do. No one!" he yells, his tone filled with a raw need to deliver punishment.

My vision grows fuzzy with each passing minute. The blood pours from my nose onto my hand as I try to wipe it clear enough to draw in a breath. I pull myself onto my side with my good arm, the other hangs at an odd angle by my stomach. Tears run down my cheeks and despair overtakes me. A bleary glance down my body confirms my greatest fear ... blood pools between my legs, staining my jeans and the floor with crimson.

Jay reaches out to brush a strand of hair from my face. His emotionless eyes connecting with mine one final time. "I didn't want to have to do this." He swipes his cheek with the back of his hand as a lone tear traces a path down his cheek. The action leaves a smudge of blood, my blood, on his skin. He looks down to his hand with the knife clenched firmly in his grasp.

I reach a weak arm to try to swat it away, but my arm falls short and my breaths grow weaker as a darkness begins to close in on my vision. I blink, trying to clear it away, but it only grows darker.

"I'm cold." A broken sob escapes me.

Warm lips brush across my forehead and then a burning pain slashes across my wrist. "It'll be over soon. You're mine, Krista. I couldn't let him have you. You're mine. Do you hear me?"

His words sound somewhat muffled, and I struggle to make sense of them as my eyes, too heavy to open and take in his face, finally close, and I breathe in a labored breath.

My entire body grows lighter and lighter as the warmth seeps from my body, replaced by the coldness of death as it settles over me like a blanket of ice.

The last thing I hear before I fade off into the blackness is a deep voice and the sound of a struggle ... but it's so far away, and I'm too tired to open my eyes and see what's happening.

Too. Tired.

* * *

When I pull into the driveway, my window rolled down to enjoy the spring air, a scream unlike any I have ever heard rips through the air. My heart stills in my chest as I throw the car in park and rush to the front door. Kara's pleas for mercy nearly cause me to drop my keys before I can get the door unlocked.

I finally get the door open and run to where the noise is coming from. I stop dead in my tracks when I come upon the scene before me.

Blood.

Everywhere.

My eyes struggle to comprehend what they're seeing.

Kara is lying on the floor with blood all around her. Her eyes closed, her lips moving, but no sound escapes them. My eyes flash to the man standing above her, so enraptured with the blood dripping from his knife that he doesn't even notice my entrance.

"You're mine," he mutters, barely audible as he runs his finger over the blade and through the blood before raising his blood coated finger to his lips and sucking her life's essence clean from his finger.

A rumble deep in my chest roars to the surface as I charge forward, fists flying through the air as I attack him with everything I have. He turns just before I get to him, slicing at my stomach with the knife, but I shift to the side to avoid the strike and swing my hand down to knock the knife free from his.

We wrestle, end over end, but I finally manage to straddle him and pummel his face with my fists until he's rendered unconscious. But I don't stop. The crunch of bone beneath my fists and blood spraying up on my cheek shock me back to reality. His face is almost unrecognizable I've beaten him so badly.

I roll off the man and rush to Kara's side, scrambling to pull my phone from my slacks. Her face is already swollen and her jaw hangs at an odd angle. Her nose bleeding profusely, I turn her head so the blood doesn't run back into her airway.

The 911 operator answers, and I rattle off my address. "Please. Oh, god. Please hurry." I lay the phone down and press the speaker button so I can check her vitals. With my fingers on her neck, I feel for the slight thumping that should be beating through her vein at a steady rate. But instead, it's faint. Barely noticeable.

"Please hurry. We're going to need Air Med One." I assess her injuries, taking in the wound to her wrist and the pool of blood between her jean clad thighs. "Patient is a twenty-seven-year-old female, laceration to the left wrist, approximately twenty-eight weeks pregnant. Severe blood loss and her pulse is weakening by the second. This is Dr. Will Scott, and I'm requesting Air Med One immediately. Please hurry." The operator calls in the helicopter unit and I begin to go into doctor mode––stripping Kara's jeans off, ripping a strip of fabric from the pant leg and creating a tourniquet to apply to her wrist. I have to get the bleeding to stop. She's lost so much blood already. So much.

I hear the sirens approaching in the distance, growing louder and louder as they finally screech to a stop in the driveway. The police are the first to arrive, and as I continue to administer emergency aid to Kara, I explain to them that he was an intruder and I walked in on him attacking her. They don't hassle me for more as one officer rolls him over and handcuffs him. The other moves to position himself in front of me but I inform him that I’m a doctor and he steps back to allow me to continue.

Everything happens so fast. The helicopter arrives, and then they're placing Kara on the stretcher, wheeling her out of the house. I stand, my legs and arms shaking violently as fear for her well-being sets in, and then rush to her side by the stretcher, holding her hand until the last minute. When they load her onto the helicopter, the last thing I see before the door closes is her hand falling off to the side, a drop of blood dangling on her fingertip.

The door closes, and she's removed from my line of sight.

The helicopter takes off, and I'm left standing in the street, my arms raised, hands in my hair pulling frantically, and my mind a total wash of uncontrollable emotions.

Fear.

Mind-numbing fear—it overtakes me, and I fall to my knees and sob.

"Please, god. Don't take her. Please." I cry out, my voice harsh even to my own ears. "Please." The tears flood down my cheeks as if a dam were opened. My chest is split wide open, and a heart-wrenching pain pierces through to my soul.

I.

Lose.

Control.

So lost in my haze of despair, I fail to notice the police walking the intruder to the car and settling him in the back seat. The other officer runs to my side and hastily escorts me to her car, where I take a seat in the passenger side and she rushes me to the hospital where Kara was taken.