The Darkest Sunrise (The Darkest Sunrise #1)

Within a matter of minutes, a weak cry streamed from the boy’s blue lips.

His mother’s sob of relief was a sound I would never forget. Deep, as though it had originated in her soul and merely exited through her mouth.

“Oh God!” she screamed, her hands shaking as she bent over his stirring body to tuck his face against her neck.

As his cries grew louder, I inched away to give him some space. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the miracle of this child who had, minutes earlier, been nothing more than a vacant body. Now, he was clinging to the neck of his mother.

With a quivering chin and tears pricking the backs of my eyes, I smiled to myself. I’d been struggling. Balancing the rigors of med school and the self-doubt of being a single mother was hard enough, but combined with twelve-hour days only to come home and study for six more, I was fading fast. I’d gone so far as to contemplate taking a few years off until Lucas got a little older.

As the paramedics arrived, I basked in the knowledge that all of my hard work and sacrifice had bought a little boy a second chance at life. In that moment, all the reasons why I’d wanted to become a doctor in the first place came flooding back.

Pablo Picasso once said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

I’d known from the tender age of seven when my next-door neighbor had skinned her knee and I’d splinted her leg before going to get her mom that medicine was my gift.

It was time for me to give that gift away to others who needed it.

“Thank you,” the frazzled mother called out to me as I backed away, a newfound resolve invigorating me.

I simply nodded and placed my hand over my racing heart, feeling as though I should be the one thanking her.

When I lost sight of her behind the wall of first responders and Nosy-Nellies, I turned on a toe and headed back to Lucas’s stroller.

Only to come to a screeching halt less than a second later.

He wasn’t there.

I scanned the area, assuming I’d gotten turned around during the chaos. But, after a few seconds, it hit me. Something was wrong.

Terribly, earth-shatteringly wrong.

“Lucas,” I called as if my six-month-old were going to answer me.

He didn’t.

In fact, no one did.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and my pulse skyrocketed. The world moved in slow motion around me as I spun in a circle. My mind reeled with possibilities of where he could be. But, even in that moment of terror, I knew with an absolute certainty that I’d left him right there, buckled safely into his stroller, only a few yards away.

“Lucas!” I yelled, my anxiety soaring to immeasurable heights.

With frantic movements, I jogged over to the slowly dispersing crowd.

I caught a woman’s arm before she could pass me. “Have you seen my son?”

Her eyes startled, but she shook her head.

I scrambled to the next woman. “Have you seen my son?”

She too shook her head, so I kept going, grabbing people and begging they would finally nod.

“Green stroller. Navy Trim?”

Another headshake.

My vision tunneled and my throat burned, but I never stopped moving.

He was there. Somewhere. He had to be.

My heart slammed into my ribs as yet another rush of adrenaline—and what I feared was reality—ravaged my body.

“Lucas!” I screamed.

My thoughts became jumbled, and I lost all sense of rationality. I raced to the first stroller I saw. It was pink with white polka dots, but he could have been inside.

“Hey!” a woman yelled as I snatched the blanket off her baby.

Her baby. Not mine.

“Lucas!”

Bile burned a trail of fire up my throat. With every passing second, my terror amplified. I raked a hand into my hair as the paralyzing helplessness dug its claws into me and threatened to drag me down to my knees. I forced myself to stay on my feet.

For him, I’d do anything.

“Lucas!” I choked one last time, a wave of trembles rolling through me.

One word.

It had worked for her. That other woman. When she had been desperate and at risk of losing her son, I’d given him back to her.

Someone would do that for me.

They had to.

“Help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

One word.

And then my entire world went dark.





* * *





“Daddy?”

Yeah, I thought, but I was too deep in sleep to force the words out. It had been weeks since I’d gotten any real rest. Between work and the kids, I was beyond exhausted.

“Daddy?”

Right here, baby.

“Daddy!” she yelled.

I bolted upright in bed, groggily searching the room.

She stood in the doorway, her long, chestnut hair in tangles, and the silly Hello Kitty nightgown she’d insisted on sleeping in every day for the last week brushed the hardwood floor.

“What’s wrong, Hannah?” I asked, using the heels of my palms to scrub the sleep from my eyes.

“Travis can’t breathe.”

Three words that birthed my nightmares, haunted my dreams, and lived in my reality.

Slinging the covers back, I flew from the bed. My bare feet pounded against the floor as I rushed down the hall to his bedroom.

Hannah had started sleeping with him weeks earlier. Her big brother acted like it was a cruel and unusual form of torture, but secretly, I thought he liked having the company.

And, while she was three and a half, it still made me feel worlds better that someone was with him on nights like this.

Pushing his door wide, careful not to rip the Minecraft poster we’d hung up earlier in the day, I hurried to his bed only to find it empty.

“Trav?” I called.

It was Hannah who answered. “He’s in the bathroom.”

I kicked a box of Legos out of my way and opened the bottom drawer on his nightstand to retrieve his nebulizer. Suddenly, an avalanche of empty Gatorade bottles tumbled down from the top bunk.

As I rushed from the room, a bolt of pride struck me. That was my boy. Sick as hell, stuck in bed for the last week, and he’d somehow managed to find the energy to booby-trap his room.

“Hey,” I whispered as I turned the corner into the hall bathroom.

My stomach knotted at the sight. His thin body was perched on the edge of the tub, his shoulders hunched over and his elbows resting on his thighs. He was drenched in sweat, and his color was off. Deep, labored breaths not making it to his lungs rounded his back with every inhale.

“Please…no,” he heaved.

I knew what he was asking, but I was in no position to promise him anything.

“Shhh, I got ya.” I rubbed the top of his dark buzz-cut hair and did my best to fake a calm as I frantically went to work setting his machine up.

He’d been on antibiotics all week, but the infection in his lungs wasn’t budging this time. Months ago, Travis’s nebulizer had been nothing more than an expensive paperweight that collected dust. But, over the last few weeks, it’d gotten so bad that we’d had to buy a spare to keep in his room.