Layla’s POV

I almost canceled the appointment three times.

It was just a routine checkup nothing serious, according to the brisk voiced nurse on the phone. But the word fertility had a way of making my skin prickle, like I was being assessed for some unspoken expiration date. Still, I’d promised Nina I’d stop ignoring my health after the stress-induced migraines last month, so here I was sitting in a too stiff chair at the Silverthorne Fertility Clinic, flipping through a magazine that promised “10 Ways to Boost Your Egg Quality!” as if eggs were cars needing a tune up.

The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and lavender air freshener, the kind of place that tried too hard to be calming. A heavily pregnant woman rubbed her belly absently beside me, while another flipped through her phone with the hollow eyed look of someone who’d been here too many times before. I crossed my legs, suddenly hyperaware of my own unremarkable uterus.

This is fine. Normal. Just bloodwork and questions.

“Layla Carter?” A nurse in scrubs patterned with cartoon sperm really?smiled at me from the doorway.

I followed her down a hallway lined with framed baby photos, each one grinning like a taunt. See what you could have if you weren’t so busy running from men?

The exam room was cold. Paper crinkled under me as I hopped onto the table, the stirrups at the end like a threat.

“Just here for baseline labs today,” the nurse said, tapping at a tablet. “Any family history of reproductive issues?”

“Not that I know of.” Unless you count my father’s uncanny ability to ruin everything he touches.

She hummed. “And you’re… sexually active?”

“Nope.” I popped the p. “Voluntarily celibate.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “No birth control needed, then.”

“Nope. Just here to make sure my ovaries aren’t staging a mutiny.”

She laughed, but it was the polite kind, the one people give when they’re not sure if you’re joking. The blood draw was quick sharp pinch, vial filling dark red and then she handed me a cup. “Bathroom’s down the hall. We need a urine sample.”

Ah, the beauty of modern medicine.

I shuffled out the cup in hand as I passed a harried looking doctor arguing with a lab tech. “—mix-up with the Cross sample. It needs to be processed today—”

I barely registered it. Why would I? The name meant nothing yet.

Back in the exam room, the nurse prepped a syringe. “Just a quick vitamin injection standard for hormone support.”

I barely felt the needle. It was all so ordinary.

Twenty minutes later, I was signing paperwork at the front desk when the intercom crackled. “Code Silver in Lab 3. Repeat, Code Silver.”

The receptionist paled. “Oh god, not another mix-up—”

But I was already walking out, digging for my keys, thinking only of the lunch meeting I had in an hour.

I didn’t look back.

The phone wouldn't stop ringing.

I glared at the unknown number flashing across my screen, my thumb hovering over the decline button. It was probably another telemarketer or some automated scam call about my nonexistent student loans. The third time it rang, I nearly threw my phone across the room.

"Ms. Carter?" The voice on the other end was too formal, too careful. "This is Dr. Bennett from Silverthorne Fertility. We need you to come back in immediately."

I rolled my eyes, balancing the phone between my shoulder and ear as I sorted through the stack of invoices on my desk. "If this is about another co-pay, you can just bill me frowning. "I was just there yesterday. Did you lose my blood or something?"

A pause. Too long. My fingers tightened around the phone.

"There's been an... incident."

My fingers stilled on the paperwork.

Incident. A word people used when they didn't want to say disaster. When they didn't want to say we ruined your life.

"What kind of incident?" My voice was eerily calm.

Another pause.

Another pause. I could hear her breathing, uneven. Nervous. Then rushed like she was ripping off a bandage

"The injection you received yesterday... it wasn't vitamins."

A cold trickle of dread slid down my spine.

"What was it?"

A sharp inhale. "A fertility sample. Meant for another patient."

The words didn't make sense at first. They bounced around my skull, refusing to settle into anything coherent.

"You're telling me," I said slowly, each word deliberate, "that someone injected me with sperm?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.

I stood up so fast my chair slammed into the wall behind me. The room tilted, my vision tunneling.

"Whose." It wasn't a question.

"We... we can't disclose that information yet. HIPAA—"

"HIPAA?" My voice cracked. "You're hiding behind HIPAA right now?"

"Ms. Carter, I understand you're upset—"

"Upset?” A laugh tore out of me, jagged and humorless. "You violated my body. You took away my choice. You—" My throat closed. The words wouldn't come.

The doctor kept talking, her voice fading in and out. Apologies. Legal jargon. Something about next steps.

None of it mattered.

Because in that moment, I realized

I was no longer in control of my own body.

And the worst part?

I didn't even know whose DNA was growing inside me.

My hands shook so badly I couldn't hold the phone anymore and it fell to the floor with a loud bang that made me jump even though I was the one who dropped it. My chest felt too tight like I'd been running for miles and couldn't catch my breath no matter how hard I tried. The room started spinning around me and I had to grab the edge of the table to keep from falling over because my legs didn't seem to work right anymore.

Pregnant.

The word kept repeating in my head over and over like a song you can't stop hearing. I pressed both hands against my stomach even though I knew it was too soon to feel anything different but I had to try because maybe if I pushed hard enough this wouldn't be real. A cold sweat broke out all over my body and I could feel each individual drop sliding down my back under my shirt making me shiver even though the apartment was warm.

I barely made it to the bathroom before my knees gave out and I found myself sitting on the cold tile floor staring at my reflection in the mirror. The person looking back at me didn't look like me at all - her face was too pale, her eyes too wide and scared, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water trying to find words that wouldn't come.

The first real sob came from somewhere deep inside me like it had been waiting years to get out and once it started I couldn't stop it. Big ugly tears rolled down my face so fast I couldn't wipe them away fast enough and my nose started running but I didn't care enough to grab a tissue. I turned on the shower as hot as it would go and stepped right in with all my clothes on because I needed to feel something even if it was pain from the burning water.

My favorite dress that I'd worn to work that morning got ruined instantly clinging to my skin like it was trying to choke me and the steam filled up the small bathroom until I could barely see through it. I scratched at my arms and stomach through the wet fabric not hard enough to break skin but hard enough to leave red marks that would last for hours because I needed proof this was really happening to me.

The scream that came out of my mouth didn't even sound human it was so loud and full of anger and I hit the shower wall until my knuckles ached but the pain felt good because at least it was something I chose to feel instead of something that was being done to me. I tasted blood where I'd bitten my lip without realizing it and the metallic flavor mixed with the hot water running down my face.

I thought about all the times I'd said no to boys who pushed too hard and all the dates I'd walked away from when something felt off and how careful I'd always been only to end up here anyway with some stranger's baby growing inside me without my permission. My stomach twisted so hard I thought I might be sick and I barely turned my head before throwing up into the drain watching the remains of my lunch disappear like this whole nightmare should disappear.

When the hot water ran out and turned freezing cold I finally got out shaking so hard my teeth chattered. The mirror was all fogged up but when I wiped it clean the person staring back at me looked different somehow - the crying scared girl was still there but underneath her I could see something harder starting to form in the set of my jaw and the fire in my eyes.

They thought they could do this to me and I would just take it. They thought I would cry and hide and be ashamed.

But they were wrong.

I was going to find out who did this to me. I was going to look them right in the eye. And then...

Then they would see what happens when you mess with someone who has nothing left to lose.