She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Emilia, pulling the trembling little body tight against her chest.
“I’ve got you,” Ana shouted, voice hoarse. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Emilia convulsed again—harder this time. Her head lolled forward and back. Her huge, unfocused eyes spilled silent tears down her cheeks. Her chest jerked in violent spasms; every breath came out as a broken wheeze that sounded more like choking than air.
Ana held tighter, rocking instinctively, as if she could hold Emilia together through sheer will.
“Breathe!” Ana cried between sobs. “Please breathe, Mili. Please.”
Around them the room erupted into chaos—but a chaos that refused to move forward.
“My God, should we call someone?” “Don’t touch her!” “What if it’s a seizure?” “Where’s her father?”
Voices overlapped, panicked and useless. One security guard raised both hands and stepped back as though the scene itself were contagious. Another stared wide-eyed, frozen.
“Nobody touch her!” someone shouted again, louder. “We don’t know what’s happening.”
Ana whipped her head around, tears streaming, and screamed, “She can’t breathe!”