Chapter 4 - Siege in the Pediatric Wing
Marcus didn't hesitate. He grabbed Dr. Brooks by the shoulder, shoving her down behind the reinforced steel desk of the triage station as bullets ricocheted off the concrete walls.
"Eli!" Lena screamed, trying to crawl toward Bed Six.
"I’ve got him!" Marcus yelled over the chaos.
Marcus stayed low, crawling on his hands and knees through the shattered glass into Eli’s room. The eight-year-old boy was huddled in the center of the bed, his hands covering his ears, his body shaking violently with terror.
"Marcus!" Eli cried out. "Is it the dark car people?"
"Hey, look at me, buddy," Marcus said, his voice miraculously calm despite the gunfire popping in the hallway. "Look at my eyes. Nobody is touching you. Do you hear me? Nobody."
Marcus unhooked the IV bag from the pole, wrapped Eli in a heavy thermal blanket, and scooped the frail boy into his arms. He grabbed the blue backpack by its strap, throwing it over his shoulder, and retreated toward the rear utility door that led directly to the hospital’s service elevators.
In the hallway, Detective Ramirez traded fire with the three mercenaries. She drove one down with a shot to the thigh, forcing the leader and the third man to take cover behind a heavy steel linen cart.
"Lena! Get out of here!" Ramirez shouted, reloading her magazine with practiced speed. "They aren't police! They’re Julian Thorne’s private security contractors!"
Lena grabbed the glass vial of V-77 from the workstation drawer, shoved it into her coat pocket, and dashed through the utility exit behind Marcus.
They reached the service elevator just as the steel doors began to slide shut. Marcus hit the basement button, sending the lift plummeting toward the sub-floor maintenance tunnels.
"They know we have the chemical sample," Lena panted, checking Eli’s pulse. His skin was cold, clammy, and gray. His heart rate was spiking to dangerous levels as the adrenaline overwhelmed his fragile, toxic system. "Marcus, his pulse is weak. If we can't neutralize this toxin in his bloodstream within the next two hours, his liver and kidneys will fail completely."
"Where are we going?" Marcus asked as the elevator clanked to a stop in the dark, pipe-lined basement.
"The old sub-basement lab," Lena said, pulling a master keycard from her neck lanyard. "It hasn't been used since the new wing opened. It’s off the main security grid. But we need a blood sample from his mother—she’s the only one with the neutralizing antibodies!"
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Eli reached out from Marcus’s arms, his tiny fingers catching the lapel of Lena’s blood-stained white coat.
"Mom... mom is at the train tracks," Eli gasped, his eyelids fluttering weakly. "She told me... she said if the rain didn't stop... she would meet the angels at the iron bridge."
