Chapter 4 - The Darkened Corridor
The emergency backup generators at St. Jude flickered to life with a dull, distant rumble, casting the hospital corridors in an eerie amber glow. Mateo raced down the third-floor stairwell, weapon unholstered, the smell of burnt electrical wiring sharp in the air. The nurses' station was empty; paperwork was scattered across the tiles, and a desk phone dangled by its curly cord, emitting a frantic off-hook tone.
"Elena!" Mateo called out, sweeping his tactical light across the hallway.
A faint clatter echoed from the supply closet near Room 304. Mateo kicked the door open, gun raised.
Behind a stack of sterile linen hampers, Elena was curled into a ball, clutching an aluminum IV stand like a spear. Her face was stark white, her knuckles trembling so hard the metal rattled against the wall.
"Elena, it's me. It's Mateo," he breathed, dropping to one knee and lowering the muzzle of his sidearm. "You're okay. Where is Brad?"
Elena pointed a shivering finger down the hallway toward the NICU nursery. "The man with the burned neck. He didn't use the elevator. He came up the fire stairs. He had scissors, Mateo. He cut the power box on the wall."
Mateo lunged back into the hall and charged into the nursery. Inside, the life-support machines were beeping shrill failure warnings on emergency battery mode. The glass lid of Brad’s warming isolette had been shattered into hundreds of blunt cubes. The baby was gone.
Standing near the smashed exterior window that led to the emergency fire escape was a towering silhouette. Rain poured into the room, whipping the blinds into a frenzy. The intruder wore a heavy wet leather duster, his collar pulled high, but across his exposed throat ran a web of jagged, discolored third-degree burn scars. Under his left arm, he cradled a canvas satchel containing the crying infant.
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"Don't take another step, Officer," the man rumbled, his voice grating like metal dragged over gravel. In his right hand, he held a heavy flare gun loaded with a military-grade magnesium incendiary round, aimed directly at the room's central oxygen supply manifold. "One spark in here, and this entire wing goes up like a match head."
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