Chapter 5 - The Crash Cart In Room Four
Adrian bolted upright, ignoring Detective Vance as he sprinted past the nursing station and shoved open the heavy double doors of trauma room four. The scene inside was pure chaos. Three nurses and a doctor were gathered around Lily’s narrow bed, frantically working to clear her airway while the heart monitor emitted a low, continuous flatline tone.
"Get him out of here!" a doctor yelled, pushing Adrian backward with both hands.
"Lily! No!" Adrian screamed, trying to force his way past the medical staff.
Clara was huddled in the corner of the room, her hands clamped over her mouth as silent tears streamed down her pale face.
"Her fever spiked again," Clara choked out, her voice barely audible over the screaming alarms. "They said her body went into shock."
Adrian felt a heavy hand grab his shoulder. It was Detective Vance, pulling him firmly out into the hallway and letting the heavy doors swing shut behind them.
"You need to let them work, Miller. Screaming isn't going to fix this," Vance said, his voice surprisingly devoid of its earlier hostility.
"If she dies, it's my fault," Adrian muttered, sliding down the tiled wall until he hit the floor, burying his face in his hands.
Vance crouched down beside him, keeping his voice low so the passing nurses wouldn't overhear.
"It wasn't an accident, Adrian. Someone targeted you today," Vance whispered.
"What are you talking about?" Adrian looked up, his eyes bloodshot and desperate.
"The parking lot sensors at your house? They were jammed for exactly twenty minutes this afternoon. Somebody blocked your security cameras so you couldn't see what was happening outside," Vance explained, pulling out his phone and showing Adrian a screenshot of a digital log. "And that voice recorder you picked up off the floor mat? It wasn't left there by mistake. It was a beacon."
Before Adrian could process the terrifying implication of those words, the flatline tone inside the trauma room abruptly stopped, replaced by a slow, rhythmic beep.
The heavy doors pushed open, and the doctor stepped out into the hallway, wiping sweat from his forehead with a paper towel.
"She's stable," the doctor breathed, offering a tired smile. "We got her back."
Adrian let out a ragged breath, slumping back against the wall. But as Vance’s phone buzzed with an incoming text message, the detective’s face turned grim as he read the screen.
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"That wasn't a warning, Adrian," Vance whispered, staring down at the device. "That was step one."
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