Chapter 4
The bathroom attached to Room 402 was tiny, smelling faintly of industrial bleach and antiseptic soap. Clara slipped inside, closing the door until it clicked softly, leaving only a tiny sliver of light to guide her. She adjusted Leo in the striped blanket, making sure his airway remained completely clear. Her hands were shaking violently, adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream, sharpening her senses to a razor’s edge.
There was no window looking out to the street; rooms on this side of the hospital faced an interior courtyard, blocked by security gates. But there was a narrow ventilation shaft located high up on the wall near the ceiling, typically used for humidity extraction. Clara stepped onto the closed lid of the toilet, balancing carefully while holding the baby securely against her chest with one arm. Reaching up, she gripped the plastic grille of the vent.
With a silent prayer, she twisted the corners. The screws were old and loose, yielding surprisingly easily to her desperate strength. The grille dropped softly onto the floor tiles with a dull clatter that made Clara freeze. She held her breath, listening intently. Outside the bathroom door, she could hear the muffled sound of Arthur's voice continuing his rehearsed monologue, trying to coax her out. No one had heard the vent cover fall.
Clara shone the light of her phone—which she had wisely kept on silent mode—into the dark opening. It was a tight metal duct, but it seemed wide enough for her to crawl through if she discarded her hospital gown and crawled on her stomach. It was a terrifying prospect, crawling blindly through a metal tunnel with a newborn infant, but staying in the room meant certain defeat.
She climbed down from the toilet, slipped off the light blue hospital gown, and wrapped herself in a coarse wool blanket she found in the bathroom cabinet. It was scrubby and smelled of laundry detergent, but it provided mobility. Tucking Leo securely against her chest with a makeshift sling fashioned from the sheets she tore into strips, she secured him tightly so he wouldn't slip during the crawl.
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Before stepping up to the vent, Clara looked around the small bathroom one last time. She left the hospital gown draped over the shower rod, arranged in a way that, from a quick glance through the tiny frosted glass panel of the bathroom door, might look like someone standing in the shower. It was a crude decoy, but in the dim light, it might buy her precious minutes once they finally decided to break the door down.
She hoisted herself back up onto the toilet lid, hoisted her legs into the cold metal opening, and pulled herself into the ductwork. The metal scraped against her bare shoulders, sending sharp pangs of pain through her skin, but she didn't care. She focused entirely on the rhythmic breathing of her baby against her chest, inching forward into the suffocating darkness of the hospital’s internal anatomy.
