Chapter 3 - The Counter-Attack
Time lost all meaning inside the windowless supply room. Every minute felt like an hour as we waited for Nina and Danielle to breach the hospital lobby.
At 11:42 AM, the burner phone in Evelyn’s pocket buzzed with a sharp, vibrating hum.
Evelyn snatched it out immediately, pressing it to her ear. She listened in silence for several seconds, her eyebrows drawing together before she nodded sharply. "Got it. We're ready."
She ended the call and looked up at me. "Your sister and Danielle just bypassed the front security desk by using Danielle's state bar credentials and claiming an emergency patient welfare audit. They’re being escorted by hospital security toward the second floor right now, but they managed to slip into the west wing stairwell before campus police could intercept them."
"Are they close?"
"They're coming up the service stairs to our floor right now. But we have a major problem." Evelyn stood up, sliding open the storage room door a mere half-inch to peer into the hallway. "Nurse Vance and two hospital administrators are currently standing right outside room 214 with a security detail. They know you're missing from the room, and they're expanding the search radius."
"If they catch us in the hallway, they'll sedate me under the guise of medical intervention," I said, panic spiking through my veins. "They'll call it a postpartum psychotic episode, strap me to a gurney, and take Caleb before Nina even reaches this wing."
"Then we don't use the hallway," Evelyn said decisively. She unlocked the heavy metal door completely, stepping out into the shadows of the utility corridor. "Give me the bassinet brake release. We're taking the maintenance bypass."
"Where does it go?"
"Straight down to the ground-level loading dock. There's an ambulance bay exit that leads directly to the municipal parking garage. Your sister said she parked her SUV right by the exit door."
I grabbed the handles of the bassinet, my knuckles turning white as I pushed past the rows of shelving. My incision throbbed with a searing pulse of pain, but adrenaline pushed the agony deep into the background. Every instinctual nerve ending in my body was screaming to protect my son.
We hurried down the dim, concrete-floored utility corridor, away from the sterile white lights and pleasant pastel-colored walls of the maternity ward. Here, exposed pipes ran along the ceiling, and the hum of industrial boilers vibrated through the floorboards.
Suddenly, a door at the opposite end of the corridor clicked open.
"Check the auxiliary utility wing! Vance said she saw a shadow near the service elevator!"
It was Adrian's voice.
I froze in horror. Just twenty yards away, framed by the bright fluorescent light of the main intersection, Adrian stepped into the corridor, flanked by a burly hospital security guard.
For a split second, our eyes locked.
The shock on Adrian's face was instantaneous, quickly morphing into cold, calculated desperation.
"Mara!" he shouted, lunging forward down the hallway. "Stop right there! You're not thinking clearly—let me take the baby, you're scaring me!"
"Stay away from me, Adrian!" I screamed, my voice echoing off the concrete walls with a fury that surprised even myself. "I know about Dr. Harlan! I know about the forged chart notes! You sold me out to your mother!"
"That's a delusion, Mara—please, listen to reason—"
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"Grab her!" Adrian yelled to the security guard, pointing frantically in our direction. "She's a psychiatric risk! Restrain her before she drops the child!"
The guard broke into a heavy sprint, his boots pounding against the concrete floor as he closed the distance between us with terrifying speed.
