Chapter 5 - The Code Blue AlarmWe didn't use the front entrance. Vance led me through the basement loading docks, past industrial laundry carts and confused orderlies, straight to the private elevator bank leading to the West Wing ICU.
Ding.
The doors slid open to a scene of absolute chaos.
Nurses were sprinting down the corridor with crash carts. A piercing, rhythmic alarm was wailing from Room 304.
CODE BLUE. ROOM 304. CODE BLUE.
"Clara!" I screamed, breaking away from Vance and sprinting down the linoleum hallway.
I reached Room 304 just as a doctor in a blue scrubs uniform was backing out of the doorway, his hands covered in latex gloves, shaking his head. Inside the room, standing right beside the hospital bed with a calm, chilling expression, was Marlene Whitaker.
She was holding an empty plastic syringe.
"I'm sorry, Ethan," Marlene said smoothly, her voice carrying over the flatline shriek of the heart monitor. "Her heart just couldn't take the stress of the postoperative complications. It's tragic, really."
I lunged past the doctor, my hands curling into claws. I grabbed Marlene by the collar of her blouse and slammed her against the heart monitor, shattering the glass screen into sparks.
"What did you put in that IV?" I roared, shaking her so hard her styled silver hair flew loose. "WHAT DID YOU GIVE HER?!"
"Ethan, stop!" Vance shouted, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back with all her weight. "Look at the bed! Look at your wife!"
I whipped around.
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On the white hospital sheets, Clara’s eyes weren't closed. They were wide, bloodshot, and staring right at me—not lifeless, but paralyzed, tears streaming down her pale cheeks as her lips moved silently behind an oxygen mask.
She wasn't dead. She was conscious, trapped inside her own body by a heavy paralytic, watching her own mother try to murder her.
