Chapter 6 - Fire and IronThe sky was burning red with smoke by the time I pulled up to St. Jude’s Hospital.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but the fire department hadn't arrived yet. The third floor—the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit—was engulfed in thick, black plumes of smoke. Panicked nurses, doctors, and crying patients were pouring out of the main emergency doors.
I bypassed the fleeing crowd, covering my mouth with my wet dress uniform jacket, and charged straight up the stairwell into the smoke-filled corridor.
"Sophia! Leo!" I roared through the haze.
The alarms were blaring, sprinklers showering cold water over the burning hallway. Through the dense fog of smoke, I saw two men in tactical gear trying to force open the door to Room 312—Leo’s room.
"Get back!" one of the mercenaries yelled, turning his weapon toward me.
I didn't give him the chance to clear his holster. I closed the distance in three violent strides, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until the bone snapped. I slammed his head into the concrete doorframe, dropping him instantly, then swept the leg of the second attacker, driving my elbow into his sternum.
I kicked the door of Room 312 open.
Sophia was standing in the far corner, holding a heavy metal IV pole like a spear, shielding Leo’s crib with her own body. Smoke was filling the room fast.
"Marcus!" she sobbed, dropping the pole as I rushed toward her.
"I’ve got you. I’ve got both of you," I choked out, wrapping my arms around them. I scooped Leo up in his thermal blanket and grabbed Sophia’s hand. "We have to go. Now!"
We burst back into the hallway, navigating through the thick smoke toward the emergency fire exit at the end of the hall. But as we reached the heavy steel doors, they slammed shut from the outside, and the electronic lock engage light turned bright red.
"It’s sealed!" Sophia screamed, banging against the reinforced glass. "Marcus, we're trapped!"
The flames were advancing down the corridor, catching the ceiling tiles, turning the hallway into an oven.
I turned around, searching desperately for an exit. That’s when the reinforced door at the opposite end of the hall creaked open, and a figure emerged through the wall of fire.
It wasn't a mercenary.
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It was my mother, Eleanor, her expensive dress charred, her hair wild and matted with soot, holding an emergency master keycard in her hand.
Chapter 6 Cliffhanger Hook: Eleanor stared at us through the smoke, her face contorted with an unreadable emotion. “Give me the child, Marcus,” she rasped, holding out her trembling hands. “Give him to me, or none of you leave this floor alive.”
