Chapter 7 - THE CRACKED VIAL"You poisoned her, Sarah!" Daniel screamed, stepping out from the shadow of the wall. "She's your daughter!"
"She was a liability!" Sarah snapped, her calm facade shattering for a fraction of a second. "Do you have any idea what happens to me if the feds link those bank accounts to my name? I go away for twenty years, Daniel! Twenty years!"
"You're going away forever now," I rasped from the bed, my lungs straining as I spoke. I reached down under the bedsheet, my fingers slowly wrapping around the plastic clamp of my chest tube drain line.
Ray raised his gun, shifting his aim from Miller to my chest. "Enough talking. Sarah, get the phone from the table. Wipe the cloud backup. Then we go."
"Ray, don't do this," Miller warned, his voice measured, trying to catch the eyes of the armed officers who were supposed to be outside my door. (They were lying unconscious in the corridor behind Ray, as I could now see through the door crack). "You pull that trigger in a hospital, you won't make it to the parking garage."
"Watch me," Ray growled, pulling back the hammer of the pistol with a crisp, terrifying click.
Now.
With all the strength remaining in my body, I yanked the chest tube fluid canister off its hanging bracket on the bed frame and hurled it with all my might straight at Ray's face.
The heavy plastic container, filled with dark blood and toxic lung fluid, struck Ray right across his cheekbone. The plastic shattered on impact, spraying contaminated fluid directly into his eyes and open mouth.
"AHHHHH!" Ray screamed, dropping to his knees, clutching his face as the sting of his own chemical poison burned his eyes. The gun clattered against the floor tile.
Detective Miller didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, tackling Ray to the ground, pinning his arms behind his back and slamming his wrist into the steel frame of the door.
My mother shrieked, dropping Caleb's backpack and turning to run into the hallway.
"SARAH!" Daniel yelled, chasing after her.
I fell back onto the mattress, gasping violently as the sudden movement pulled the chest tube completely free from my ribs. Air hissed out of my chest cavity like a leaking tire.
Beep-beep-beep-beep-BEEEEEP.
The heart monitor flatlined into a continuous, piercing tone.
"Emma!" Miller yelled, turning his head while trying to cuff the writhing, screaming Ray on the floor. "Nurse! I need a medical team in here now!"
Through my blurring vision, I saw Daniel tackle my mother in the hallway outside. The blue backpack spilled its contents across the floor—not just notebooks and pens, but three heavy, sealed glass vials containing a clear, amber liquid.
One of the vials hit the tile floor and cracked open.
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A sharp, sweet, sickly chemical smell instantly filled the corridor, wafting into my room through the open doorway.
My lungs seized entirely. Darkness began to creep in from the edges of my vision, narrowing the world down into that same yellow, blurry tunnel I had seen at the kitchen sink.
