Chapter 1 - THE PRICE OF A LIFEThe air in the grand ballroom grew thin, sucked into the vacuum of panic. Two hundred of the wealthiest people in the Midwest stood frozen like statues carved of expensive silk and tailored wool. They watched, paralyzed, as Grant Hawthorne—a man whose decisions routinely shifted billions of dollars and crushed corporate competitors—gasped for air like a fish thrown onto dry asphalt.
Clara Bennett knelt beside him, her heart hammering violently against her ribs. Her vision flickered at the edges, a familiar warning sign. Her own body was already beginning to protest the trace elements of the allergen she had brushed against earlier in the service hallway. Her chest felt tight. Her throat felt lined with sandpaper.
She had seconds. Just seconds.
With trembling fingers, Clara reached into the deep pocket of her black uniform trousers. Her fingers closed around the cold, cylindrical plastic of her single remaining EpiPen.
If I use this on him, she thought, the absolute terror of reality crashing over her, I will die.
There was no magical reserve waiting at home. There was no extra prescription at the pharmacy. Her insurance company had denied her refill request just three days prior. Using this device meant trading her own pulse for his. It meant leaving twenty-eight-year-old Molly completely alone in the world, finishing nursing school with no parents and now, no sister.
Grant’s eyes rolled back. His fingers clawed at his neck, drawing thin red streaks across his rapidly swelling skin. He made a wet, rattling sound in the back of his throat—the terrifying music of an airway collapsing completely.
"Is there a doctor?" Evelyn Price screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria as she shoved past a group of local politicians. "Somebody do something!"
"Clear the way!" a security guard shouted, though nobody moved. They were paralyzed by the sheer spectacle of a titan falling.
Clara looked down at the plastic tube in her hand. She thought of Molly's smile. She thought of the small apartment in Waukegan, the stack of unpaid utility bills, and the framed photograph of their mother smiling on the mantelpiece.
Forgive me, Molly, she whispered silently.
With a sharp, decisive motion, Clara yanked off the blue safety cap. She slammed the orange tip against Grant Hawthorne's thigh through his custom-tailored wool trousers.
Click.
A loud hiss echoed in the sudden silence of the room. The epinephrine surged into his muscle, delivering the lifesaving chemical cocktail straight into his bloodstream.
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Clara pulled the empty device away, her hand shaking violently. She collapsed backward onto the polished marble floor, her own breath catching sharply in her chest. As the world began to spin into a dark, suffocating tunnel, she watched Grant's chest heave violently as his lungs forced air back into his body.
Then, the darkness claimed her.
