Chapter 2 - The Emergency Room Interrogation
Hospital fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a clinical white glare over my husband's pale skin. The ER doctors moved with practiced efficiency, drawing blood, hooking up IV lines, and monitoring his plummeting heart rate.
"He's displaying severe signs of neurotoxin sedation mixed with a heavy barbiturate," the attending physician, Dr. Hayes, told me as we stood in the hallway just outside Trauma Room 4. "His blood pressure is dangerously low, and that puncture mark on his arm isn't from an IV. It looks more like a specialized hypodermic injection—something meant to bypass the digestive tract for a faster, more localized paralysis effect."
"His grandmother gave him a drink last night," I said, my hands still trembling from the adrenaline. "She called it a family tradition. He said he told her no."
Dr. Hayes frowned, his eyes narrowing. "We ran a preliminary tox screen on the blood we drew. Whatever she gave him isn't standard medication. It's an alkaloid compound that suppresses voluntary muscle movement while keeping the victim fully conscious. They can't speak, they can't move, but they feel everything."
My stomach churned. I thought about him lying alone in that dark, suffocating room with the matriarch while I slept just down the hall, completely unaware.
Before I could answer, heavy footsteps echoed down the sterile corridor.
May you like
A sharp voice cut through the quiet hum of the hospital. "Out of my way. I am family."
I turned. Striding down the hall was not the grandmother, but a tall, sharp-featured man in an expensive gray suit—my husband’s uncle, Arthur. And behind him, walking with that same chilling, unhurried posture, was the matriarch herself.
