The rhythmic, high-pitched beep of the heart monitor was the only sound keeping me anchored to reality. Lily lay in the hospital bed, swallowed whole by heavy thermal blankets. Her tiny fingers were wrapped in thick bandages, and her skin, though no longer a terrifying shade of ash-blue, remained ghostly pale.

Within thirty seconds, my breath was coming out in thick white clouds. The moisture on my eyelashes began to crystallize. The liquid nitrogen vapor crept across the concrete floor like a phantom carpet, swallowing my boots in a blanket of deathly cold.

"Mark!" Taylor screamed from above, coughing wildly as the freezing air starved the upper atmosphere of oxygen. "The emergency release! There’s an overhead crane hook near the far wall!"

I didn't waste time talking. My muscles were already stiffening, the air burning my lungs like broken glass with every inhalation. I sprinted through the swirling white fog toward the back of the mill, my boots sliding on the rapidly icing concrete.

The white fog was thick, blinding. I couldn't see three feet in front of me.

"Taylor! Keep talking! Follow my voice!" I yelled, reaching into my coat and pulling out the steel crowbar.

"I... I can't breathe!" her voice was getting fainter, higher. Oxygen deprivation was setting in fast.

I smashed the crowbar against a metal control box mounted to the wall. Sparks flew into the freezing dark. I ripped the panel open, grabbing the heavy rubber remote hanging by a coiled wire. I jammed my thumb down on the red "LOWER" button.

High above, a rusted steel chain rattled violently. The massive, two-ton iron crane hook descended through the fog, swinging wildly.

"Taylor! Jump!" I screamed.

"What?!"

"Jump onto the crane hook! It’s the only way out of the lower gas layer!"

Above me, I heard a splash of movement, followed by a terrified shriek as Taylor threw herself off the catwalk. The metallic CLANG of her boots hitting the iron hook echoed through the room, followed by her gasping for air.

"I got it! I'm on!" she sobbed.

I hit the "RAISE" button, elevating her away from the dense floor-level gas, then slammed the crane control into "FORWARD". The giant iron rig groaned on its tracks, sliding down the length of the warehouse ceiling toward the high, boarded-up clerestory window twenty feet above the ground.

I grabbed onto the lower cargo chain just as the rig accelerated. The freezing nitrogen fog was up to my waist now—my legs were losing sensation.

CRASH!

The iron hook, propelled by the heavy crane motor, smashed directly through the rotten wooden window frame at the top of the wall. Glass, rotten timber, and freezing night air exploded inward.

The structural break ruined the pressure vacuum of the room. I swung myself up the chain, grabbed Taylor by the waist, and together we tumbled out of the shattered window frame, falling twenty feet into the muddy, rain-soaked ditch outside.

We hit the mud hard. I rolled, taking the brunt of the impact, my lungs gasping for the warm, wet rain air. It felt like fire after the nitrogen, but it meant life.

"Mark!" Taylor gasped, crawling toward me in the mud, shivering violently. "Are you okay?!"

"Get up," I growled, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as I dragged her to her feet. "We don't have time."

Across the gravel lot, the red taillights of Evelyn’s Mercedes were just beginning to move toward the main gate. She thought we were dead inside.

"Where are you going?!" Taylor wept.

"To finish this," I said, my voice dripping with ice. "She thinks she killed us. That means she’s going to the hospital right now to take Lily."

I ran to my truck, which was hidden in the trees down the road. Marcus was still on the line through my truck's Bluetooth system, screaming my name.

"MARK! MARK! DO YOU COPY?!"

I hit the steering wheel console. "Marcus! I’m alive. I have Taylor."

"Thank God!" Marcus breathed. "Mark, listen to me! Evelyn just filed an emergency ex-parte motion with Judge Vance! She presented a forged medical record stating Lily is in critical condition and that you are an active fugitive! The judge signed an order transferring immediate legal guardianship to Evelyn! She’s at the hospital RIGHT NOW with state troopers to transport Lily to a private facility!"

"She's moving her before we can stop her," I hissed, slamming my foot on the gas pedal. The truck’s tires screamed as we launched onto the highway.

"Mark, look at me," Taylor said from the passenger seat, her eyes wide with a terrifying new resolve. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small, metallic silver USB drive attached to a keychain.

"What is that?" I asked, tearing down the rainy highway at ninety miles an hour.

"When I was at my mother’s house this afternoon," Taylor said, her voice dropping into a register I had never heard from her before—a tone of lethal determination. "I didn't just find out about the trust fund. I went into her safe. I stole the encrypted backup drive from her utility closet hub. The raw environmental logs... the footage... the financial transactions for the offshore accounts she set up in Lily’s name."

I looked at her, stunned. "You had it all along?"

"I was afraid," Taylor whispered, tears mixing with the mud on her face. "I was terrified of her. I thought if I exposed her, she’d destroy us both. But she just tried to freeze me to death, Mark. She tried to kill her own daughter."

Taylor gripped the USB drive tightly in her fist.