The silence in the ICU room was heavier than the lead aprons I wore in radiology. Dante’s words hung in the sterile air like poison: I had people watching you.

Five minutes later, I sprinted back through the flooded drainage pipes of the facility, clutching a sealed silver canister containing three doses of the blue reversal serum.

When I reached the van, my heart stopped.

The sliding side door of the van was wide open. Marcus lay sprawled on the wet pavement, bleeding profusely from a head wound. Mia was missing.

Inside the back of the van, Dante was sitting on the floor, holding his head in his hands, groaning in pure agony as the poison tore through his brain. He looked up at me with blank, terrified eyes.

“Claire?” he stammered, his voice weak. “Where… where did they take her? A silver car… men in black suits… they took the little girl… who was she, Claire? Why does my chest hurt so much when I try to remember her name?”

Tears poured down my face as I fell to my knees beside him, uncapping the silver canister. “She’s your daughter, Dante! Her name is Mia! She loves imaginary horses, she hates mushrooms, and she has your exact eyes!”

I jammed the syringe of blue serum directly into his neck vein, depressing the plunger completely.

Dante gasped, his body going completely rigid as the chemical antidote fought the toxin raging through his bloodstream. His back arched off the floor of the van, his veins turning dark purple against his skin before he fell limp against my lap, his eyes rolling back into his head.