Chapter 3 - The Iron in the Blood
Pain flashed hot and sharp across Natalie’s wrist as Vanessa twisted the catheter port. The electronic pump began squealing in frantic two-tone bursts: *OCCLUSION. FLOW STOPPED.*
“Stop!” Natalie gasped, but instead of pulling away, she used the instinct every mother discovers when backed into a corner. She didn't cower. She grabbed the heavy ceramic water pitcher sitting on the rolling bedside table with her free right hand and swung it with all the leverage her torso could muster.
The heavy stoneware crashed against Vanessa’s shoulder and cheekbone. Water and ice exploded across the cream designer coat, soaking the expensive wool and sending the woman stumbling backward into the plastic waste bin with a sharp screech of pain.
“You miserable bitch!” Vanessa screamed, clutching her reddening jaw, her perfectly pinned hair spilling across her eyes.
Natalie scrambled up against the pillows, her breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. A tearing sensation ripped through her lower abdomen, sharp enough to turn her vision gray around the edges. She felt the baby kick violently in protest against the sudden spike of adrenaline.
“Get out!” Natalie yelled, her voice echoing off the sterile tiles. “Help! Security! Room 412!”
Vanessa recovered her footing, her face twisted into a mask of pure malice. The sophistication was gone; underneath was the gutter-fighter who had clawed her way through three corporate scandals to get Grant Mercer under her thumb. She lunged forward, her fingers clawing toward Natalie’s throat.
“No one is coming!” Vanessa snarled, grabbing the front of Natalie’s hospital gown and slamming her back down against the thin mattress. “The ward desk is on shift change, and the elevator access is shut down from the penthouse terminal! You’re signing those papers, or you leave this room in a body bag!”
Natalie fought back, scratching at Vanessa’s arms, kicking through the blankets, but the magnesium sulfate in her system had turned her limbs heavy and sluggish. Her fingers slipped on Vanessa’s wet silk lapel. The oxygen monitor on her index finger flew off, clattering across the floor.
Vanessa’s hands found Natalie’s windpipe, pressing down with calculated, brutal weight.
“You’re nobody,” Vanessa whispered into Natalie’s ear, spit flying from her painted lips. “Just an obstacle Grant forgot to clean up.”
Black spots danced across Natalie’s eyes. Her lungs burned for air. She reached blindly toward the nightstand, knocking over medicine cups, a plastic basin, searching for anything sharp, anything solid. Her fingers touched only empty laminate.
*I’m sorry,* she thought in terror, her hands falling weakly against the mattress. *Little bird... I’m so sorry.*
Then, the heavy solid-core door of Room 412 shook with a single, deafening impact.
It was not a knock. It was the sound of steel meeting brass at hydraulic pressure.
Vanessa froze, her fingers slackening around Natalie’s neck. “What is that?”
A second crash echoed through the room. The reinforced deadbolt that Grant had keyed shut snapped in half with a sound like a pistol shot. The door swung open smoothly, almost soundlessly, and hit the rubber bumper on the wall.
Standing in the doorway was not hospital security.
It was a man in an oil-stained gray chore jacket, holding a thirteen-inch titanium pry bar in his right hand. His hair was iron-white, cropped close against his temples, and his face was lined with forty years of industrial dust and quiet resolve.
May you like
Thomas Vance stepped over the splintered strike plate into the room.
***
