Chapter 7 - The Poison Within
Jax caught Leo’s shoulders, keeping the boy’s head steady as the convulsions shook the cot. Panic—cold, pure, and terrifying—gripped the hardened biker. He had survived knife wounds, prison brawls, and shotgun blasts, but against a poisoned child dying in his arms, he was utterly helpless.
"Hang on, Leo! Stay with me!" Jax pleaded.
The seizure subsided after two grueling minutes, leaving the boy limp and wheezing. Jax opened his pocketknife and carefully peeled back Leo's shirt. Across the boy's abdomen, faint bluish-black veins spiderwebbed outward from his navel.
The antique key wasn't pure brass. It was an old railway box key from the 1920s, coated in lead-heavy industrial lacquer. If it didn't come out within hours, toxic heavy-metal poisoning would cause complete organ failure.
Jax needed medical gear, an emetic, or a surgeon who didn't ask questions. He pulled out his burner phone. There was only one person within fifty miles he could trust with both their lives: Doc Evans, an old disgraced combat medic who lived off the grid near Blackwood Creek.
Jax dialed the numbers from memory. The phone rang three times before a raspy, suspicious voice answered. "Speak."
"Doc, it’s Jax. I’ve got an eight-year-old boy. Swallowed a lead-lacquered safe key three days ago. High fever, seizures, venous marbling on the stomach. I need you at the old Miller cabin in twenty minutes."
There was a long silence on the line. Then Doc's voice turned cold and bitter. "You shouldn't have brought him here, Jax."
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"What are you talking about?" Jax demanded.
"Silas reached my clinic an hour ago," Doc whispered. "He's holding my granddaughter. And he's standing right behind me."
