Chapter 15 - The Breath of Dawn
"Vance! The line! They poisoned her!" Julian roared, his voice cracking with terror.
Agent Vance lunged across the operating table. With one brutal swipe of his tactical knife, he severed the plastic IV tubing inches above Clara’s vein, spraying the milky chemical across the tile floor. Vance ripped the needle out of her arm, pressing his thumb hard over the puncture site to prevent any remaining fluid from entering her bloodstream.
Clara’s heart monitor went completely flat.
EEEEEEEEEE—
"Cardiac arrest!" Julian screamed, slamming his hands onto Clara’s chest, immediately beginning CPR. "No, no, no! Clara, look at me! Clara!"
He compressed her sternum with desperate, measured force—one, two, three, four. He checked her airway, leaning down to breathe air into her lungs, his tears falling directly onto her pale, motionless lips.
"Find the crash cart!" Vance yelled to his tactical agent. "Epinephrine! Now!"
The agent kicked open a glass storage locker, grabbing a pre-loaded syringe of adrenaline. Vance snatched it, uncapped the long needle, and drove it directly into the central line port in Clara’s neck, plunging the medication into her circulatory system.
Julian didn't stop compressions. "You come back to me," he sobbed, his muscles burning, his ribs screaming in agony from the night's beatings. "Lily is outside, Clara! Lily needs you! I need you! Don't you dare leave us!"
Ten seconds passed. Twenty. The line on the monitor remained agonizingly flat.
Julian’s breath came in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. He brought his hands down again—harder, pouring every remaining drop of his soul into keeping her heart beating.
Thump.
A single spike jumped on the digital display.
Julian froze, his hands hovering over her chest.
Thump... thump... thump...
The rhythmic beep returned, irregular at first, then steadying into a slow, fragile fifty beats per minute.
Clara’s chest heaved. Her eyelashes fluttered, trembling against the harsh light. A weak, strangled gasp escaped around the breathing tube. Her pale fingers twitched on the stainless steel table, slowly curling until they found Julian’s torn sleeve.
Her eyes opened. Dazed, glassy, and completely terrified, they locked onto Julian’s face.
"Julian..." her lips moved silently against the plastic tube, forming the shape of his name.
"I’m here," Julian wept, pressing his forehead against hers, clutching her freezing hand between both of his. "I’m right here. You’re safe. We’ve got you."
Outside, through the high, reinforced windows of the asylum, the storm was finally breaking. The black clouds tore apart, revealing the first golden rays of the morning sun cutting across the mountain peaks.
Down the hallway, the sound of small, hurried footsteps echoed across the linoleum. Lily appeared in the doorway, held by the federal agent, still wrapped in the oversized fleece blanket.
Lily stopped. Her big hazel eyes widened, seeing the bed, seeing the rise and fall of her mother’s chest.
May you like
"Mommy?" Lily whispered.
Clara slowly turned her head toward the door. Tears broke through the corners of her eyes, tracking through the clinical dust on her skin, and for the first time in an eternity, her hand reached outward toward the morning light.
