Chapter 6 - The Vanishing Patient
""You're out of your mind,"" Clara breathed, glancing frantically at the closed door. ""You have a grade-three concussion and fractured ribs. You can barely sit up.""
""If I stay here, I won't survive the night,"" Christian countered, his voice low and steely. ""The chief of neurosurgery is on Julian's payroll. A rogue dose of potassium chloride, an unexpected cardiac arrest—they'll call it a complication from the fall.""
He swung his legs over the edge of the high hospital bed, stifling a sharp groan as his ribs flared with agony. Clara rushed forward, catching his broad shoulders before he could collapse onto the linoleum floor. The warmth of his body through the thin cotton gown sent an involuntary shiver through her, but survival overrode modesty.
""Lean on me,"" she ordered, draping his heavy arm over her neck.
Christian grimaced, gritting his teeth as he forced his legs to bear weight. He was pale, sweating profusely from the pain, but the determination in his hazel eyes was unyielding. Clara helped him into a dark hoodie she had smuggled in her backpack, pulling the hood low over his bandages.
They reached the service elevator at the end of the hallway, slipping past the nurses' station during the midnight shift change. Just as the metal doors began to slide shut, the main ward doors banged open.
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Two men in dark suits stepped onto the floor, led by Julian’s personal driver.
Through the narrowing gap of the elevator doors, Christian locked eyes with the driver. The elevator dropped smoothly, but the alarm on the floor above immediately began to shrill.
