Chapter 11 - Code Red
""Code Red. Third floor, ICU wing. Code Red. All available security and medical personnel report immediately.""
The sterile voice echoed through the concrete stairwells and fluorescent hallways, stripping away the fragile peace Julian had felt just a moment before.
Julian’s breath hitched in his throat. The polaroid slipped from his fingers, fluttering down onto the linoleum floor as he spun around and bolted back toward the stairwell stairs, taking three steps at a time with desperate, explosive speed. Panic clawed at his chest, sharper and more vicious than before. Not now. He just made it through surgery. He can't be gone.
He burst through the heavy fire doors on the third floor, nearly colliding with a frantic nurse pushing a crash cart toward Room 312.
""What happened?!"" Julian roared, grabbing the nurse's shoulder before she could maneuver past him. ""What's going on in there?!""
""His incision site has started hemorrhaging internally! His blood pressure just bottomed out!"" the nurse yelled over the blaring alarms, shaking off his grip and rushing forward.
Julian broke into a full sprint down the corridor. When he reached Room 312, the scene was absolute bedlam. The door was wide open. Clara was standing frozen against the hallway wall, her hands trembling over her mouth, while little Leo was sobbing uncontrollably, clinging to the hem of her suit skirt as doctors and nurses swarmed around Marcus’s bed like a swarm of angry hornets.
""Clear!"" a doctor shouted, pressing the defibrillator paddles against Marcus’s chest.
A violent electrical shock convulsed Marcus’s body. The monitor let out its agonizing, steady, continuous tone—the sound every family member dreads more than anything else in the world.
""Charge again! Push 2 more milligrams of epi!""
""Marcus!"" Julian yelled, stepping past the threshold of the room before a security guard's heavy arm blocked his path, shoving him back into the corridor.
""Sir, you cannot go in there! You're going to interfere with life-saving measures!"" the guard shouted, planting his feet firmly.
""That's my brother in there! Let me go!"" Julian struggled against the guard, his fury and grief boiling over into violent desperation.
Leo’s piercing cries cut through the noise of the alarms. The little boy broke away from Clara and ran straight toward Julian, wrapping his tiny arms around Julian’s leg, screaming in terror. ""Uncle Julian! Don't let them hurt Daddy! Make them stop!""
Julian dropped to his knees right there in the hallway, ignoring the security guard, wrapping his strong arms completely around the trembling child and burying his face into Leo's shoulder. Tears he hadn't shed in ten years finally broke free, soaking into the boy's blue shirt.
Inside the room, the doctor slammed his hands down onto Marcus’s chest once more, performing manual CPR with desperate, frantic rhythm.
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""Come on, Marcus,"" Julian whispered into the empty air, his voice breaking entirely. ""You promised me we'd ride together again. Don't leave me alone in this world.""
And then, from inside the room, a monitor let out a sudden, sharp, single beep.
