Chapter 10 - Blood and Ash
The chaos that followed was a blur of red and blue strobes, shouted commands, and the deafening clatter of tactical boots on wet gravel.
Evelyn fired one wild shot toward the cruisers before turning to flee through the rear freight doors. Two SWAT officers intercepted her within seconds, tackling her to the muddy ground. Her expensive parka was pinned into the sludge, her screams of fury muffled against the gravel as zip-ties bound her wrists behind her back.
Daniel ignored the searing pain in his shoulder. Blood soaked through his white shirt and black jacket, warm and sticky, but he scrambled across the debris-strewn concrete toward the pillar.
"Amy! Amy!"
He reached her, his hands trembling violently as he fumbled with his pocketknife to cut through the heavy nylon ties binding her wrists. The moment the plastic snapped, Amy collapsed forward. Daniel caught her with his uninjured arm, holding her tightly against his chest.
"The baby... Daniel, the baby!" she gasped, her hands grasping wildly at his lapels.
Daniel turned. The portable medical incubator was overturned on its side five feet away, shielded from the falling iron pipes by an industrial wooden pallet. He crawled over, lifting the heavy wood with a grunt of agony from his torn shoulder.
Inside the clear plastic casing, nestled safely in thermal blankets, the tiny infant was crying. It was a thin, frail, furious sound—the most beautiful noise Daniel had ever heard in his life.
Amy crawled to his side, her hands covering the plastic shell. Tears cut clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "She's breathing. She's okay... she's okay."
Paramedics swarmed the area, accompanied by a heavily bandaged Marcus Vance, who had managed to free his hands.
"Sir, you need to sit down. You're bleeding heavily," a paramedic said, pressing a pressure dressing against Daniel’s shoulder.
Daniel shook his head, refusing to let go of Amy’s arm. "Treat them first. Please. Just treat them."
Amy looked up at him. In the stark, unforgiving light of the emergency floodlights, Daniel looked broken. The polished billionaire, the arrogant heir, the distant husband was completely gone. In his place was a bleeding, terrified man who had thrown himself in front of a bullet without a second's hesitation.
"Why did you come alone, Daniel?" she asked, her voice cracking. "You could have sent the police. You could have protected yourself."
"Because I lost you once by standing still," Daniel whispered, his vision beginning to blur at the edges from blood loss. "I would rather die in this dirt than spend another second existing in a world where you and Clara aren't safe."
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Amy watched his eyes flutter shut as the paramedic urged him down onto a stretcher. As the oxygen mask was placed over his face, Amy reached out and took his cold, trembling hand.
She didn't let go until the ambulance doors slammed shut.
