Chapter 7 - Six Minutes to Save Two ChildrenThe hospital doors locked behind us.
A steel plate dropped from the ceiling with a deafening crash, sealing the entrance.
“Six minutes,” Daniel said.
Raphael turned toward Damian.
“Find the control room.”
“Third floor, west corridor.”
“Sabine, go with him.”
She shook her head.
“You need—”
“I need someone I trust restoring oxygen to my son.”
Sabine stopped arguing.
She and Damian disappeared into the west stairwell.
Raphael, Daniel, and I ran upward.
The second-floor landing divided into two corridors.
A red sign pointed left toward PEDIATRIC RESPIRATORY CARE.
A second pointed right toward MATERNAL RECOVERY.
Raphael looked at me.
“Micah needs you.”
“Sofia may need me too.”
“Micah knows you. If he wakes alone, he will panic.”
“And Sofia?”
Raphael’s face tightened.
“I will reach her.”
Daniel handed me a keycard.
“Lower ward. Room twelve.”
“What about the biometric lock?”
“Raphael scans here first. It will authorize the lower level for three minutes.”
Raphael pressed his palm to the wall scanner.
A green light appeared.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Bring her back.”
His gray eyes met mine.
“Bring him back.”
We separated.
I ran down the left corridor.
The lights flickered overhead. Dust filled the air. Behind sealed windows, abandoned hospital rooms contained rusted beds and broken monitors.
Room twelve stood at the end.
I swiped the card.
The door opened.
Micah lay on a narrow bed with an oxygen mask over his face. Clear tubing ran from his arm into a pump mounted on the wall.
The pump had stopped.
“Micah.”
His eyes opened.
“Elena?”
I crossed the room and checked his pulse. Too fast. His lips had begun turning blue.
“I’m here.”
“Where’s Raphael?”
“Saving Sofia.”
“He chose her?”
“No. He chose both of you.”
I disconnected the dead oxygen line and opened the emergency cylinder beside the bed.
Empty.
Vittorio had planned every detail.
Micah tried to sit.
“I can walk.”
“No.”
“We don’t have time.”
The lock above the door changed from green to yellow.
Two minutes.
I searched the cabinets.
No oxygen.
No medication.
Only a manual ventilation bag sealed inside a cracked emergency box.
I placed the mask over Micah’s face and squeezed.
Air entered his lungs.
Again.
Again.
His color improved slightly.
But I could not carry him and ventilate him at the same time.
A speaker crackled overhead.
Vittorio’s voice filled the room.
“Laura taught you well.”
I looked toward the ceiling.
“You watched my mother die.”
“I watched her choose the wrong family.”
“Where is the exit?”
“You have one minute before the room seals permanently.”
Micah’s hand found mine.
“Elena, go.”
“Be quiet.”
“You can’t carry me.”
“I carried you when you were eight and had pneumonia.”
“I weighed sixty pounds.”
“You complained more then.”
His mouth almost smiled beneath the mask.
The door light turned red.
Thirty seconds.
I placed the ventilation bag against his chest and pulled him upright.
Pain shot through my back.
He was too heavy.
Footsteps approached outside.
I reached for the metal tray beside the bed, prepared to strike whoever entered.
The door opened.
Freddy stood there carrying a portable oxygen cylinder.
“Never trust a hospital that leaves its kitchens unlocked,” she said.
I could have cried.
Instead, we connected the cylinder, lifted Micah between us, and moved into the corridor.
The door slammed shut behind us.
Across the building, an explosion shook the floor.
“Sofia,” Micah whispered.
We reached the stairwell.
Damian’s voice came through Freddy’s radio.
“Control room secured. Oxygen restored to lower ward.”
“We are leaving the lower ward,” I answered. “What happened upstairs?”
“No contact with Raphael.”
Micah gripped the railing.
“Go help him.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I have Freddy.”
Freddy adjusted the oxygen tank.
“The boy is correct.”
I looked at her.
“You hate when people say that.”
“I hate when children say it because they become unbearable.”
Another explosion sounded.
The radio crackled.
Raphael’s voice emerged through static.
“Daniel is down. Fifth-floor corridor compromised. Sofia’s room is wired.”
“Raphael,” I said.
Silence.
Then, “Elena?”
“I have Micah.”
A breath left him.
“Is he alive?”
“He is listening.”
Micah leaned toward the radio.
“I’m alive.”
Raphael did not answer immediately.
When he did, his voice had changed.
“Good.”
One word.
A father’s entire heart inside it.
I handed Micah to Freddy.
“Take him outside when Damian opens the exit.”
I ran upstairs.
The fifth floor was filled with smoke.
Daniel lay near the landing, blood spreading across his shirt. He caught my ankle as I passed.
“Code,” he gasped.
“What?”
“Laura’s birthday. Six digits.”
“Why would Vittorio use my mother’s birthday?”
“Because he loved her.”
The revelation stopped me.
“Vittorio?”
Daniel coughed.
“Before she chose me.”
I pulled free and ran toward Raphael.
He stood outside a glass isolation room.
Inside, a girl sat on the floor beside a hospital bed.
She looked fourteen.
Dark hair fell around a thin face. A crescent-shaped birthmark showed beneath her torn collar.
Sofia.
Red wires crossed the doorframe. A timer above the lock displayed forty-two seconds.
Raphael pressed his hand to the glass.
Sofia stared at him without recognition.
“Elena,” he said. “The code.”
I entered my mother’s birthday.
Rejected.
Thirty seconds.
“Try the date she died,” Daniel shouted from the corridor.
I entered it.
Rejected.
Twenty seconds.
Raphael struck the glass.
“Sofia, move away from the door!”
She did not move.
Then I understood.
“Vittorio didn’t love my mother,” I said. “He believed she belonged to him.”
I entered the date my mother married Daniel.
The lock clicked.
Raphael tore the door open and lifted Sofia into his arms.
The timer stopped at three seconds.
For the first time, she looked directly at him.
“My mother said you would come,” she whispered.
Raphael closed his eyes.
Then the speaker above us crackled.
Vittorio began to laugh.
“You saved the children,” he said. “Now let us see whether you can save Elena.”
A red laser appeared on my chest.
Across the courtyard, behind a broken window in the opposite building, a rifle fired.
Raphael moved toward me.
May you like
The glass exploded.
And someone fell.
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