Chapter 26 - The Quench
"Now, Liam!" I shouted, dropping flat against the floor.
Inside the glass control room, Liam slammed the red emergency button on the console.
A deafening, low-frequency hum tore through the concrete walls as the 3-Tesla superconducting magnet roared to life. The immense magnetic field surged through the corridor with invisible, violent force.
The metal aerosol canister was ripped instantly from Maya’s grip, hurtling across the hallway at sixty miles an hour and slamming into the circular bore of the MRI machine with a thunderous CRANG.
At the exact same instant, Maya’s body seized.
Her chest jerked upward as her ceramic pacemaker caught the fringe magnetic field, triggering an automated defibrillation shutdown. Her eyes rolled back, her hands clawing futilely at her chest as she collapsed onto the linoleum, her legs trembling in complete paralysis.
Two plainclothes federal marshals who had been stationed inside the imaging control room burst through the doors, their weapons drawn, subduing Maya and securing the intact canister before a single microgram of the compound could leak.
I lay on the cold floor, breathing heavily, the pain in my abdomen radiating in burning waves.
Liam rushed out of the control booth, sliding onto his knees beside me, lifting my head into his lap, his tears hitting my forehead. "I have you. I have you, baby. You're safe."
"Noah..." I gasped, my vision blurring at the edges.
"Arthur has him on the private helipad," Liam whispered, kissing my cheek over and over. "He's safe. He's unharmed. The unit is clear."
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Through the cracked double doors, I saw the marshals zip-tying Maya’s wrists, hauling her limp body away toward the secure elevator.
The last living remnant of Charles Senior’s hidden bloodline had fallen.
