Chapter 9 - The Antidote
Cole’s breathing became incredibly shallow, his lips turning a terrifying shade of blue.
Evelyn stood over him, savoring the victory she had spent months orchestrating.
She turned to face me, promising that I would be the next victim of the supposed active shooter.
She did not realize that I had spent years listening to Cole talk about emergency medicine over dinner.
I knew that a massive dose of calcium gluconate could temporarily reverse the effects of the potassium chloride.
I scrambled away from Evelyn and tore open the plastic emergency crash cart parked near the door.
Evelyn shrieked and charged at me, desperate to stop me from finding the reversal agent.
As she lunged, I grabbed a heavy, plastic fire extinguisher and smashed it directly into her knees.
She screamed in agony, collapsing hard onto the floor and clutching her shattered kneecaps.
I frantically dug through the drawers until my fingers closed around the plastic vial of calcium.
I ripped the cap off with my teeth and plunged the syringe directly into Cole’s thigh.
I pressed my hands against his chest, praying to any god that would listen.
Seconds felt like hours until Cole suddenly gasped loudly, his chest heaving as his heart found its rhythm again.
He blinked up at me, his eyes focusing slowly as the color returned to his face.
I helped him sit up just as the heavy lead doors of the MRI suite were violently kicked open.
A team of SWAT officers flooded the room, aiming their laser sights directly at Evelyn on the floor.
They quickly secured her wrists with heavy zip ties and called for a medical transport.
Cole leaned heavily against me as we directed the police down to the basement morgue.
Officers breached the heavy steel doors of the freezer and found my mother shivering, but miraculously alive.
I wrapped my mother in a mountain of warm blankets, crying tears of absolute relief into her shoulder.
The nightmare at the hospital was finally over, and Cole’s name was completely cleared of all wrongdoing.
As two officers dragged a handcuffed Evelyn past us in the hallway, she suddenly stopped struggling.
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She looked directly at me with a bruised, wicked smile and whispered a terrifying promise.
She proudly declared that her final wedding gift had already been delivered to my front door.
