Chapter 6 - The Escape Route
The mercenary let out a muffled, agonizing roar as he collapsed onto the hospital floor.
His heavy combat rifle clattered loudly across the sterile linoleum tiles.
The second masked man spun around, raising his weapon toward my chest.
Before he could pull the trigger, I kicked a rolling surgical tray directly into his shins.
The metal tray crashed into him, throwing off his aim as his suppressed weapon quietly spit three bullets into the ceiling.
I dove toward the floor, grabbed the dropped rifle, and blindly swung the heavy stock at his ankles.
He tripped backward, crashing violently through the glass partition of the adjacent patient room.
I did not wait to see if he would get back up.
I threw the gun away, scooped my unconscious son out of his hospital bed, and ran.
Leo groaned in pain, his heavily bandaged ribs shifting awkwardly against my shoulder.
"I have got you, buddy, I have got you," I whispered frantically as I sprinted down the hallway.
The hospital alarms finally began to blare, bathing the corridors in flashing red emergency lights.
I pushed through a set of double doors leading into the hospital's industrial laundry sector.
Massive washing machines hummed loudly, masking the sound of our desperate escape.
I found a large metal laundry cart filled with soiled hospital gowns and gently laid Leo inside.
I covered his small body entirely with the bloody surgical towels to hide him from view.
"Do not make a sound, Leo," I ordered, my voice trembling with sheer terror.
I began pushing the heavy metal cart toward the loading dock exit at the rear of the building.
Just as I reached the loading bay doors, a dark figure stepped out from behind a stack of wooden pallets.
I instinctively reached for a heavy metal wrench resting on a nearby maintenance table.
"Auntie, please do not hit me!" a familiar, panicked voice cried out in the darkness.
I froze, staring at the filthy, shivering boy standing in the shadows of the loading dock.
It was Jackson.
His clothes were torn, he was covered in mud, and he was clutching a stolen police radio.
"How did you know we were here?" I demanded, gripping the wrench tightly.
Jackson wiped blood and rainwater from his pale face, trembling uncontrollably.
"I hacked the tracker frequency Grandpa uses to monitor us," Jackson confessed.
"I came here to warn you, Auntie."
"The men attacking the hospital are not here to kidnap Leo."
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Jackson looked at the laundry cart with wide, terrified eyes.
"They are here to execute him because of what he knows."
