Chapter 4 - The Lockdown
The unbearable tension in the lobby was so incredibly thick it felt like it could easily snap a steel needle in half.
Elena stood trembling violently in her thin hospital gown, drops of warm blood dripping from her bare feet onto the pristine white tiles.
Richard slowly held his hands up in a mocking, sarcastic gesture of surrender, though his cold eyes burned with lethal, unhinged fury.
He silently signaled for his giant bodyguard to let go of Lily's ankle, taking a cautious, calculated step backward to assess the threat.
Elena used the brief distraction to grab Lily's little hand, pulling the completely terrified child securely behind her frail, shaking body.
David and Clara quickly scrambled back to their feet, rushing over to physically support the exhausted, bleeding mother before she collapsed.
"You're making a terrible, fatal mistake, Elena, and you know exactly how this ends," Richard warned, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly whisper.
He calmly pulled his encrypted phone from his suit pocket and confidently pressed a single, glowing red button on the screen.
Instantly, the hospital's massive emergency steel blast doors slammed shut across every single exit in the lobby with a deafening crash.
The heavy metal barriers locked into the floor with a loud mechanical thud, completely trapping everyone inside the isolated east wing.
Clara gasped in sheer horror, realizing that Richard had maliciously hacked and manually activated the hospital's severe biological weather lockdown protocol.
Richard smiled cruelly, casually fixing the diamond cufflinks of his expensive suit as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
He proudly announced that since they wanted to play heroes and keep his children so badly, they could all die together in this sealed wing.
Before David could even demand to know what the madman meant, a thick, milky white smoke began to pour rapidly from the overhead ventilation grates.
The horribly pungent smell of sulfur and toxic chemical gas filled the enclosed room in a matter of terrifying seconds.
Elena collapsed heavily to her bleeding knees, coughing violently as her severely weakened lungs struggled to process the poisonous air.
"Everyone get to the emergency stairwell, right now!" David yelled frantically, quickly scooping little Lily securely into his strong arms.
Clara grabbed the coughing Elena tightly by the waist, desperately dragging her away from the rapidly spreading, deadly cloud of gas.
They blindly sprinted toward the heavy emergency stairwell, violently shoving the red fire door open just as the toxic smoke reached their heels.
David slammed the heavy metal door shut behind them, desperately stuffing his uniform jacket beneath the floor gap to block the creeping toxic fumes.
They were temporarily safe for the moment, breathing heavily and coughing in the dim, flickering amber light of the concrete staircase.
But their fleeting sense of relief was brutally and quickly short-lived.
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From the dark landing directly above them, the unmistakable, terrifying sound of a heavy shotgun being pumped echoed loudly down the concrete shaft.
A harsh, raspy voice called out, chillingly informing them that the boss wanted the babies alive, but he wanted the rest of them in black body bags.
