Chapter 8 - The Ambulance
"Charge the machine to three hundred!" Willa screamed wildly at Crowley, who had just slipped quietly into the room.
The old, devoted butler forcefully hit the glowing button, his normally stoic face pale with absolute terror.
Willa slammed the heavy paddles onto Everett's cold chest for a desperate third time.
"Clear!"
The massive jolt violently shook the heavy medical bedframe, rattling the glass vials on the cart.
For two agonizing, entirely endless seconds, the monitor continued to scream.
Then, a jagged, beautiful line jumped sporadically across the screen, followed by a weak, thumping beep.
Willa collapsed heavily against the edge of the mattress, openly sobbing in pure, unadulterated relief.
Everett was technically alive, but his thready pulse was incredibly faint and highly erratic.
"We have to move him right this second," Crowley ordered sharply, quickly unhooking the heavy, complicated monitors.
"I have already arranged a private ambulance at the servant's entrance, falsely claiming we are instantly transporting the deceased to the family mortuary."
Willa helped Crowley heave Everett’s limp, incredibly heavy body onto a waiting transport gurney.
They threw a stark white sheet completely over his face, meticulously hiding the faint rise and fall of his chest.
They moved rapidly and silently down the back corridors, completely avoiding the main halls where Sterling’s men were loudly celebrating.
The freezing, bitter Chicago air hit Willa’s face fiercely as they burst out the back service doors.
A nondescript, purely white ambulance was heavily idling in the driveway, its rear doors wide open and waiting.
They aggressively loaded the gurney inside, Willa jumping in right behind it without hesitation.
She immediately grabbed a portable oxygen mask and strapped it tightly over Everett's face under the concealing sheet.
Just as Crowley went to firmly shut the heavy rear doors, a hand violently slammed against the painted metal.
Sterling stepped elegantly into the back of the ambulance, his previous smile completely gone.
"Did you honestly really think I wouldn't verify the body transfer myself?" he asked incredibly coldly.
Willa froze instantly, her shaking hand still resting protectively on Everett's chest beneath the fabric.
Sterling climbed fully into the cramped, claustrophobic space, signaling the nervous driver to start moving immediately.
He pulled his silenced pistol smoothly from his cashmere coat, staring maliciously down at the white sheet.
"I have always firmly believed in double-tapping," Sterling whispered, aiming the black barrel directly at where Everett's head lay.
Willa threw herself recklessly forward, completely desperate to take the incoming bullet.
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Before she could even move an inch, a massive, heavily scarred hand shot out violently from beneath the sheet.
Everett Kane brutally grabbed the hot metal barrel of the gun.
