Chapter 2 - The Hostage Situation
The suppressed gunshot echoed through the dark hallway with a terrifying, hollow thud that made my heart stop entirely.
Malcolm Reyes let out a sharp gasp of pain and immediately dropped to his knees on the polished floor.
He clutched his shoulder tightly as dark crimson blood began to rapidly soak through his pristine white shirt.
My father casually lowered the smoking barrel of his weapon and ordered my mother to find a way inside my room immediately.
My mother grabbed a heavy metal fire extinguisher from the hallway wall and raised it aggressively above her head.
She smashed the heavy cylinder against the reinforced glass of my door with all of her remaining physical strength.
A massive web of white cracks instantly spread across the thick glass, threatening to shatter at any given moment.
Nurse Mara grabbed my arm tightly and pulled me away from the hospital bed before the glass could explode inward.
"We have to move right now, Trisha," Mara whispered urgently while keeping her body positioned firmly between me and the door.
I clutched Lily to my chest, ignoring the blinding, burning pain from my fresh emergency delivery stitches.
Every single step I took felt like a blazing knife tearing through my fragile abdomen.
Mara dragged me toward the small adjoining bathroom that miraculously connected my room to the empty patient suite next door.
We slipped quietly inside the dark bathroom and locked the heavy wooden door just as the glass out in the hallway finally shattered into thousands of pieces.
I heard my mother's heavy boots crunching loudly over the broken glass as she aggressively entered my hospital room.
She screamed in absolute rage when she realized the hospital bed was entirely empty.
Mara quietly guided me through the secondary door and out into the desolate, red-lit corridor of the empty neighboring wing.
The eerie silence of the abandoned hallway was completely deafening compared to the chaos we had just left behind.
I leaned heavily against the cold wall, gasping desperately for air as hot tears streamed down my exhausted face.
Lily let out a soft, tiny whimper in my arms, completely unaware of the deadly danger surrounding us.
I gently rocked her back and forth, praying quietly to a God I hadn't spoken to in years.
Mara pulled out her personal cellphone to call the local police, but the screen displayed absolutely zero signal bars.
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"They brought a military-grade cellular jammer," Mara whispered in pure horror.
Before I could even process that terrifying information, a heavy hand suddenly grabbed my shoulder from the shadows.
