Chapter 4 - The Supply Closet
The horrifying realization that my parents intended to actively sell my baby on the black market completely paralyzed my mind.
They were literally planning to traffic their own biological granddaughter to unknown buyers just to secure my late husband's massive fortune.
I felt a sudden, violent wave of intense nausea wash over me as the room began to spin out of control.
Mara quickly grabbed my shoulders and physically shoved me inside a dark, cramped medical supply closet.
She locked the heavy door behind us and turned on the stolen tactical flashlight, keeping the beam pointed safely toward the floor.
"You need to breathe, Trisha," Mara commanded softly while checking my tearing stitches beneath my hospital gown.
I was bleeding heavily again, the dark crimson stain spreading rapidly across the front of my thin cotton clothes.
The immense physical pain was completely agonizing, but the primal fear for my daughter's life easily overpowered my bodily weakness.
Lily remained miraculously asleep in my arms, her tiny chest rising and falling in a steady, peaceful rhythm.
"We cannot just wait here for them to hunt us down," I whispered desperately while leaning against a shelf of bandages.
Mara nodded in total agreement and quietly explained her desperate plan to reach the hidden service elevators.
The service elevators operated on an entirely separate mechanical grid that my father's men might have completely overlooked during the blackout.
We carefully stepped back out into the eerie red hallway, moving as silently as absolute ghosts through the shadows.
Every single creak of the floorboards sounded like a massive gunshot echoing through the abandoned maternity ward.
We successfully reached the heavy steel doors of the service elevator without encountering another heavily armed mercenary.
Mara quickly swiped the stolen master keycard across the electronic reader, praying silently that the system was still active.
A small green light flashed brightly on the keypad, and the heavy doors slowly slid open with a loud mechanical groan.
We rushed inside the small, metallic box and Mara immediately hit the worn plastic button for the ground floor lobby.
The elevator car suddenly jerked violently downward, descending rapidly through the dark, concrete elevator shaft.
I closed my eyes and held my baby tightly, begging the universe to just let us escape this nightmare alive.
Suddenly, the elevator screeched to a violently abrupt halt, throwing both me and Mara hard against the metal walls.
The digital floor indicator above the door simply flashed a terrifying red error code as the lights completely died.
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We were entirely trapped inside a suspended steel box directly between the third and fourth floors of the hospital.
Then I heard the terrifying sound of heavy boots walking deliberately across the roof of our elevator car.
