Chapter 4 - The Raid on Blackwood Sanatorium
The air in sub-level two was freezing and damp. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, buzzing like trapped insects.
Adrian’s heavy boots echoed down the concrete hallway. Room numbers passed in a blur—204, 205, 206, 207...
He stopped in front of Room 208.
The door was made of reinforced solid steel, with a tiny, heavy-duty glass window at eye level. A heavy electronic keypad glowed red beside the handle.
Adrian looked through the glass window.
Lying on a narrow iron bed in the center of a small, windowless room was a thin, frail woman wrapped in a white hospital gown. Her dark wavy hair was long and unkempt, trailing across the flat pillow. An IV drip was connected to her arm, feeding clear liquid into her veins.
"Elena..." Adrian gasped, his breath fogging the glass.
Beside the bed stood a male nurse holding a syringe filled with a thick yellow fluid. He was preparing to inject it directly into Elena’s IV line.
"No!" Adrian screamed, slamming his shoulder against the steel door.
The lock didn't yield.
The nurse inside looked up in shock, saw Adrian through the window, and panicked—raising the needle toward the IV port!
"Lucas! Breach charge!" Adrian shouted.
Lucas rushed down the hall, slapped a commercial door-breaching explosive strip over the lock mechanism, and pulled Adrian back three feet.
"Cover!"
BOOM!
A sharp, controlled explosion blew the lock out of the steel frame in a cloud of sparks and gray smoke!
Adrian kicked the door open before the smoke even cleared.
The male nurse dropped the syringe and reached for a scalpel on the metal tray, but Adrian closed the distance in a fraction of a second. He grabbed the nurse’s wrist, twisted it back until the scalpel dropped, and delivered a devastating right hook to the man's jaw that knocked him cold onto the floor.
Silence fell over the small concrete room.
Adrian stood still, his heart beating in his throat. He slowly turned around toward the bed.
Elena was lying there, her eyelids fluttering weakly. She was so thin her collarbones stood out sharp beneath her pale skin, but her face—her beautiful, gentle face—was unmistakable.
"Adrian...?"
Her voice was barely a raspy whisper, dry and broken from years of disuse, but to Adrian’s ears, it was the sweetest sound in the universe.
He fell to his knees beside her bed. His large, trembling hands gently reached out, touching her cold cheeks, tucking her long hair behind her ears. Tears he had held back for three long years spilled freely down his face.
"I'm here, my love," Adrian choked out, pulling her thin hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles over and over again. "I'm here. I found you."
Elena’s dark eyes opened wider. She looked at his face, her fingers weakly tracing the line of his jaw as if making sure he wasn't a hallucination born of her medicine.
"Clara..." she whispered frantically, her heart rate monitor spiking. "Mia... did they... did they make it to you?"
"They are safe," Adrian assured her, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. "Clara brought me your locket. She brought me the photo. They are at my home, safe with Maria, eating hot food and sleeping in warm beds."
A single, beautiful tear rolled down Elena’s cheek. A soft, breathless smile—the same dimpled smile from the photograph—appeared on her lips.
"You came for us..." she sobbed softly.
"I will never leave you again," Adrian swore, his voice filled with fierce, absolute devotion. "Never."
Lucas stepped into the room, holding a warm coat. "Boss, emergency medics are outside. We need to get her to St. Jude’s Hospital right now to flush whatever drugs were in that IV."
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Adrian gently lifted Elena into his arms. She felt impossibly light, like a feather, but she wrapped her weak arms around his neck, burying her face into his throat, holding onto him with every last drop of her remaining strength.
As Adrian carried her out of the dark sanatorium into the cool night air, the rain finally stopped, leaving a clear, star-filled sky above the mountain.
