Chapter 130

**Hadassah POV**

“I won’t do it,” Calum protests.
“You don’t then we die,” Emilia says to back me up. “Now isn’t the right time for a moral quandary, Calum.”
He gawks at her like she had backhanded him. “This is exactly the time to have it. How you girls going to go save all those women sold to sex slavery. And risk your lives while doing it. Now you want to risk killing dozens of innocent people. Think of what you’re asking me, ethically, not just tactically.”
They both fall silent as they heed my appeal for an alternative.
“Activating their emergency protocol or disrupting the power supply would pose an imminent threat to the lives of all individuals reliant upon life-sustaining medical equipment.” I flip my hands up for a second. “I’m sorry, but no, I won't use my powers for evil. And neither of you will want me to if someone ends up dying because of our little escape stunt.”
I liberate a pent-up breath, nodding pensively. “You’re right, but we’re trapped between a rock and a hard place here. All the exits are covered and we don’t have long.” I throw a careless hand towards the knocked out guard. “They will do a check in and when he doesn’t respond. They’ll breach and sweep the hospital from top to bottom.”
Emilia gets up to pace away from us with her hand on her forehead.
“It’s likely they have the parking garage covered so we can’t escape through there,” I point out. “In addition, any alternative strategy would necessitate our separation,” Emilia adds before she sends Calum an almost accusatory look. “What would be the purpose of such a separation if it implied a high probability of capture for one of us?”
I scratch my head, the ends of my hair starting to frizz. “I don’t see a way out of this,” I mumble to myself.
“Because there’s no other way,” Emilia says with a sense of finality. “We can’t fight our way out—there’s no way. And we can’t even risk starting a fight—too many civilians, the casualties would be extraordinarily high.”
I turn, placing my elbow on my thigh with my cheek in my palm to look up at Calum imploringly. He looks away quickly, but Emilia stares down at him with an even harsher scald.
“I can’t believe you both expect me to do this.”
“It’s a large enough distraction to pull attention and get as many people away as possible,” I defend. “Anything else will have people catching strays when Torin’s patience exceeds and his men come in guns blazing. I’m telling you, the alternative is much worse.”
“Say we keep the power and we just trigger their emergency protocol for a gas leak—that will inform the fire department and the closest medical facilities to send an evac team to help shuttle those who can’t move on their own to another hospital. Those who need life support and such will remain until aid arrives. This place will start swarming with people—too many for Torin’s men to engage brazenly.”
I contribute by saying, “That way in the controlled chaos—we can make a break for the parking garage.”
Calum looks back at the both of us and curses. His fingers fly across the keys, the soft clicking lost in the hum of the overhead ventilation. Lines of code scroll rapidly down the screen of the laptop, a digital labyrinth he navigates with practiced ease, diving into the hospital’s internal systems.
He inhales sharply as he reaches the security protocols.
“The hospital’s internal firewall, beyond the outer, is robust, but far from impenetrable.”
He grins, eyes narrowing in concentration. A few keystrokes later, he bypasses the encryption, slipping into the control matrix that governs the emergency response systems. With a final tap, he triggers the emergency protocol. A prompt flashes on his screen—**"Activate: Gas Leak Warning**?". With tentative fingers, he confirms. Instantly, the hospital’s system reacts. Alarms begin blaring through the hallways, a sharp, jarring alarm that reverberates through the building. Emergency lights flash red, bathing the sterile white walls in a strobe of danger.
***“Warning: Gas Leak Detected. Evacuate Immediately***.” The automated message loops overhead, robotic yet urgent.
Outside the room, we hear the confusion setting in. I bolt for the door and I open it ajar to witness chaos being born. Shouted commands echo through the hall, panic creeping into their voices as the staff scramble to understand the situation. I glance back to wave them over. Emilia moves behind me first, and I go out. Calum closes the lid of the laptop and tucks it under his arm and darts out of the room. Our footsteps are drowned by the shrill alarms, my pulse pounding in rhythm with the flashing lights. We move swiftly, knowing the chaos we've created will buy us precious minutes.
I spot a familiar face, a random guard, so I whip around to steer Emilia away and Calum catches quick to tail us. Fortunately, the crowds begin to thicken in the corridors. Even relatives who were in waiting rooms have begin to flood the channels until the brim.
“We have to get out of her fast,” Calum warns over the incoherent cacophony of the panic swelling around us like a high tide.
“Other than the obvious. Why is that?” Emilia responds, loud enough for me to hear.
“Because of that…”
The emergency system has already started sealing off certain sections of the building, doors slamming shut in response to the false leak. Torin and his men, including us, are now caught in a maze, forced to rethink our seepage. Emila slips away, snaking through laterally to reach the opposite wall and her hand finds the face of a map mounted on the surface. She inspects it, using her finger to trail a path—the closest way to the parking garage. She finds it and slaps my shoulder with fleeting triumph before she braves the crowd again.
Our single way out is obstructed by an imminent gauntlet of guards roving through the crowd. They don’t know Emilia, but they know Calum and I. Instead, Calum grabs me and shoves me into a supply closet before he slips in as well and closes the door behind him.
“Finally, some you and me time,” I say and it triggers a wry chuckle.
“Definitely not the time for all that.”
I squint to look at him in the dim light with a bulb dangling above our heads.
“Yeah, I guess it’s inappropriate for us to be making those kind jokes anymore.”
He slams me with a conflicted look, caught between something of intrigue and something inimical.
“What are you talking about?”
“You and Acheson.”
“What about Emilia?” he corrects sternly, and that makes my lips curve in amusement.
“So there is something…”
“Hadie—”
The door flings open. “We clear. For now.”
Calum lets me exit first.
Meanwhile mayhem still astir, we veer toward the stairwell that leads to the parking garage.
We follow after each other as we take the stairs two at a time, every breath quick and measured. Above us, we can hear the crackle of radios, the voices of the searchers growing more distant. They’re all so confused, scattered now, unsure if the threat is real or fabricated.
Bursting into the underground parking garage, he pauses for a second, scanning the dim, cavernous space. Rows of cars sit in the shadows, their silhouettes barely visible under the flickering emergency lights. However, we’re not alone. All three of us duck and creep in between cars as we use them as shields to conceal us as at least three men breeze by, collaborating with everyone else on the comms as they clear the sector. Once their mere footsteps fade from whispers to complete nothingness. Emilia unsheathes her gun to shatter the window of a random car—the alarm screams at us.
Emilia hurls her arm inside to unlock the car door so she can slip into the driver seat. I swipe the gun from her and she cuts out the alarm, which might as well have been a beacon for them to find us. She bends over to hotwire the car with fast fingers. I glance and my head whips back to what I saw before I push Calum away and I fire a shot at the darting silhouette. Deftly, he leaps out of the way.
“Get in the car!”
Calum curls his arm inside to unlock the door from the inside. Then he pops it open as Emilia struggles for a few seconds before I hear the car gutter out a growl. Emilia slams her door close and Calum throws himself over to the side with the laptop on his lap. And I do a clean scan before I climb inside, closing the door after me. One of them tries to get a shot of the tires and The dashboard lights up as her hands grip the steering wheel. Emila throws the car into a reckless reverse—the impact of the hit sends the guard’s body flying before crashing onto the ground.
“Nice,” I note, staring out the back window.
“I learn from the best.”
She speeds on as the alarms from the hospital continue to wail behind us. Emilia slams her foot down on the gas pedal. The tires screech against the concrete, echoing sharply in the spiraling structure of the parking garage. The car rockets forward, banking hard around the first corner, momentum pulling all of us sideways in our seats. And I slide and tumble all over, smashing into Calum and both explode in a childish fit of laughter. The car spirals downward, Emilia holds the sharp slide, winding down and down until we reach the ground floor. The exit signs blur past as Emilia accelerates up the incline, the tight curve of the spiral making every turn feel sharper, more dangerous. She glances toward the rear view again, catching the glint of movement at the top of the ramp. And she pushes harder. The engine roars as she climbs higher, each level of the parking structure speeding by in a blur of concrete pillars and shadowy vehicles.
The spiraling path opens up ahead, revealing the exit ramp—narrow and straight, leading to the security booth. We can see the flash of the booth’s red barrier arm lowered across the path, blocking the way out. No time to slow down. The car hurtles toward the exit, the engine screaming now as she floors it. The security booth flashes by, the guard inside barely reacting before the car crashes past the barrier. There’s a splintering crack as the arm snaps, plastic and metal shattering against the hood before flinging aside, cracks spiderweb across the windshield.
The car skids onto the main road, tires struggling to grip the asphalt as he straightens out, the city lights blurring into view. Emilia slams down on the accelerator, the vehicle surging forward. Behind him, the hospital fades into the distance. The car races away, the alarms growing fainter, the world ahead open with nothing but the open road in front of us with a scattering of other cars that are far apart from each other.
“We need a way of the country,” I say, “fast.”
“I may have an idea for that one,” Calum volunteers. Then he lifts his head to grab Emilia’s gaze from the rearview mirror. “Our aliases still good?”
“They’re clean, why?”
“Who’s up for a cruise ship holiday?”