Chapter 3 - THE CODE RED
The chaos inside Room 412 escalated in seconds.
"Her blood pressure is dropping! 80 over 50!" Dr. Aris yelled, adjusting the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. "We have an acute abruption! Prepare Operating Room 3 for an emergency C-section right now!"
"Doctor, look at her IV line!" Nurse Elena suddenly called out, holding up the clear plastic tubing connected to my arm. "There's a cloudy precipitate forming near the Y-port! This bag was clear twenty minutes ago!"
Marcus’s head snapped toward the IV pole. "What do you mean cloudy?"
Isabella saw her window.
While the medical team scrambled around my bed, pushing the heavy metal frame toward the double doors, Isabella lunged toward the corner of the room. She grabbed a heavy brass floor lamp, swung it with all her strength, and smashed the frosted glass head straight into the high ceiling molding.
CRASH!
Sparks flew from the ceiling tile. Plastic casing and shattered glass rained down onto the floor as the security camera was sheared off its mount, dangling uselessly by a pair of severed copper wires.
Marcus turned around, his eyes wide with shock. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"It was loose!" Isabella screamed, her voice cracking in wild, unhinged hysteria as she backed toward the hallway. "It was falling! I was trying to catch it!"
"She's lying!" I choked out from beneath my oxygen mask, my vision beginning to blur as darkness encroached around the edges of my sight. "The camera... Marcus... she put something in my bag..."
Marcus looked from my pale, fading face to the shattered camera on the floor, then to Isabella’s guilty, terrified posture. The pieces of the puzzle were finally beginning to lock together in his mind.
"Get her to the OR!" Dr. Aris ordered, as the orderlies shoved the bed through the doorway into the main corridor.
Marcus didn't follow the bed immediately. He stepped directly into Isabella’s path, blocking the exit to the stairwell. His tall frame loomed over her, his eyes filled with a terrifying, lethal clarity.
"You injected her," Marcus whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "You tried to kill my child."
"Marcus, no! She's paranoid! She's hallucinating from the pain!" Isabella wept, pressing herself against the wall. "I love you! I've spent five years building your company while she sat at home! Why would I do that?!"
"Security!" Marcus roared down the hallway.
Two armed guards in dark uniforms came running from the main elevator bank.
"Hold her in this room," Marcus commanded, pointing a trembling finger at Isabella. "If she moves, if she touches anything, or if she tries to throw anything away, tackle her to the ground. I'm calling the Chief of Police myself."
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"Marcus! MARCUS, NO!" Isabella screamed as the guards seized her arms, locking her inside the room.
Marcus turned and ran down the corridor after my rolling bed, his shoes squeaking frantically against the polished floor tiles.
