Chapter 39 - The Glass Bastion
The rain was falling in torrential sheets by the time we reached St. Jude’s Children's Pavilion.
The glass facade of the first-floor lobby was completely shattered, glittering like diamond dust across the flooded asphalt. Two private security cruisers were overturned, smoke billowing into the gray afternoon sky.
Dante hadn't waited for courts or warrants. Desperation had made him feral. With Vincent alive and the bank compromised, Dante knew his window was closing.
"Marco, cover the stairwells!" Vincent commanded as our van slammed over the curb, coming to a halt directly outside the shattered emergency entrance.
Vincent kicked the van door open. He was wearing tactical armor over his bandaged chest, a combat rifle in his hands. The fever in his eyes had vanished, replaced by an aura of lethal, absolute execution.
"Stay behind me," he told me, grabbing my hand as we leaped out into the storm.
"Not behind you," I said, cocking the 9mm. "Beside you."
He glanced at me, the dark rain dripping from his eyelashes, and for the first time, he didn't argue. "Beside me."
We breached the lobby. Two of Dante’s mercenaries, armed with shotguns, were guarding the elevator bank. Vincent raised his rifle and fired three controlled bursts before they could even shout a warning. Both men dropped instantly, their weapons clattering across the slick tile.
We took the emergency stairs, flying up three flights two steps at a time. The smell of cordite and copper grew heavier with every floor.
On the fourth floor, the pediatric wing was eerie in its silence. The nurses and doctors had barricaded themselves in the staff rooms. At the end of the long corridor, outside Room 412, stood Dante himself.
He wasn't running. He was waiting.
Dante wore an expensive charcoal wool coat splattered with fresh blood. In his left hand, he held a detonator switch wired to two tactical charges strapped to the heavy steel fire doors of Maya’s room. In his right hand was his silver revolver.
Behind the reinforced observation window of Room 412, I could see Dr. Alvarez standing shielding Maya’s bed with his own body. Maya was sitting up, clutching her small pink rabbit against her chest, her wide, brown eyes—so like Vincent's—staring out in pure, terrified confusion.
"Mommy!" Maya's muffled scream penetrated the glass.
The sound shattered my heart into a million jagged pieces.
"Dante!" Vincent roared, stepping into the center of the hallway, his rifle leveled dead at Dante’s heart. "Step away from that door."
Dante smiled, but it was the grin of a cornered rabid dog. "Vincent. You look terrible. Did the doctors not give you enough juice?"
"Step away," Vincent repeated, his voice vibrating with absolute murder.
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"If you shoot me, my thumb slips off this dead-man switch," Dante said, lifting the detonator. "The breach charges blow the glass and incinerate everything inside that room. Including your precious little miracle."
***
