Page 56 of Protecting the Newborn

A gasp.

It had come from the direction of the nurses’ station just up the hall, and they all turned in that direction, each of them bringing up their guns. The light was dim in that area, too, but not so dim that Gracelyn didn’t see the nurse lying face down on the floor. For a horrifying moment, Gracelyn thought she was dead, but the woman lifted her head and then tried to scramble away from something.

Or rather someone.

There, in the shadows, Gracelyn saw a figure wearing all black who was crouched down behind the nurse. Gracelyn couldn’t see his face. Heck, couldn’t even tell if it was a man.

Like Ruston and Duncan, Gracelyn took aim at him, but none of them had a clean shot because the person grabbed the nurse, hooked an arm around her neck and used her as a shield. That was when Gracelyn realized why she couldn’t see the person’s face.

Because there was a gas mask covering it.

A split second later, there was the thudding sound of something hitting the floor. A small canister, and white smoke immediately spewed from it. One whiff, though, and Gracelyn knew it wasn’t smoke.

It was tear gas.

Her eyes started to burn like fire, and she began to cough. She tried to bat the gas away from her face but couldn’t. It was everywhere, engulfing them in the thick cloud, and it was having the same effect on Ruston and Duncan, too, because they were coughing as well.

Not the killer, though.

That thought was loud and clear in her head. The killer had on that mask, which meant he could walk right through the gas and get to them.

Gracelyn tried to run. Tried to get to some fresh air so she’d have enough breath to fight back. To protect anyone who was now in this killer’s path. But the coughing overtook everything, and she couldn’t see. She had no choice but to drop to her knees.

Gracelyn felt someone take hold of her arm. Not a gentle grip. A hard, wrenching one that dragged her to her feet and ripped the gun from her hand.

“Move,” the voice snarled.

The person’s crushing grip made sure she did that. Moving her away from the waiting room. And toward the exit. That was when Gracelyn realized what was happening.

She was being kidnapped.

Chapter Fifteen

With his pulse racing and adrenaline firing on all cylinders, Ruston could hear the sounds around him. Footsteps, coughing, gasps for breath. He was doing plenty of coughing and gasping of his own, and he was on his knees. He couldn’t see anything but the ghost-white tear gas.

He couldn’t see the person who’d set off the canister.

Ruston figured the guy was there, though, and had done this so he could kill Gracelyn and him. The tear gas would make that easier for him to do that since he was wearing a mask, but first he’d have to get to them, and Ruston needed to do something to prevent that from happening.

Hard to do anything when his throat and lungs were on fire, and the coughing was making it impossible to do much of anything. He tried to call out to Gracelyn, to tell her to stay right next to him. However, he failed. Everything inside him was yelling for him to get away, to breathe in some fresh air. But he also needed to protect Gracelyn, and at the moment, he clearly couldn’t do that.

Ruston wasn’t even sure where she was.

He tried to move. Tried to listen. And he could hear more of the shuffling of footsteps mixed in with the other sounds. What he couldn’t hear was Gracelyn or Duncan.

Along with essentially blinding him and sending him into a coughing fit, Ruston was disoriented and couldn’t tell exactly where he was. He kept his gun gripped in his right hand and reached out with his left. He felt what he thought was the hall wall and not the archway opening of the waiting room. If so, that meant Gracelyn was probably behind him.

He staggered in what he hoped was the right direction to find her, and he’d made it a few steps when he heard a door open. That was followed by a rush of light and the fresh air that his lungs were screaming for. It cleared out some of the gas mist, but his vision was still plenty blurry.

But not his mind.

The thoughts were racing through him. One bad thought in particular. If someone had opened a door to the outside, then it could mean the tear-gas thug was escaping. Not alone, though. He could have Gracelyn with him.

“Gracelyn?” he tried to call out and managed it despite the coughing.

No answer.

He wanted to believe that was because her throat didn’t allow her to respond, but his gut told him it was something much worse.

---