Page 94 of Anchor
Then, the beeping spiked. A pause. A dip.
Tuck stiffened. “Hold on, we’ve got PVCs on lead two.”
Beth didn’t look away from the heart. “Stay on the rhythm. No lido yet. Let’s see if he holds it.”
Whatever they were fighting inside him—it wasn’t just trauma. But their hands never stopped. Maybe they were turning the tide.
COMMAND FLOOR – SYSTEM PORT C – 0428 HOURS
Claire Bowman stared at the screen, the data logs swimming past her eyes in structured chaos. She hadn't blinked in minutes. Terry lingered nearby, watching her too quietly.
There it was. A flash. She saw it in her periphery: the live sync monitor from the medical wing. A subtle pulse in the corner. An error line, red and fast—not enough to trip the system, just enough for someone paying attention to notice. She clicked into it.
Vitals: OR 3. Patient: Reid Hanlon.
The telemetry was streaming.HR unstable. Platelets critically low. Synthetic marker flag—unidentified agent detected.
Claire’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that?”
Terry leaned forward. “What?”
But she didn’t answer him. She was already deep into the encrypted readout, bypassing the med-link firewall.
Then her screen blinked once, and the readout was lost.
CHASE MED OR 3 – 0429 HOURS
Tuck snapped the tox report off the printer with one bloody, gloved hand and read it aloud, voice flat and fast: “Blood chemistry confirms presence of a hemolytic synthetic compound unknown. Resembles L-variant neuroclot inhibitor. Liver strain indicates delayed-onset clot suppression with platelet shredding at microvascular junctions.”
Pete spat a curse under his breath. “They poisoned him.”
Beth didn’t lift her eyes. “On top of the trauma.”
Foley growled. “They didn’t want him dead quickly.”
Tuck’s voice was a whisper now. “They wanted him to bleed out slowly. Watch us try and fail.”
Beth’s hands stayed steady. “Then we don’t fail.” She worked deeper. “We’re patching the body. We can wrap everything in lap pads and get Ian to use his contacts to find the damn thing and its antidote.”
It tasted like rust.Not blood—worse. Like something chemical had set fire behind his teeth and crawled into his lungs.
He was underwater. No. Under skin.
Heavy, slick pressure in his chest. His blood felt thick. Wrong. Like it didn’t belong in his body anymore.
Something scraped his memories. Laughter. Claire’s face in the early morning sun. The way her voice broke when she tried not to cry.
A hiss. A blade. A voice.“Vos says hello.”
Reid jerked. Or tried. His arms wouldn’t move.
A heartbeat crashed through him like a dropped hammer. Then another. Slower.
Then something inside him screamed, and he couldn’t tell if it was pain or memory or poison eating him alive. And somewhere far, far above, Claire said his name.
REMOTE OBSERVATION POST – UNKNOWN LOCATION – 0429 HOURS
The room was silent except for the rain ticking against the old steel windows. The walls were bare. No screens. No lights. No sound. Except one.
