Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
TEVENNE – MEDICAL WING
Rain and wind picked up, pushing through the open doorway behind Ford as he stepped into the corridor. The smell reached him immediately. Antiseptic mixed with blood, urine, and the thick scent of fever sweat.
The hallway was worse than he expected. Beds were pushed against both walls wherever space allowed.
Pregnant girls lay beneath thin blankets.
A nurse hurried past with an IV pole, trying to keep the line from tangling as she moved.
Near the far wall, another girl sat upright on the edge of a bed with her hands covering her face while she cried.
Ford slowed as he moved farther inside. He raised a hand to stop forward motion. He and Rourke pushed the guards into a room off the main corridor. It was nearly empty. It took Ford a moment to understand why. They were using it as a morgue. There were three bodies wrapped in plastic.
Back in the main corridor, Marino headed toward what looked like the nursing station and set the medication crate on the counter. “Looks like nobody’s filling the void the bastard left.”
Davis moved to the nearest patient. He checked her wrist and clipped a portable monitor to her finger. “Temp is high. Respirations are shallow.”
Some girls were barely conscious. Others tried to sit up when they saw the men enter, confusion and fear written across their faces. Somewhere deeper in the building, a newborn began crying.
The desk at the nurses’ station looked abandoned in the middle of a shift. Chairs were overturned, and computer screens glowed with open charts. Someone had left a tray of saline syringes half organized beside a stack of forms.
Rourke stepped up beside him. “There is no command here at all.”
Another gust rattled the windows, and the lights flickered. A nurse appeared around the corner at the far end of the hallway. She looked like she had been moving nonstop for hours. Her hair had come loose from its tie, and her mask hung around her neck.
When she saw Ford, she stopped. For a second, she just stared. Then she took two unsteady steps forward. “Ford?”
He recognized her immediately. “Aurelia.”
Aurelia Fowler reached him and then collapsed.
Ford caught her before she hit the floor. Her skin burned through his gloves.
“Aurelia. Easy.”
She grabbed the front of his vest, holding on like she needed something solid. “You came.”
“Yeah,” Ford steadied her, easing her down against the counter, “we came.”
Her breathing was uneven. Exhaustion showed in every movement. “I tried to help them. They are all sick. We are out of supplies.”
Ford followed her gaze. Rows of pregnant girls stretched down the corridor. Some lay, barely moving. Others fought to breathe through coughing fits. “How many?”
Aurelia swallowed. “Seventy-two.”
“How many babies?” Ford asked.
“Twenty-three,” Aurelia closed her eyes and opened them again, “and more are coming.”
As if on cue, a girl cried out somewhere down the hall as a contraction hit. Thunder rolled outside, swallowing her wail.
Rourke glanced back toward the doorway, where rain had begun to blow across the floor.
“I’ll close that.”
Ford looked down the corridor again. Seventy-two pregnant girls, most of them sick. Twenty-three newborns. No one in charge.
“Marino, Davis, get a set of vitals and administer antiviral or antifever meds. Triage: Red—difficulty breathing, crowning, fever over 103. Yellow—labor, fever over 101. Garcia, find the nursery. One by one, vitals, ID band and get a temp. Any baby with a temp is critical. Any with a temp below 98 is critical.”
“Copy,” they said together.
Aurelia shifted beside him and gripped his arm again. “We have an emergency,” she said, voice tightening. “You need to see.”
Ford met her eyes. “Where?”
She shook her head. “The OR.” She pushed herself up before he could stop her and dragged him by his sleeve. He followed her down the hall.
The further they went, the worse it became. More beds. More patients. A girl vomiting into a basin. Another shaking so violently, two other girls tried to hold her still. The closer they got to the room marked OR, voices layered over each other.
“She’s seizing again.”
“We’re out of magnesium.”
“I lost the line.”
Aurelia pushed through the doors. Ford stepped in behind her and stopped. The girl on the table could not have been more than fifteen. Her body arched violently as another seizure tore through her. Restraints cut into her wrists.
Her abdomen was open. Mid C-section. Left that way.
Two nurses worked over her, trying to control bleeding and keep her airway clear.
“Blake ran,” one nurse said without looking up. “Left her like this.”
Ford stepped forward immediately. “What do you need?”
“Gloves. Pressure here,” Aurelia said.
Ford moved without hesitation to position his hands where she directed. The girl’s body jerked again, her breathing ragged and uneven. “How is she not feeling this?”
“Blake put in an epidural,” the nurse holding the airway open said.
“Blood pressure is critical,” another nurse said. “She’s not stabilizing.”
“Baby?” Ford asked.
“Alive,” Aurelia pointed to the purplish-red organ, “barely. Still in utero.”
Ford raised his voice. “Rourke, get the emergency OB kit and the magnesium. Get Kasavoa on the line. I need Hunt.”
“I’m on it,” Rourke answered.
The girl seized again, harder this time. Her entire body lifted against the restraints. Foam gathered at her lips beneath the oxygen mask.
“Hold her,” Aurelia said, leaning in.
“Magnesium.” Rourke handed it to Aurelia. Then: “I have Kasavoa.”
“Put Hunt on.”
A calm voice cut in, “This is Hunt.”
“Hunt, I have a fifteen-year-old girl, eclampsia, seizing. We’re hitting our stock of magnesium. Open abdomen, heavy bleeding. No doctor. Patient is crashing.”
A deep breath came over the line as Hunter Montgomery turned back into the surgeon. “I have you. Talk me through what you see.”
Ford gave quick details while watching the girl. Her skin had gone pale. Her breathing hitched between shallow gasps.
“Finish the delivery. You need to open the uterus. It’s gonna bleed, and you need to pop the amniotic sac. Suction that,” Hunter said. “Do not wait.”
“Understood.” Ford blinked and swallowed hard.
“Once the cord is cut, seizures may stop if she’s not too far gone.”
Ford looked down. She was already close. “I’m cutting now. Suction. I have the head.”
Aurelia nodded. “On three.”
They worked together, and the baby came free. It was small and still for a second. Then, from the stimulation of the birth, it stirred and made some little noises.
Davis stepped in, clearing the airway. “Breathing.”
“Clamp,” Aurelia said.
Ford followed instructions.
“Cut.”
He cut the cord.
Aurelia began absorbing the excess blood with a lap pad. The room held its breath.
“No seizure,” one nurse said.
Hope flickered, then it faded.
“Pressure is dropping,” Aurelia said.
Ford felt the pulse under his hand weaken. Her skin cooled, and her breathing slowed.
“Stay with us,” Aurelia begged, working faster.
The girl did not respond. Her chest rose once. Then again, shallower.
“Pulse is fading,” Davis announced.
The rhythm on the monitor flatlined. A steady tone filled the room. The baby cried. The girl did not.
Ford started chest compressions. They administered resuscitation meds and followed the cardiac arrest algorithm.
Aurelia’s hands slowed, then stopped. “She’s gone.”
Ford stood there for a second before looking at Davis. “The baby?”
“Alive.”
Ford swallowed hard, then straightened, stripped his bloody gloves and keyed his comm. “All units.”
Everyone checked in.
“Mission has changed,” Ford said. “We hold this clinic. Medical priority. No one else dies in this building.”
When Aurelia swayed beside him, Ford steadied her. “You’re sick. Let’s get a look at you. Come sit.” He helped her outside the OR. “What do you need?” He saw the flicker of exhaustion, grief, and resolve.
She sighed. “Everything.”
KASAVOA
By the time the storm truly arrived, the clinic began to overflow. Eira could hear it even from the pediatric ward.
The wind battered the compound hard enough that the walls trembled faintly with each gust. Palm fronds scraped against the roof, and the rain came down in sudden bursts that struck the windows like thrown gravel. But the storm outside was not what filled the building with noise. It was the people.
Voices echoed through the hallways. Doors opened and closed constantly as more patients were brought in from across the islands. Stretchers rolled past the pediatric room at a steady pace while nurses called out temperatures and oxygen levels to anyone who would listen.
Earlier that evening, the clinic felt organized. Now it felt like a dam that broke.
From where she sat beside Véronique’s bed, Eira could hear Dr. Rios in the courtyard shouting over the wind, “Respiratory distress to the left. Anyone stable gets antivirals and goes to isolation.”
The level-three team moved with controlled precision. Eira watched them through the hallway window earlier. Masks were pulled tight, gloves already on, scanners moving from forehead to forehead as they triaged the growing lines of patients.
Every few minutes, someone new arrived. Dock workers who unloaded cargo that morning. Fishermen pulled from boats. Families who tried to wait out the fever in their homes until the patrol teams knocked on their doors. Now they were all here. And the numbers kept climbing.
When the clinic beds ran out, the staff began moving patients across the courtyard into the orphanage and tents.
The large dormitory rooms became an emergency respiratory ward.
Oxygen tanks lined the walls, and cots filled every open space.
The children who lived there were moved upstairs while the ground floor filled with adults bent forward in chairs and beds, fighting to pull air into inflamed lungs.
The outbreak had spread beyond containment.
Inside the pediatric room, the world narrowed to the rhythm of the machines beside Véronique’s bed. Eira watched the monitor. The oxygen level flickered. Eighty-eight. Her stomach tightened.
Eira tightened her grip on Véronique’s hand and listened to the storm and the voices filling the clinic. Somewhere out across that dark sea, Ford was walking into something even worse. All she could do now was keep this small corner of the island alive until he came back.
Hunter returned from the call with Ford.
He didn’t have time to process the girl’s death.
Or the fact that the doctor left her open when he fled.
He adjusted Véronique’s oxygen flow again, moving with the focused calm of someone who’d been doing this far too long.
“Come on, kid,” he murmured under his breath.
Véronique’s breathing grew shallow again. Earlier, the numbers climbed, and for a short while, they allowed themselves to believe the girl might be stabilizing. Now the progress was slipping away.
The child’s small chest rose and fell unevenly beneath the mask. Eira leaned forward and brushed damp strands of hair from Véronique’s forehead. “I’m here,” she whispered softly.
Véronique’s fingers twitched faintly in her hand. Kavi shifted restlessly in his sleep. His fever hadn’t broken yet, but his breathing remained steady for now.
Hunter listened to Véronique’s lungs again with his stethoscope. When he straightened, his expression darkened. “The inflammation is worse. Air isn’t moving again.”
Eira looked up at him. “Do we have anything else?”
“Not until the antivirals start working.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the ceiling. “They need to start working.”
In the hallway outside, Liana moved past the door carrying another box of antiviral packs against her chest. A level-three medic intercepted her halfway down the corridor.
“We’re out of bed space.”
“Use the library,” Liana said without breaking stride. “And the dining hall.”
The medic nodded and hurried away.
Another blast of wind struck the building. The windows rattled sharply, and for a brief second, the overhead lights flickered before the generators stabilized again.
TEVENNE – MEDICAL WING
Ford stepped away from the crowded corridor and pressed the radio tighter against his ear.
The signal was weak, and the wind pushed against the building hard enough that the connection crackled with interference.
Somewhere behind him, a girl coughed violently, and a newborn began crying again, the sound cutting through the chaos of the ward.
“Kieran.”
At first, there was nothing but static.
Finally, Kieran’s voice came through the line. “Ford. Sit-rep.”
Ford shifted slightly toward the broken doorway where the signal was clearer. Rain blew across the floor, and the wind carried the distant sound of the storm rolling in from the sea.
He looked back down the hallway. “It’s worse than we thought. Blake is dead. Eight guards and one pilot in custody. We already have a death of a fifteen-year-old. Did Michaels and Will make it to you?”
“Yeah, they’re good. How many?” Kieran asked.
Ford watched two nurses help a girl through another contraction before answering, “Seventy-one pregnant, twenty postpartum.”
There was silence on the line for a second.
“And twenty-four newborns,” Ford added.
He heard the subtle shift in Kieran’s breathing as the numbers settled in. “What condition are they in?”
“Many are febrile. Several in labor.” Ford glanced toward the windows, where rain began to strike the glass harder now. “We’re triaging as we speak.”
The storm was almost on top of them.
Kieran asked, “The weather?”
Ford didn’t need to check the sky. “High winds and rain. The transport window is closed.”
He could almost picture Kieran looking at the weather chart on the command room wall. No aircraft. No helicopters. No long-range boats. They were trapped on opposite sides of the water.
“When does it reopen?” Ford asked.
“After the storm,” Kieran said. “Hopefully.”
Ford looked down the crowded corridor again. Seventy-one pregnant girls, most of them sick. Twenty-four newborns. And the storm had sealed the island off completely.
“We’ll hold here,” Ford said.
“Copy that.” There was a pause before Kieran spoke again. “Ford.”
“Yeah.”
“Stay alive.”
Ford looked at the exhausted nurses moving through the ward and the frightened girls watching them. “I’m working on it.”
The connection dropped a second later. Ford lowered the radio and slipped it back onto his vest. He took a breath and stood there listening to the storm build outside the walls of the medical wing.
With that, he turned back toward the corridor. There were seventy-one pregnant girls who needed help.