Chapter 10 - The Flatline
"Leo!" Clara screamed, lunging toward the doors.
"Ma'am, you can't go in there!" a male nurse shouted, catching her shoulders.
"That's my baby! Leo!"
Through the small square window of the trauma room, the scene was sheer chaos. Medical personnel swarmed the tiny gurney. The steady, terrifying, high-pitched whine of an EKG flatline sliced through the noise.
"Charging to twenty joules!" Dr. Patel's voice boomed through the open door. "Clear!"
THUMP.
Leo’s tiny, limp body jolted off the mattress.
"Still in V-fib! Charge to forty! Push one milligram of epinephrine!"
Clara fell to her knees against the glass partition, her palms flat against the cold pane just as her son’s had been against the patio door an hour earlier. "Please, God... take me. Don't take him. Leo, Mommy's right here. Fight, baby. Please fight."
Out in the hallway, Richard stood frozen, staring at the floor, his face drained of every drop of color. Even his slick defense lawyer was silently backing away toward the emergency room exit, recognizing that the situation had just escalated into an unmitigated criminal disaster.
"Get Evelyn on the line," Richard choked out, his voice cracking, shaking violently. "Get her on the line now..."
"I wouldn't worry about her phone calls, Mr. Vance," Deputy Miller growled from behind him.
The deputy's heavy hand clamped down on Richard's shoulder, spinning him around. With a sharp, metallic ratchet, the steel handcuffs snapped around Richard's wrist.
"What are you doing?!" Richard gasped, struggling against the restraint. "I didn't lock him out! I was on the highway!"
"You're being detained for felony child endangerment, reckless driving, and attempted vehicular manslaughter on the bridge," Deputy Miller said coldly, clicking the second cuff shut around Richard's other wrist. "And as for your wife? Three squad cars just pulled into your driveway with an emergency arrest warrant. She’s already in the back of a cruiser."
Inside the trauma room, Dr. Patel rubbed the pediatric paddles together again. "Clear!"
THUMP.
The machine screamed its monotonous, unbroken tone. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Then, a faint, erratic beep.
Beep... beep...... beep.
"Sinus rhythm restored," Dr. Patel exhaled, slumping against the crash cart, wiping sweat from his eyes. "Core temp reaching ninety-four. We got him back."
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Clara collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor, burying her face in her hands, her heart feeling torn wide open.
Cliffhanger: But as the medical team stepped back to stabilize the boy, the lead nurse turned Leo over to change his wet clothes—and froze, gasping in horror at what was revealed beneath his soaked flannel pajama shirt.
