Chapter 3 - The Lethal Injection
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The heavy door of the private exam room clicked open, and a young nurse stepped inside pushing a stainless steel medical cart. His name tag read Jason Mercer. He looked unnaturally pale, his hands trembling as he arranged an IV bag and a glass vial on a metal tray.
“Doctor wants to start some IV fluids,” Jason mumbled, his eyes darting anxiously toward the locked door. “Just to stabilize your elevated blood pressure.”
I watched him closely. “I don’t need fluids. Where is Dr. Whitaker?”
“He’s handling paperwork in his office,” Jason replied, his voice strained.
He uncapped a syringe and drew a clear liquid from the glass vial. As he stepped toward my bed, I noticed fine beads of sweat breaking out across his forehead. He wasn't looking at my arm; he was staring at my belly with an expression of pure, suffocating guilt.
Why are his hands shaking so violently?
He reached for the injection port on my IV line. His thumb hovered over the plunger.
In that split second, instinct took over. I lunged forward and slapped his wrist with all the strength I had left.
The syringe flew across the room, shattering against the hard linoleum floor. The clear liquid splashed across the tile, and within seconds, a faint white smoke rose as the chemical began to visibly eat through the floor wax, bubbling with an acrid hiss.
Jason stumbled backward, slamming his back against the wall. His face drained of all color as he stared at the smoking puddle on the floor.
“What was in that syringe?” I demanded, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
Jason slid down the wall, burying his face in his trembling hands. He was hyperventilating, his body shaking uncontrollably.
The door burst open, and Uncle Nate hurried inside with a security guard. He took one look at the bubbling liquid on the floor, smelt the chemical vapor, and immediately locked the room down.
Nate knelt near the puddle, his face turning as white as his lab coat.
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“That isn't saline,” Nate breathed, rising slowly. “That is a concentrated dose of a dangerous paralytic sedative. Injected into an eight-month-pregnant woman, it would have induced severe cardiac arrest within three minutes.”
I placed both hands over my baby. “Who gave you that drug, Jason?”
