Chapter 38 - The Spark in the Oxygen Ward
"Don't shoot the valve!" Marcus roared, diving forward to tackle her.
The flare gun discharged with a blinding, deafening crack.
The magnesium projectile didn't hit the main oxygen manifold; it ricocheted off the steel bed rail and slammed directly into the fabric of the heavy privacy drapes, igniting them in an instantaneous wall of brilliant, blinding white fire.
The medical oxygen leaking from Arthur’s detached tube caught the spark.
A concussive shockwave blew outward, throwing Marcus violently against the tiled wall and knocking my weapon across the burning linoleum. The heat was instantaneous, blistering my skin as the drop ceiling began to melt and collapse in flaming plastic ribbons.
Through the blazing inferno, Eleanor scrambled over the foot of Arthur’s bed like a feral beast, her clothes smoking, clawing at my throat with manic, adrenaline-fueled strength.
Her fingers dug into my neck, her cracked nails tearing into my flesh. "You should have died in that cellar twenty-five years ago! You were nothing! A piece of white trash bought for ten thousand dollars from a junkie in Rochester! You took my son's birthright!"
The lack of oxygen burned my lungs, but the ice in my veins flared into pure survival instinct.
I didn't try to pull her hands away. I drove my thumbs directly into the nerve clusters beneath her jaw, twisting violently. Eleanor shrieked, her grip loosening just enough for me to drive my knee upward into her fractured ribs.
The sound of snapping bone echoed beneath the roar of the flames.
She stumbled backward onto the burning floor.
I scrambled to my feet, scooping up Chloe by the collar of her jacket. "Marcus! Get Chloe out! Now!"
Marcus, coughing blood, grabbed Chloe’s limp body, hauling her over his shoulder. "Claire, the whole ward is compromised! The oxygen tanks down the hall are going to detonate! We have thirty seconds!"
"Go!" I screamed. "Get her to the stairwell!"
Marcus didn't argue. He turned and plunged through the burning doorway with Chloe.
I turned back to Eleanor.
She was lying on her back among the falling embers, her hospital gown burning, but she wasn't screaming. She was staring at Arthur’s charred corpse with a horrifying, euphoric grin on her soot-covered face.
"You think you won, Claire?" she coughed, blood bubbling between her black-stained lips. "Check Arthur’s safe deposit box at Manhattan Central. The key... is inside my wedding ring."
She held up her left hand. The heavy platinum band with the five-carat emerald was fused to her blackened finger.
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"Why?" I demanded, the ceiling collapsing in showers of sparks between us. "Why tell me now?"
"Because," Eleanor wheezed, her eyes rolling back as the heat engulfed the bedframe, "Arthur didn't buy you from a stranger. You're Evelyn’s child, Claire. Arthur had an affair with Evelyn’s younger sister before he killed them both. You have the true blood. And the people who helped him bury your mother... are coming for you next."
