Chapter 3

Aron Lawrence turned his wheelchair to face the door.

His eyes, dark and predatory, locked onto Ayla. Despite the pale sickness in his skin, the raw power radiating from him made the air in the room feel thin.

The three private doctors standing near the monitors stopped arguing. They turned and stared at Ayla.

The chief physician, a man in his fifties with graying hair, let out a loud scoff.

"Morgan, what is this?" the doctor demanded, throwing his clipboard onto a metal tray. "Is this a joke? We are fighting for Mr. Lawrence's life, and you bring a teenager in here?"

Ayla ignored the noise. She walked straight past the doctors, stopping exactly three feet in front of Aron's wheelchair.

Aron raised a single, long finger.

The room fell dead silent. The chief physician snapped his mouth shut, his face flushing red.

"You are the one Dr. Cromwell sent?" Aron's voice was a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated in Ayla's chest.

Ayla gave a single nod. She didn't look away from his piercing gaze.

Slowly, she lowered her eyes, tracing the line of his body down to his legs, which rested motionless on the footplates of the wheelchair.

"We've run every scan known to modern medicine," the chief physician couldn't help but interject, his voice dripping with condescension. "MRIs, spinal taps, heavy metal panels. There is no biological cause for the paralysis. The machines show nothing."

"The machines show nothing because you're looking in the wrong place," Ayla said, her voice like cracking ice.

Before anyone could react, Ayla bent down.

She reached out and pinched a specific muscle cluster on Aron's left calf.

"Hey!" Morgan roared, his hand flying to his holster. The sound of a gun being drawn clicked loudly in the quiet room.

Aron raised his hand again, palm out.

Morgan froze, his gun half-drawn.

Ayla pressed her thumb harder into the nerve bundle.

Aron's jaw tightened. A microscopic twitch formed between his eyebrows.

Ayla stood up straight. She pulled off her black leather gloves and tossed them onto the pristine medical tray.

"It's not a disease," Ayla stated, looking directly into Aron's eyes. "It's poison."

The doctors erupted.

"Absurd!" the chief physician shouted. "His blood work is completely clean! There are no toxins in his system!"

Ayla let out a cold laugh. "It's a synthesized neurotoxin derived from a mutated blue-ringed octopus. It doesn't bind to the blood. It binds to the bone marrow. It takes exactly six months to fully paralyze the lower extremities."

Aron's breath hitched. His pupils dilated so fast his eyes looked entirely black.

Exactly six months ago, to the day, he had been ambushed in Eastern Europe.

The heavy suspicion in Aron's eyes vanished, replaced by a burning, violent spark of hope.

Ayla popped the latches on her black leather case. She opened it and pulled out a small glass vial filled with a glowing, bioluminescent blue liquid.

"This is the counter-agent," Ayla said. "It will strip the toxin from the marrow and temporarily halt the degradation."

Morgan stepped forward, his massive chest blocking the light. "No way. We need to send that to the lab. We need to run a chemical breakdown."

Ayla rolled the glass vial between her fingers. "A chemical breakdown will take three hours. The toxin reaches his brain stem in two. If you want to plan his funeral, go ahead and take it to the lab."

The room went completely still. The only sound was the frantic beeping of the heart monitor attached to Aron's chest.

Everyone stared at Aron.

Aron looked at the blue liquid, then up at Ayla's calm, unflinching face.

He reached out his hand.

"Boss, you can't be serious!" Morgan yelled, panic bleeding into his voice.

Aron snatched the vial from Ayla's fingers.

Without breaking eye contact with her, he popped the cork with his thumb, tipped his head back, and swallowed the blue liquid in one gulp.

He closed his eyes, his hands gripping the armrests of his wheelchair, waiting for the impact.