Chapter 6 - Resurgence
By the time Nathan burst through the shattered side door of the mansion carrying Sarah, her pulse was threadbare—a slow, irregular flicker that signaled impending cardiac arrest from severe hypothermia.
He carried her directly to the lower medical bay, where Rosa immediately prepped the warming unit. Lily cried out seeing her mother, but Nathan kept his focus sharp and surgical.
"Rosa, prepare an IV line with warmed normal saline," Nathan commanded rapidly, hooking Sarah up to a cardiac monitor. The machine beeped weakly, displaying a dangerous arrhythmia. "Lily, sweetie, I need you to stay with your brothers. Your mommy is sick, but Uncle Nathan is going to fix her."
Nathan worked with absolute precision. He initiated active internal rewarming protocols, monitoring her core body temperature while using localized warming blankets to gradually bring her vitals back into the safe zone. Every beat of the heart monitor was a battle fought against the cold that had almost claimed her.
Suddenly, the security alarms on the upper level chimed again.
On the closed-circuit monitors, Nathan saw Deputy Vance—having managed to break the lock of the storage closet—stepping into the foyer, holding a spare key card he had lifted from Dr. Thorne’s pocket. He was heading straight for the conservatory to free Marcus.
Nathan checked Sarah’s vitals. Her pulse was stabilizing, her body temperature slowly climbing back to safe levels. He turned to Rosa. "Monitor the IV flow rate. If her core temp hits thirty-five degrees Celsius, reduce the blanket heat."
"Where are you going, Doctor?" Rosa asked anxiously.
"To end this permanently," Nathan replied grimly.
He returned to the upper floor, stepping into the main hallway just as Deputy Vance cut Marcus free from the pillar. Marcus was pale and shivering, but his eyes burned with unhinged rage.
"You're too late, Nathan," Marcus snarled, taking Vance’s backup firearm. "The storm is clearing. We take the kids, we burn the evidence, and we leave."
"You aren't going anywhere, Marcus," Nathan said calmly, standing at the end of the long corridor, framing himself against the grand staircase.
Marcus pointed the weapon straight at Nathan’s chest. "You always thought you were superior because you save lives. But in the real world, power belongs to those willing to do whatever it takes to win."
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"Then you should have checked the weather report," Nathan said coolly.
From outside, a deafening roar shook the estate as two massive, armored snowcat vehicles belonging to the Federal Marshals Service breached the outer perimeter, their high-intensity searchlights flooding the mansion through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Red and blue emergency lights reflected dazzlingly off the snow.
