Chapter 4 - Fever in the Third-Floor Room
The single window of my apartment looked out over the rusted fire escape and the gray expanse of the industrial district. Inside, the radiator clanked rhythmically, spitting dry heat into the cramped room while Daniel hovered anxiously over the makeshift bassinet I had rigged out of an old laundry basket lined with clean towels. One of the twins—a little girl with wisps of dark hair just like Daniel's—was flushed and breathing in shallow, rapid gasps. Her skin radiated heat that burned right through the cotton blanket. Daniel's hands shook as he touched her forehead, the dark ink of his tattoos standing out in stark contrast against his pale, bruised skin.
"She's burning up," Daniel said, his voice cracking with a raw terror that no amount of gunfights or corporate corruption could ever elicit. "She needs an antibiotic, or she won't make it through the night."
"There's an all-night pharmacy four blocks down," I said, grabbing my canvas jacket from the back of the chair. "I'll go."
"No," Daniel caught my wrist, his grip surprisingly strong despite his injury. "If they're tracking me, they're watching pharmacies, hospitals, transit hubs. You walk in asking for infant fever reducers, and you put yourself right in their crosshairs."
"And if I stay here and she stops breathing, what then?" I pulled my wrist free, my voice hard with a sudden, fierce defiance. "You're a brilliant strategist who lost everything, Daniel, but right now you're bleeding on my sofa and your niece is cooking herself from the inside out. Let me do my job."
Before he could argue, I slipped out the door, locking it securely behind me. The autumn air outside was sharp and biting, stinging my lungs as I power-walked down the cracked concrete sidewalk. The neon sign of the corner pharmacy flickered against the wet pavement, casting a sickly green glow over the empty street. Inside, the fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the linoleum floor. An elderly pharmacist with thick glasses stood behind the raised counter, reading a local newspaper. I grabbed a bottle of infant suspension drops and a box of sterile wipes, walking up to the register with my heart hammering against my collarbone.
As the pharmacist scanned the items, the small television mounted in the corner of the shop caught my attention. The local morning news anchor was speaking over grainy security footage captured outside the diner alley less than twelve hours ago. A grainy still photograph of a man in a black suit holding an infant flashed on the screen, accompanied by a police bulletin asking for public assistance regarding a dangerous fugitive wanted for corporate espionage and kidnapping. My blood ran ice-cold. The pharmacist glanced up from the register, looking from the television screen to my pale face, then down at the infant medication in his hand.
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"You looking for someone, miss?" he asked slowly, his fingers resting on the edge of the counter.
"Just my niece," I lied, my voice remarkably steady despite the terror clawing at my throat. I dropped a twenty-dollar bill onto the counter, grabbed the plastic bag without waiting for change, and turned on my heel. I pushed through the glass doors and bolted down the street toward the tenement, praying to a God I hadn't spoken to in years that I would make it back before the sirens caught up to me.
