Chapter 5 - Collision in the Fog
The impact jerked the ambulance violently, causing medical supplies and sterile needles to tumble from their wall brackets.
The paramedic lost her balance, catching herself against the bulkhead just before she could drop the syringe.
"What the hell are they doing?" the paramedic screamed, clutching the radio handset. "They’re trying to wreck an active ambulance!"
The black SUV pulled up along the left flank of the emergency vehicle, its tinted windows masking the driver's face.
The heavy front fender of the SUV veered inward, slamming hard into the driver’s side door of the ambulance with a screech of shearing metal.
The ambulance swerved toward the concrete highway guardrail, its tires smoking against the wet asphalt.
Noah lunged forward, locking one arm over Elena’s convulsing body and using his other arm to brace against the ceiling handle.
"Don't let them pit maneuver us!" Noah yelled through the open driver’s partition.
The ambulance driver was a veteran city worker who refused to be bullied by private billionaire muscle.
He slammed on the brakes for half a second, letting the aggressive SUV overshoot by half a car length.
Then, with a furious turn of the steering wheel, the driver clipped the rear quarter panel of the black SUV.
The SUV spun out of control, tires screeching as it slid sideways across three lanes of empty expressway.
It smashed violently into a row of water-filled construction barrels, exploding into a cloud of yellow plastic and spraying debris.
The ambulance surged forward into the foggy highway, leaving the wrecked pursuer spinning in its rearview mirrors.
Inside the patient bay, the sudden stabilization of movement allowed the medic to secure Elena’s airway.
"Convulsion stopped, but her blood pressure is ninety over forty," the medic reported, her hands trembling as she adjusted the drip.
Elena’s body went completely limp, her breathing turning dangerously faint beneath the transparent plastic mask.
The fetal monitor beeped at a sluggish, terrifying sixty beats per minute.
"The placenta might have detached from the blunt force trauma," the second medic said gravely, looking directly into Noah's eyes.
"If she doesn't get into an operating room within five minutes, you will lose them both," the medic added without sugarcoating the truth.
The ambulance banked sharply off the highway exit, tires screeching around the curved ramp leading toward St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
The massive illuminated red cross of the trauma center appeared through the heavy coastal mist.
Noah leaned down, kissing Elena’s blood-caked forehead, his chest burning with suffocating dread.
"We’re here, baby, we’re at the hospital," Noah murmured, his tears splashing onto her pale cheek.
The ambulance backed into the illuminated emergency bay with a hiss of pneumatic brakes.
The rear doors were ripped open from the outside by a waiting trauma team dressed in blue scrubs and clear protective visors.
"Trauma code red! Pregnant female, blunt head injury, massive pelvic hemorrhage!" the medic shouted as they slid the stretcher out.
A team of eight doctors and nurses swarmed the gurney, running in synchronized rhythm through the double automatic doors.
Noah ran beside them, his hand never leaving Elena’s icy fingers until they reached the red line of the surgical wing.
A burly orderly stepped in front of him, hands raised to block his chest.
"Sir, you can't go past the red line, it's a sterile operating zone!" the orderly shouted over the blaring hospital alarms.
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Noah watched the swinging doors close, swallowing the sight of Elena surrounded by scalpels, monitors, and frantic medical personnel.
He stood alone in the hallway, his hands coated in his wife’s blood, his dress shirt ruined, and his heart shattered into dust.
