Chapter 2 - Blue to the Sky, Orange to the Thigh
My little legs pumped as fast as they could carry me down the carpeted corridor until I reached the small utility closet where Mama had temporarily left our belongings. I dropped to my knees, unzipped my pink rabbit backpack with trembling fingers, and reached deep inside until my hand closed around a hard, plastic cylinder.
An Auto-Injector. An EpiPen.
It was the very last one we could afford. That morning, before leaving for her shift, Mama had knelt before me with tears shining in her eyes, pressing the device into my hands. "Emma, listen to me," she had said fiercely. "This is your only spare. We cannot afford another replacement this month. Never use it unless you cannot breathe, and someone’s life is literally slipping away."
I stared down at the small plastic tube in my palm, my chest heaving as I fought back a sob. If I used it now, I would have no backup if I had an emergency attack. I was just a four-year-old child; I had no business playing doctor.
Upstairs, in that grand study, Mr. Moretti was suffocating. Right now, he couldn't breathe.
I clutched the EpiPen to my chest, closed my eyes for a single second, and thought of how Mama always said life was precious no matter whose it was. I stuffed the injector back into my backpack, turned on my heel, and sprinted back toward the master study as fast as my legs could carry me.
When I reached the doorway, panting and out of breath, my heart plummeted.
Two massive, armed security guards in sleek black suits had just rushed into the room from the opposite corridor. They froze when they saw the fallen syndicate boss gasping for air on the floor.
"Boss!" the lead guard, a burly man named Victor with a jagged scar across his jaw, shouted, dropping to his knees. "What happened? Who did this?"
Before Victor could check his pulse, I bolted past the threshold. "Move! He needs help!" I cried out, rushing straight toward Alejandro.
Victor spun around, his eyes locking onto me in sheer disbelief. He lunged forward, grabbing my arm with a crushing grip that made me cry out. "What the hell are you doing in here, kid?" he barked, hauling me backward off my feet. "Get away from him! This is restricted territory!"
"Let me go!" I shrieked, kicking my legs wildly. "He's having an allergic reaction! He needs this!"
Victor’s partner, a younger guard with nervous, darting eyes named Marcus, stepped in, his face pale with panic. "Victor, drop her! The boss is turning blue—if he dies, Moretti’s lieutenants will skin us alive!"
Victor looked down at Alejandro, whose body was beginning to go limp, his eyes rolling back. Then Victor glared back at me, his face twisting into a cruel sneer. "You touch him, kid, and your mother loses her job instantly. We'll throw you both out onto the freezing streets tonight."
My fear flared hot and heavy inside my chest, burning away my hesitation. I remembered Mama scrubbing floors until her knuckles bled just to survive in this ruthless house. If Mr. Moretti died here, our lives were already over anyway.
"Then fire her!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
With a burst of adrenaline that felt impossible for a four-year-old, I twisted my arm violently, wrenching my wrist out of Victor’s loosening grip. I hit the polished floorboards on all fours, scrambled past his boots, and dropped directly onto my knees beside Alejandro’s twitching body.
Unzipping my pink backpack, I yanked out the EpiPen. I remembered the exact training the clinic nurse had given me: Blue to the sky, orange to the thigh.
"Stop her!" Victor roared, lunging forward to grab me again.
"Get back!" I yelled, ripping the blue safety cap off the top with my teeth.
With both small hands gripping the plastic housing firmly, I positioned the orange tip against Alejandro’s muscular thigh through his fine wool trousers. With all my weight behind it, I slammed the device downward.
Click!
The mechanical snap cracked through the quiet room like a gunshot. A sharp hiss followed as the hidden needle delivered the life-saving dose of epinephrine straight into his muscle.
I held it firmly in place, chanting the numbers the nurse had taught me in my head: One, two, three...
As I reached three, Alejandro’s massive fingers suddenly snapped shut, locking around my small wrist like a vise of solid steel.
My breath hitched. I looked down into his face, terrified I had made a terrible mistake.
Alejandro’s eyes flew wide open. The unfocused, glassy haze vanished instantly, replaced by a sharp, lethal, terrifying intelligence. He sucked in a massive, ragged gasp of air as the epinephrine forced his swollen airways wide open. His chest heaved violently as oxygen flooded back into his starved brain.
For a terrifying second, nobody in the room moved.
Then, Victor, who had frozen mid-stride, slowly raised his eyes from Alejandro toward the far wall of the study—specifically, toward a towering mahogany bookshelf filled with ancient leather-bound volumes.
Victor’s face instantly drained of all color, turning a sickly, ghostly white.
Following his terrified gaze, I looked up and saw it: nestled quietly between two thick encyclopedia volumes was a tiny, perfectly camouflaged red LED light, glowing steadily in the dark.
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A hidden security camera.
And it wasn't just recording the room. It was recording everything that had just happened. Including who had slipped poison into the boss’s vintage wineglass before the glass ever hit the floor.
