The phone rang endlessly, bouncing menacingly through the speaker system in my car as I drove north on Lake Shore Drive, but Kendall wasn’t picking up. Images of Paul’s convulsing body and Zoe’s decaying one wouldn’t leave my mind. This couldn’t be Kendall’s fate, not if I could help it, anyway.
I pulled off the drive at Irving Park and phoned Michael, shouting a message into his voicemail about where I was going and why, then dialed 911 as I screeched onto Marine Drive, nearly causing an accident as I made the turn. Panic sweat was rolling down my back as I barreled into the driveway of the Renacido Center. I sprinted toward the carriage house, not even bothering to close the door on my car.
The doorknob refused to budge. I pounded and kicked and screamed Kendall’s name, hoping she could hear me, wanting her to know I was here. That she wasn’t alone. My phone still rang into nothingness, so with a glance around my surroundings, I picked up the largest rock I could find and smashed it repeatedly against the doorknob until the old metal was dented and hanging by a screw. Yanking off the remainder, I pushed in the door and charged up the stairs.
The space was dark other than a glow from the back where exterior light entered. I could hear her phone now, but softly, as if buried in her purse. It was the faint rhythm of a popular Taylor Swift song, downloaded as a ringtone and completely incongruous with the tough-girl image she projected. Treatment rooms lined the hall and she could be in any one of them. Knowing minutes could make the difference, I tried to locate the source of the sound. It was distant, and I couldn’t tell if the ring was coming from behind a closed door or the large treatment room in the back where Paul had died.
Suddenly angry male voices bounced at me from down the hall and I paused.
“What kind of mess have you gotten me into?” one screamed. “Your impatience has ruined everything I’ve worked for.”
Dr. Wykell? I crept forward as silently as I could, peering into treatment rooms as I moved.
“Everything you’ve worked for? You’re nothing,” the second man bellowed. “Nothing but a talking head, paid to hawk what I’ve told you to hawk. You haven’t the intellect or the skill to have done any of this on your own. You have no vision. You have no plan. You apparently can’t even keep a phone away from a kid. How would you have executed any of this without me? All I’ve heard from you is fear and caution, when the greatest advancement in addiction treatment is at your feet and you don’t even see it. You need to stop being an obstacle. We are on the brink of greatness, but you can’t even do the one job you’ve been hired to do. So get behind me or get out of my way.”
“Scientific journals will speak of me forever in reverence for bringing this to the world, while you’ll be nothing but an asterisk. The death of a few is nothing if it pays for the lives of many. Sacrifices are occasionally required for the greater good.”
“Not when sacrifices involve unwitting children,” I roared at the men.
I stared, eyes blazing, hatred pouring out of me without restraint at Dr. Troy Wykell and the man who it was now clear was his partner, Dr. Franklin Lecaros.
Kendall lay nearly comatose on a hospital bed five feet behind the men, hooked up to an IV. On hearing my voice, she lifted a hand, only to let it fall back to her side, the effort too great.
Wykell froze, all color leaving his face. He looked to Lecaros, who stared back at me, but neither said a word.
“You men need to step aside now,” I said. “I’m going to take Kendall out of here, and you will both face the consequences of your greed.”
My phone was still in my hand, on an endless call to Kendall’s. I tapped to end the incessant ring, but I had nothing else to protect myself with. While Wykell cowered, Lecaros clenched his jaw in rage, anger coursing in his veins and turning his face beet red. Kendall moaned softly from her bed, and I rushed to her side.
It wasn’t clear if she was capable of walking, but I needed to get her out of this room and away from these men any way I could.
“Kendall, it’s Andrea. Can you hear me?” She mumbled something unintelligible and swung her head from side to side. “I’m going to try to help you sit up.”
I couldn’t manage her and the IV stand she was tethered to, so I grabbed gauze from the nearby tray and pulled off the tape stabilizing the line in her arm. Then I pinched my fingers around the end of the cannula.
“Like hell you are!” Lecaros screamed, rushing up behind me and wrapping Kendall’s IV tubing around my throat as I attempted to extract the needle from her vein.
I clawed at the tubing as Lecaros encircled my neck with it a second time and pulled, cutting off my air supply. Kendall’s blood gushed as the cannula was ripped from her arm, and she fell to the floor. Choking and gasping for air, I pulled at the plastic with one hand and reached back in a desperate attempt to dig my fingers into Lecaros.
“Freeze! Or I’ll blow your fucking head off!” A commanding voice shouted the order as the room grew dark and I felt my body sink.
Michael. It was Michael.