Officer Daniels slowed outside the consultation room because everyone else already had.
People didn't linger like this unless they were waiting for something to go wrong.
Sharon stood with Patel and McAllister near the wall, bodies angled toward the door like it might open on its own and answer questions no one wanted to ask out loud. The floor hummed with tension—quiet footsteps, restrained voices, the sound of someone crying down the hall and being shushed too late.
Daniels stopped beside her.
"How are you holding up?" he asked.
The question slipped past her guard before she could block it.
For half a heartbeat, Sharon saw a kitchen light left on somewhere miles away. A phone ringing on a counter no one was near. Someone old enough to forget to lock a door. Someone too young to understand why nobody came when they called. Distance collapsed into dread.
She shut it down hard.
"I'm fine," she said.
Daniels watched her face, not her words. He saw the tension at her jaw, the way her shoulders stayed locked like she was bracing against impact that never came.
"Right," he said quietly. "You usually are."
She exhaled through her nose. "Micah—I don't have time."
"I know," he said. "Just wanted you to know I asked."
Patel cleared his throat, already irritated. "Her numbers are still unstable."
Daniels turned to him. "How bad?"
McAllister answered. "Bad enough that nobody blinks."
Sharon didn't sugarcoat it. "Fever's not breaking. Rhythm won't settle."
Daniels nodded once. "I want eyes on her."
"You stay back," Sharon said immediately. "You don't touch her. You don't get near her mouth. If I say move, you move."
Micah met her gaze. "Understood."
She opened the door.
Heat rushed out like the room had been holding its breath.
Nguyen lay restrained—carefully, deliberately. No cruelty. Just necessity. Her skin was flushed deep red, sweat soaking into the sheets. The oxygen mask fogged unevenly with shallow breaths.
The monitor beeped wrong.
Fast.
Slow.
Fast again.
Daniels stopped just inside the doorway.
"That's her," he said quietly.
"Yes," Sharon said. "That's Nguyen."
Nguyen's fingers twitched.
Not a tremor.
A pull.
The strap creaked.
Patel stiffened. "Did you—"
Nguyen's body arched violently, cutting him off. Her back bowed off the mattress. Jaw clamped hard enough to rattle plastic. A strangled sound clawed out of her throat and died there.
"Oh shit," McAllister breathed.
"Seizure," Patel snapped.
Sharon was already moving. "Protect the airway. Now."
Angela sprang up like she'd been waiting for permission to exist again. She slipped out of the room fast.
The second the door opened, the hallway noise surged—whispers piling into each other, someone crying openly now, the wet, unmistakable sound of vomiting into a trash can farther down. The retching was violent and real. Nobody comforted them. Nobody had anything left to give.
Nguyen convulsed again—harder. Her arms strained against the restraints, legs locking. Foam bubbled faintly at her lips, tinged pink.
Reyes's hands shook. "If she wakes up and sees us like this—"
"She won't be fully awake," Patel said, clipped.
Reyes swallowed. "Not yet."
The words hung there like a countdown.
Angela came back fast with straps, gauze, a second oxygen canister—anything that felt like control. Her eyes flicked to Nguyen, then to Sharon's face, reading it instantly.
Sharon took the restraints and laid them out on the bed like she was setting up for surgery. Clean. Efficient. No wasted motion.
"I'll do legs," McAllister said, already reaching.
"I've got left wrist," Patel added.
Reyes hesitated at the chest strap—then stepped in anyway. Leaving it half-done felt worse than doing it at all.
Sharon secured Nguyen's right wrist carefully, above the bandaged hand, avoiding pressure on the stump. Her fingers were steady.
Her face was not.
Nguyen looked smaller once she was strapped down. Not weaker. Just trapped. Like something that didn't understand why the cage existed.
"This is wrong," Reyes whispered.
"It's necessary," Sharon said, without flinching.
They watched.
Minutes dragged.
Nguyen's fever held. Sweat soaked the sheet. Her breathing stayed shallow.
Then the monitor chirped—wrong.
Not the steady hospital rhythm.
A warning.
Everyone's stomach dropped. It sounded too much like the alarms downstairs had sounded before screaming replaced order.
"BP's dropping," Patel said.
"How fast?" Sharon snapped.
Angela checked her notes. "It was one-oh over sixty. Now it's eighty-eight over forty-eight."
McAllister swore softly. "She's crashing."
Reyes looked at Sharon, panic climbing. "Shock?"
Sharon was already moving. "Fluids. Now."
Patel grabbed the IV supplies. His hands were fast, but they shook just enough to tell Sharon he was scared too.
"Vein's rolling," McAllister muttered, holding Nguyen's arm steady.
"Hold," Patel said. "Hold still."
Nguyen jerked—fever-rigged, not conscious. The restraint held, but the bed frame creaked. The sound punched through the room.
"Oh God," Reyes breathed.
"Focus," Sharon snapped. "Line in."
Patel got it on the second try. Saline hung. Drip opened.
Nguyen's heart rate spiked—one-thirty—then dropped—sixty—then jumped again like her body was flipping coins.
Sharon checked her pulse manually.
Fast.
Nothing.
Then fast again.
"Come on," Sharon muttered. There was no hope in it. Just fury. "Come on, Nguyen."
Outside, the hallway noise surged—people reacting to urgency, to cart wheels, to tone shifts they recognized even without context.
"What's happening?"
"Is she turning?"
A woman's voice cracked like glass. "Don't let it out—don't let it out!"
Daniels' voice cut through the chaos. "Back up. Back away from the door."
Then the monitor screamed.
Flatline.
The room went cold.
Reyes made a sound that wasn't language.
"She's down," Patel said.
"Compressions. Now," McAllister snapped.
Sharon climbed onto the bed and started pushing—hard, fast, merciless. The bed rocked. Nguyen's body moved under her hands like a mannequin.
The restraints squealed softly. The sound was small and awful.
"Code blue!" Angela shouted into the hallway, voice cracking.
The crash cart slammed into the doorway moments later, rattling hinges. Another nurse followed, eyes wide, hair loose, like she'd run straight through hell and found more waiting.
Sharon didn't look up.
She didn't have the luxury.
Her hands stayed locked on Nguyen's sternum, pressing until she felt resistance—then deeper—then the sick flex of ribs under her palms.
Reyes bagged, hands shaking so badly the mask slipped. She forced it tighter, squeezing air into lungs that didn't want it.
"Epi's ready!" Patel shouted.
"She's in VF," McAllister snapped. "Charge it."
"Charging," Patel answered.
Outside, the hallway erupted—not a riot yet, but panic rising like water behind a dam.
"Is she dead?"
"Don't let her out!"
A baby screamed. A mother sobbed loud enough to carry through walls. Someone pounded on a door like they could beat their way into another reality.
Then Daniels' voice cut through everything.
"BACK UP."
Not loud. Final.
Sharon lifted her hands.
McAllister shocked.
Nguyen's body jolted violently against the restraints. The straps bit into her wrists. The sound was grotesque—fabric, leather, bone.
The monitor flickered.
Flatline again.
"Again," McAllister growled.
Sharon went right back to compressions, shoulders burning, breath ragged, pressing like she could punch death in the throat.
Somewhere outside, someone screamed again, raw and broken, and Daniels snapped, "Stop it! You want them coming up here?"
The screaming collapsed into sobs.
"Clear," Patel shouted.
Shock.
Nguyen jerked hard. Foam bubbled briefly at the corner of her mouth.
Reyes nearly dropped the bag.
Sharon didn't stop.
She saw it.
And she kept going.