The red numbers on the tablet screen glared like a death sentence.

**09:57**

**09:56**

"What did you do?" Julian roared, the sound tearing from his throat with an animalistic ferocity I had never heard from him before. He didn't wait for Victor Sterling to answer. Julian vaulted across the heavy

"No," Julian whispered, the word scraping out of his throat like shattered glass. "No, no, no."

He scrambled to his feet, rushing to the empty bed. He threw the white sheets aside, as if hoping I was somehow hidden beneath them. His hands frantically patted down the mattress, his chest heaving with

"Eight! Seven!" Victor's voice roared over the howling wind, the syllables cracking through the SUV’s radio like a whip.

I watched in horror as he gripped the railing of my stretcher, his knuckles white. The back doors of the ambulance flapped violently against the exterior of the speeding vehicle,