Secrets of Summer - THE SPECTER SERIES [book four]

Chapter FORTY FIVE

Hunter Paxton

As we approach the glass entry to the medical centre immediately I can see something is off with the place.. A spash of liquid red is painted across the front doors, smeared in handprints..

As we step inside I can already see the bodies of two SPC admin nurses on the ground, their skin a sickly grey and their eyes bloody.. The metallic smell of blood mingles with the acidic scent of vomit and bile in the air air..

Ive never seen anything like it.. But immediately I know who's work this is.. ...

Declan Darby has been here..

I crouch beside the casualties layed out on the linoleum floor, quickly checking for any pulse, even though I know there wont be one..

They're dead..

My heart seizes in my chest and a sharp stabbing pain shoots through the nerve endings from my shoulder to my collarbone and down my arm as I quickly push up to my feet before I begin to run.. "Kirby?!.. KIRBY!!?"

Leaving Diggle and Ace at the door, I shout her name like a madman making my way past room after empty room..

I can hear a heavy set of boots behind me and I don't need to look back to know that it is O'connor, hot on my heels..

Up ahead I hear a strangled shout.. "Paxton! Brat!" Konstantin's pained voice calls from the open door of an examination room..

At the sound, I pitch forward, moving faster, expecting the worst...

Still, nothing could have prepared me for what I would see and it takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up with my vision..

Patrick and I round into the room to see Konstantin barreled up in the corner of the room.. His eyes are bright red and bloodshot and he blinks rapidly through the blood that has begun to pool in the corners ..

He looks like shit..

Halfway to death..

In his shaking outstretched hands he holds his pistol trained on a man I recognised to be SPCs cheif surgeon, as well as a scared looking nurse I know as Stacey, she cowers behind the doctor..

On the floor at their feet, the body of another nurse, this one a young male who appears to be an orderly, his fate was a little different to the others, with a single bullet hole between his eyes.. Konstantin had shot this one by the looks of it.. But why, I don't know..

I scan the room, the only person I was hoping to see, isn't here..

There's no sign of Kirby..

Where the fuck is she?..

I swallow down the panic that rises in the back of my throat, resetting my focus.. If I let myself fall apart there will be no chance of of working this mess out.. "Do you know thiz doctor, Paxton?!" Konstantin grumbles, keeping his suspicious eye and loaded weapons trained on the heath workers..

I nod, stepping further into the room, placing myself between them.. "Yes.. He is Kirby's doctor.. Stand down, Ivanov.."

He slowly lowers his gun, then he drops it completely.. I bend down to snatch it up and immediately the doctor rushes forward...

The doctor springs into action.. "Nurse, bring me clexane Ill set up his monitors and fuilds.. Sir, you need to let us treat you for the poison and assess the infant, please lay down.."

I watch as the doctor helps Konstantin into the hospital bed, the guy looking worse by the second.. "Infant?"

Konstantin coughs, a spray of blood bursts from his mouth.. "I have failed to you my brother.. The weazel.. He took her.. But I did not let zem harm the little one.. I did not let zem.."