Chapter 8 - The Confrontation
Glass shattered inward in a spray of deadly crystalline needles.
Daniel screamed in surprise, dropping his scotch glass as I leapt through the broken window frame, landing on the wet linoleum floor of my kitchen.
"You insane bitch!" Daniel roared, spinning around and raising his handgun directly at my chest.
Before he could pull the trigger, the front door of the apartment blew inward with a deafening BOOM as the SWAT team executed a flashbang breach.
Bright white light and a thunderous pressure wave filled the living room. Daniel staggered backward, momentarily blinded, his gun wavering in his grip.
I lunged forward beneath his arm, pulling the capped syringe from my sleeve, and drove the needle directly into the side of his neck, plunging the syringe all the way down.
"What... what did you..." Daniel gasped, his eyes widening in pure horror as he slapped his hand against his neck, pulling out the empty plastic syringe.
"Succinylcholine," I whispered coldly into his ear, grabbing his gun hand and twisting it until the weapon dropped onto the floor with a loud clatter. "In about ten seconds, your motor neurons are going to stop firing. Your legs will fail. Your arms will go numb. And then... your diaphragm will stop moving."
Daniel took two staggering steps backward, his knees buckling beneath him. His gun clattered across the floorboards.
"You... you poisoned me..." he stammered, his speech becoming thick and slurred as the paralytic hit his central nervous system. He collapsed onto his back, his body completely rigid, his eyes staring up at the ceiling in helpless, terrifying panic.
The SWAT team burst through the smoke of the hallway, weapons raised. "DON'T MOVE! POLICE!"
Detective Vance ran into the kitchen, his weapon drawn, only to stop dead in his tracks at the sight before him.
Daniel was lying on his back, fully conscious, but completely unable to move a single muscle, staring up at me with tears of helpless terror welling in his eyes.
I stood over him, my face calm and cold, holding a manual bag-valve mask respirator from my medical kit.
"He's paralyzed, Detective," I said smoothly, taking a slow breath. "If I don't breathe for him using this manual bag, he will suffocate in three minutes."
Vance looked at Daniel, then looked at me, a dark, understanding expression crossing his face.
"Take your time, Doctor," Vance said, turning his back and holstering his gun. "The ambulance is ten minutes away."
I leaned down close to Daniel's ear, looking deep into his helpless, wide eyes.
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"This is what Emily felt every single day for a month," I whispered softly. "Trapped inside her own body, unable to scream, waiting for someone to show mercy."
I attached the mask over his mouth and squeezed the bag once, delivering a single breath of air into his lungs, keeping him alive just enough to face the justice he had spent a lifetime trying to escape.
