Chapter 8 - The Blizzard Courier
At 3:15 A.M., forty-eight hours after Kieran had caught me in the kitchen, the storm outside turned into a blinding whiteout.
The wind rattled the thick reinforced windows of Mount Sinai, howling like a banshee through the canyons of Manhattan. Leo’s heart monitor beeped with an erratic, terrifying rhythm. Dr. Vance was pacing outside the suite door, checking his watch every thirty seconds.
"The snow is piling up at four inches an hour," Vance said, his voice grim. "The Queensboro Bridge is paralyzed with accidents. The highway from New Jersey is virtually impassable for standard ambulances."
Suddenly, Kieran’s radio chirped.
"Boss," Marco's voice came through, static-heavy and punctuated by the sound of sirens. "We landed at Teterboro! We're in the heavy-duty four-wheel-drive armored transport, but the West Side Highway is completely gridlocked by jackknifed tractor-trailers. We're stuck three miles out!"
Kieran grabbed his leather coat from the chair. "Hold your position. Where are you?"
"Fifty-seventh and Twelfth Avenue!"
Kieran looked at Dr. Vance. "How long does Leo have before the window closes?"
"If the marrow isn't warmed and prepared for infusion within thirty minutes, the tissue will degrade," Vance said, terrified.
"Stay with Leo," Kieran told me, grabbing his gloves and checking his sidearm.
"Kieran, what are you going to do?" I cried, running after him toward the door. "It's a whiteout blizzard! You can't walk three miles in that!"
Kieran turned, cupping my face in his warm, leather-clad hands, and pressed a hard, possessive kiss to my lips. "I told you, little housekeeper. Nobody dies under my watch. Pray for him. I'll be back with his cure."
Before I could scream, he vanished into the stairwell.
What happened over the next twenty-five minutes became legendary among the Blackwood crew. Kieran didn't walk. He commandeered two police snowmobiles stationed near Central Park with a flash of federal badges and a wad of cash that defied imagination.
Braving the blinding sub-zero blizzard, Kieran tore down the empty, snow-choked avenues of Manhattan like a man possessed. He swerved past abandoned taxis and navigated around stalled buses, oblivious to the frost biting at his skin and the freezing wind slicing through his clothes.
At Fifty-seventh Street, he skidded to a halt beside Marco's trapped armored transport. Kieran jumped off the snowmobile, ripped open the rear doors, and took the temperature-controlled titanium medical cooler directly into his arms.
Securing the cooler across his chest with a tactical harness, Kieran remounted the snowmobile, revved the high-output engine until the snow roared beneath the treads, and raced back toward Mount Sinai through the howling storm.
At 3:42 A.M., the heavy emergency doors of the hospital burst open.
Covered in ice, his eyelashes frosted white, his face bruised from the stinging sleet, Kieran Blackwood marched through the lobby carrying the titanium cooler like a knight carrying the holy grail. He didn't wait for an elevator; he took the stairs two at a time, sprinting up four flights of concrete steps until he kicked open the doors of the pediatric ward.
He walked into Leo's room, slammed the cooler onto the sterile prep table, and dropped his freezing hands onto his knees, gasping for breath.
"Infuse it," Kieran commanded Dr. Vance between ragged breaths. "Save that boy."
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Dr. Vance and four surgical nurses sprang into action immediately, opening the seal on the living marrow cells.
I didn't look at the doctors. I ran straight into Kieran's arms, throwing my hands around his ice-coated neck, burying my face into his frozen chest as silent, sobbing gratitude poured out of every fiber of my being.
