The silence that followed the slamming of the gate was deafening. Sarah stood frozen for a split second, her boots rooted in the crimson pool Donny had left behind. On either side of her, the South Block was a cauldron of muffled fury. Lou was a silhouette of trembling muscle against his bars, and Johnny was a ghost behind his vent, both of them watching the empty hallway where the gurney had vanished.
"Miller," Lou's voice was a low, dangerous rumble. "If they kill him in there... if they let him slip... this whole place burns. You hear me?"
Sarah didn't look at him. She couldn't afford to be seen consoling an inmate, not now. She adjusted her belt, her fingers brushing the cold steel of her cuffs. "He's in the hands of the trauma team, 4492. Focus on the wall."
She turned and sprinted toward the infirmary, her own lingering fever making the hallway lights stretch into long, nauseating streaks.
The Triage
When she burst into the medical wing, the atmosphere shifted from the heat of the cells to the sterile, high-frequency panic of the ER. Unlike the tier guards, the medical staff weren't Valenti's pawns; they were overworked professionals drowning in the reality of a "Code Blue."
"Get me a Complete Blood Count (CBC) and a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) now!" a lead nurse shouted, ignoring Sarah as she stood by the door. "He's got a jagged red line at the axilla. It's systemic."
Donny lay on the trauma table, his body no longer rigid with seizure but terrifyingly limp. A technician was already drawing vials of blood—dark, thick, and sluggish.
"I need Blood Cultures from two different sites," the doctor commanded, his hands moving with practiced efficiency over Donny's shattered arm. "We need to identify the pathogen. Look at the swelling—this isn't just a break; it's a breeding ground. Start him on a broad-spectrum antibiotic drip immediately."
Sarah watched from the doorway, her hands clasped behind her back in a formal guard stance. She was an observer, a sentry—nothing more. But her ears caught every clinical blow.
"Lactate levels are coming back high—4.2 mmol/L," the technician called out.
The doctor swore under his breath. "He's struggling to deliver oxygen to his tissues. We're looking at organ distress. Check his Procalcitonin and CRP markers; I want to know exactly how much of a head start this bacterial infection has on us."
"Blood pressure is bottoming out, 85 over 50," another nurse reported, wrapping a cuff around Donny's uninjured arm. "Oxygen saturation is at 88%. Get the pulse oximetry on his other hand."
Sarah felt a cold sweat break across her neck. She knew the terminology. High lactate meant his body was beginning to shut down; the sepsis was winning.
"We need a CT scan of the head," the doctor said, pointing to the dark ribbon of blood still oozing from Donny's temple. "The seizure was likely triggered by the impact with the metal toilet, but with a septic load this high, we can't rule out meningitis or an abscess. Get him to imaging."
"Doctor," Sarah called out, her voice cracking slightly before she smoothed it into a professional clip. "The inmate... he was delusional for hours. Mentioned 'lead' in his arm. Clawing at the site."
The doctor glanced at her, eyes sharp behind his shield. "That tracks with sepsis-associated encephalopathy. The toxins are hitting his brain. Nurse, check his coagulation studies—PT and INR. If his clotting factors are off, we can't take him to surgery for the head trauma without him bleeding out on the table. We need to see if he's developed DIC (Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation)."
As they wheeled him toward the imaging suite, Sarah caught a glimpse of Donny's face. He looked small under the harsh fluorescent lights, stripped of the "King" persona, stripped of everything but the raw, human struggle to stay alive.
She followed at a distance, a shadow in a tan uniform. Every time a monitor beeped, her heart skipped. She was watching the diagnostic clock tick down. They were checking his kidneys, his liver, his very life force through IntelliSep analysis and molecular diagnostics, trying to find a way to stabilize a man who had been left to rot for three days.
At the end of the hall, she saw Holden leaning against the wall, watching the gurney pass. He looked at the blood on Sarah's sleeve, then at her pale face.
"He looks like a goner, Miller," Holden said, his voice a poisonous whisper. "All that effort for a ghost."
Sarah didn't flinch. She kept her eyes on the doors of the CT suite. "The gold isn't gone until the heart stops, Holden. And his is still beating."