Chapter 1 - The Phantom Patient
The older EMT didn’t move. His knuckles turned stark white as he gripped the handle of his oxygen kit, his eyes locked on David with a terror I had never seen in a grown man.
"Stan, I need the bag!" Sarah, the younger EMT, barked, her hands working furiously over my son’s chest.
Stan snapped out of his trance, practically throwing the kit toward Sarah before taking a deliberate step backward, putting himself between my husband and my suffocating child. David’s smirk vanished, replaced by a mask of chilling, calculated innocence.
"Is he going to be okay?" David asked, his voice dripping with faux-paternal concern. "He just collapsed. I think he swallowed something."
"Liar!" I screamed, lunging at him, but Stan caught my arm, his grip surprisingly strong.
"Ma'am, get in the ambulance. Now," Stan muttered under his breath, his eyes never leaving David. "Do not let him in that truck."
Sarah finally got the airway cleared, and a horrible, raspy breath rattled into Leo's lungs. As they loaded my little boy onto the stretcher, David stepped forward to follow.
"Family rides up front," Stan said, his voice hard as iron, physically blocking the doorway. "Only the mother. Protocol."
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David tilted his head, his eyes darkening into voids. "That’s my son."
"And you're not getting in my rig," Stan replied. As the ambulance doors slammed shut, shutting David out in the cold night, Stan leaned into me. His voice shook. "I worked in Chicago twenty years ago. That man’s name isn’t David. It’s Elias Thorne. And his last family didn't survive the night he got angry."
