"Ms. Fox, since your mother has accused you of concealing stolen goods inside your body, we need you to cooperate. Take the laxatives and submit to an examination of the results."

The words hit me like a bolt of lightning. I lunged forward and grabbed his wrist. "You can't! That boy doesn't have time!"

"He was cut by glass on a construction site. His trachea is completely severed. His oxygen saturation has dropped below sixty percent!"

"My colleagues are bagging him by hand, but the air keeps leaking through the wound into the tissue. His entire neck and chest are swelling up!"

"I'm the only surgeon who can do this operation!"

The words tumbled out of me, incoherent, tears smearing across my face.

"Please. Let me go back to the hospital first. Once the surgery is done, I'll come back and you can do whatever you want with me."

Captain Paulson pulled his wrist free. His expression didn't change.

"Rules are rules."

"If you run, who takes the fall for that?"

He waved his hand, and two guards seized me by the arms, one on each side.

"Take her to the medical office. Give her the laxatives."

I was dragged toward the security office.

As I passed my mother, she didn't look at me. She smoothed the hem of her blouse, the corner of her mouth curled upward.

"If only you'd listened before, we wouldn't be here now..."

So this really was retaliation.

Inside the security office, someone held out a cup of cloudy liquid.

"Drink it. Should take about half an hour to kick in."

I stepped back until my spine hit the wall. "I'm not drinking that!"

Two guards moved in, flanking me on either side.

"Ms. Fox, don't make us do this the hard way."

"You wouldn't dare!"

The two guards closed in and seized my arms, one on each side.

I thrashed against their grip.

That was when my phone rang. A colleague from the hospital.

"Let me answer it! That child might not make it..."

The guards hesitated.

My mother lunged forward, pinning my hand down, and killed the call. "Answer what? Trying to call someone to bail you out?"

"Don't pull that crap with me!"

But I'd already wrenched one hand free and snatched the phone back.

The screen lit up with a photo from Dr. James.

I tapped it open, and everything inside me went still.

The person lying on the operating table, waiting to die, was my brother.

I turned around and dropped to my knees. The impact jolted through my bones.

"Mom! The patient, it's Hal Fox!"