Chapter 5 - The Street Doctor
Doc's safehouse was a hidden room built beneath a disused subway platform. It was dry, warm, and smelled of rubbing alcohol, old paper, and brewing chamomile tea.
Doc worked quickly, wrapping Leo in dry blankets while Wren built a roaring fire in an old oil drum.
"Your legs aren't severed, son," Doc said, holding a small flashlight to Leo's eyes while examining his spinal x-rays—images that Wren had smuggled out of the Sterling estate weeks ago. "There's scar tissue, yes, and severe nerve inflammation caused by the toxins they've been pumping into your system. But the nerves are intact."
Leo looked at the old doctor, his breath catching in his throat. "Are you saying... I really can walk again?"
"Not overnight," Doc clarified gently. "The poison has to flush out of your bloodstream. It will take days of intense, painful therapy, and a neutralizing serum I've prepared. But yes, Leo. If you have the will to fight through the pain, you will stand on your own two feet again."
Leo looked across the room at Wren, who was sitting by the fire, carefully cleaning the dirt from her bare feet.
"Why are you doing all this, Wren?" Leo asked quietly. "My uncle has millions. He could kill you. He could destroy everything you have."
Wren looked up, the flames reflecting in her dark, fierce eyes.
"Two years ago, before my father died, he worked as a mechanic for the Sterling shipping ports," Wren said softly. "When he got injured on the job, Julian Sterling fired him without a dollar of compensation. We were thrown out onto the streets. My father died of pneumonia that winter."
She paused, taking a deep breath.
"Your mother, Clara, found out about it months later," Wren continued. "She came down to the lower district herself. She paid for my father's headstone, she set up a small trust for my little brother's schooling, and she tried to expose Julian's corruption to the board. That’s why Julian tried to kill her in that car crash."
Leo listened, his heart aching for the brave girl sitting across from him. He had lived in a world of luxury, surrounded by marble and silk, completely unaware of the monsters living under his own roof.
"My mother protected your family," Leo said softly.
"And now I'm protecting hers," Wren replied firmly.
Suddenly, the steel door of the safehouse shuddered under a massive, heavy blow.
BOOM!
Dust rained down from the ceiling. The emergency lights flickered red.
"They found us!" Doc yelled, rushing toward his medical desk to grab his supplies. "How did they track us?!"
Wren sprinted over to Leo's wheelchair, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at the heavy leather armrest of the high-tech chair Julian had provided for Leo.
She grabbed Doc's scalpel, jammed it into the seams of the leather cushion, and ripped it open.
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Deep inside the padding, a tiny, glowing blue light blinked steadily.
"A GPS tracker," Wren hissed, crushing the tiny circuit board under her bare heel. "Julian knew where we were the entire time."
