The monitor alarm didn't stop screaming until Nguyen silenced it.
Not because Evan stabilized.
Because she had to make it stop before it made everyone in the room start making mistakes.
Sharon's hands didn't move right away. She stood there with her gloved palm still resting on Evan's hair, feeling the damp heat of his scalp and the way his body trembled under the straps like it was fighting two wars at once—one inside his cells, one inside his mind.
McAllister checked the readout with a tight, practiced calm. "Tachycardic. Spiking again."
Patel leaned in, eyes narrowed. "His heart's trying to outrun it."
Reyes hovered at the foot of the bed, shoulders stiff. She looked like she might be sick. Or pray. Or both.
"Okay," Sharon said, voice low and steady because it had to be. "We do what we said. Samples only. Observation. We're not rushing. We're not harming him just to satisfy panic."
Nguyen nodded once, then pulled a blood tube from the tray, hands moving like a machine that didn't have time to feel.
Evan's lashes fluttered. His mouth opened.
A thin strand of foam slid down his chin.
Nguyen's eyes flicked to Sharon. "The saliva—"
"I know," Sharon cut in gently. "We already know."
But knowing didn't soften it. Not even a little.
Because saliva wasn't supposed to be dangerous.
Saliva was comfort. Kisses on scraped knees. A mother's finger wetting a cloth to wipe a smudge off a child's cheek.
This saliva looked like something the body was rejecting.
Something it didn't recognize as itself.
"Double gloves," Patel said. "Everyone."
Daniels—standing just inside the door with his radio still useless and his gun still holstered—shifted his weight. "You think it's airborne?"
Patel's mouth tightened. "I don't know what I think."
Sharon forced herself to breathe. "Not airborne," she said, more prayer than fact. "Not yet."
Nguyen slid another pair of gloves on, then moved to the IV access. "Blood draw first. Standard panel plus whatever we can run with what we have."
"CBC, CMP," Patel said automatically. "Coags. Lactate. ABG if you can get it."
Nguyen nodded. "We'll try."
She started filling the tubes.
Dark blood ran into plastic—too dark, too thick, almost syrupy in the low light. It didn't look right.
Sharon watched it, throat tight.
Evan's hand twitched against the restraint, fingers curling and uncurling like he was trying to grab onto something invisible.
"Evan," Sharon said softly.
His eyes opened halfway.
For a second, she thought he was there.
Then his gaze slid past her, unfocused, pupils too wide.
His lips peeled back from his teeth.
A low, wet sound came out of him—more growl than breath.
Reyes flinched. "Oh God."
"Hold," McAllister warned.
Nguyen stepped back instinctively, tube in hand, and Evan snapped—head jerking forward so hard the straps creaked. Teeth clacked an inch from Nguyen's wrist.
If she hadn't moved—
Sharon didn't let herself finish the thought.
"Secure him," she ordered. "Now."
Daniels moved instantly, planting his hands on the bedrail to steady it. Patel tightened the chest strap one notch. Reyes, pale as paper, forced herself forward and secured the wrist restraint.
Evan thrashed once—violent, sudden.
The bed rocked.
A vial on the tray tipped and shattered on the tile.
Nguyen sucked in a breath that sounded like pain. "He's stronger than he should be."
"Adrenaline," Patel said, but his tone didn't sound convinced.
McAllister leaned in, eyes locked on Evan's face. "It's not adrenaline."
Evan's thrashing slowed.
He went slack again like someone had flipped a switch.
His eyes rolled, then refocused—clearer this time.
He stared at Sharon's face with the desperate intensity of a drowning person spotting shore.
"Mama," he whispered.
Reyes made a sound in her throat.
Sharon's chest tightened so hard it hurt. She leaned closer, voice gentle. "I'm here."
Evan's lower lip trembled. "Did I… did I do something bad?"
"No," Sharon said immediately. "No, sweetheart."
He blinked, tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. "I tried to be brave. But it hurts. It hurts everywhere."
Nguyen swallowed hard and turned her face away for a second, composure cracking.
Patel stared at the floor like he couldn't look at Evan and keep his logic intact.
Sharon nodded slowly. "I know. I know it hurts."
Evan's breathing hitched. "I don't wanna die."
The words hit the room like a slap.
Even Daniels—trained, hardened—looked away.
Sharon's voice softened until it was almost a whisper. "We're going to do everything we can for you."
Evan clung to that like it was a rope. "Can you call my mom?"
Sharon's throat burned. "We tried, baby. We're still trying."
He nodded like he accepted it, because he didn't have the strength to argue.
"Where's my sister?" he whispered. "She's little. She can't—she can't—"
His voice broke.
Sharon leaned in closer, her hand hovering above his hair again, afraid to touch him too much and afraid not to touch him at all. "What's your sister's name?"
Evan swallowed. "Sophie."
There. A name. A real child. A real person somewhere in this building—or not.
Sharon held his gaze. "Sophie is going to be okay."
Evan's eyes searched her face for truth. For certainty.
Sharon gave him what she could.
Evan's eyelids fluttered. His voice slurred as sedation pulled him down again. "You promise?"
Sharon nodded. "I promise."
She didn't know if she meant it as a doctor, a mother, or a liar trying to give a boy something gentle to hold in his last hours.
Nguyen stepped back in, voice tight. "Blood samples complete."
Patel nodded, snapping back into procedure mode because emotion would drown them if they let it. "Label everything. Time stamps. Put it in the fridge."
Nguyen paused. "We should test for contact transfer too."
Sharon's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Nguyen gestured toward Evan's hair, his nails. "If the pathogen is in saliva and blood… it might be in other keratin sites. Hair follicle. Nail beds. Skin."
Reyes swallowed. "You mean… he's contaminated everywhere."
"That's what I mean," Nguyen said quietly.
Daniels' jaw tightened. "So if someone wrestles with one of them—"
"They don't even need a bite," Patel finished grimly. "Scratches. Blood under nails. Spit in the eye."
The room went cold.
Sharon pictured the hallway outside—families pressed together, people comforting each other, wiping tears, holding hands.
Touching.
Always touching.
"Hair sample," Sharon said. "And fingernail scrapings. Carefully."
Reyes looked like she wanted to refuse.
Instead, she stepped forward and did it.
Nguyen held the sterile specimen container while Reyes clipped a small lock of Evan's hair near the scalp. The sound of the scissors—soft snip, snip—felt obscene in the quiet.
Then Nguyen took a sterile swab and scraped beneath Evan's fingernails.
Dark debris collected on white cotton—tiny flecks of dried blood.
Nguyen's voice was barely audible. "He scratched someone."
Sharon's stomach turned.
Evan moaned softly in his sleep, face tightening like he was dreaming pain.
Patel stared at the swab like it was a loaded weapon. "Bag it. Label it. That's evidence now."
Evidence.
Like they were building a case.
Sharon looked at the boy on the bed—restrained, sedated, burning from the inside—and felt a terrible thought take shape:
He isn't just a patient anymore.
He was a warning.
He was a clock.
McAllister checked Evan's pupils again. "He's cycling. Lucid, then aggressive. Lucid, then aggressive."
Sharon nodded once. "How long between cycles?"
"Shortening," McAllister said. "Minutes. Not hours."
Nguyen stared at the monitor. "His oxygen saturation is dropping."
Patel exhaled through his nose. "Organs are starting to fail."
Reyes whispered, "He's dying."
Sharon didn't deny it.
She turned to Patel. "Run what you can. Even if it's crude. Even if it's not perfect."
Patel nodded. "We'll do smear microscopy. We can test basic pH, glucose, lactate. Anything that tells us if this is metabolic, toxic, infectious."
"And saliva," Sharon said, forcing the words out. "Run it too."
Nguyen nodded, swallowing hard. "If it's in saliva… it changes everything."
Sharon looked down at Evan again.
His lips parted slightly, breath hot and uneven, foam still gathering at the corners. His brow creased, like he was fighting nightmares he couldn't wake from.
Sharon leaned in close enough that only he could hear her, even if he couldn't understand.
"You hold on as long as you can," she whispered. "Okay? You just… you hold on."
Evan's fingers twitched once, weak against the straps.
For a second, it looked like he was reaching for her.
Then the monitor beeped sharply again.
And the room remembered what it was here to do.