The 7-Foot Giant Charged the ER — Then the ‘Rookie’ Nurse Took Him Down Instantly

The Hunt

The tactical team began to move, checking rooms.

Aurora watched from the crack in the door of the linen closet down the hall. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew General Holay. She had served under him in Syria. She was the one who pulled him out of the burning Humvee in Damascus when his security detail was wiped out. She was the one who disappeared 3 years ago because she knew too much about the operation that went wrong—the operation that broke Jackson Hayes.

He knows, Aurora thought. If he finds me, I go back to the Black Site, or I go to prison.

She looked at the back exit sign glowing red at the end of the hall. It was 50 yards away. Between her and the door were two of the tactical operators. She touched the silver coin in her pocket again.

Fight or flight.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was an unknown number. She answered it, keeping her voice to a whisper.

“Hello?”

“Aurora Jenkins, or whatever you’re calling yourself today,” A distorted voice said on the other end. “Look up.”

Aurora looked up at the security camera in the hallway. The red light was blinking.

“Who is this?”

“A friend,” The voice said. “The General isn’t there to arrest you. But the men with him… they aren’t Regular Army. They’re contractors. Mercenaries. If they take Jackson, he’s dead. If they take you, you’re dead.”

“What?” Aurora’s blood ran cold.

“Holay is compromised,” The voice said rapidly. “He’s being blackmailed. He’s there to clean up loose ends. Jackson is a loose end. You are a loose end. You have about 30 seconds before they breach that closet. You need to get Jackson and get out.”

“Get him out? He’s unconscious and weighs 300 lb,” Aurora hissed.

“Then wake him up,” The voice said. “The elevator to the basement morgue is on your left. Go now.”

The line went dead.

Aurora looked down the hall. One of the tactical soldiers was moving toward her closet, his weapon raised. He wasn’t checking patients; he was hunting.

Aurora kicked the door open. She didn’t run away. She ran back toward the lion’s den, back towards the lobby, back toward Jackson.

She burst into the main ER area. “General Holay!” She screamed.

Holay spun around. When he saw her, his eyes widened. For a split second, there was relief, then a flicker of deep, regretful shame.

“Secure her!” Holay shouted to his men. “Don’t shoot! Just secure her.”

But the men didn’t lower their weapons. Two of the soldiers raised their rifles, aiming directly at Aurora’s chest. They weren’t following the General’s orders to secure; they were following different orders.

Time slowed down. Aurora saw the fingers tightening on the triggers. She was 20 ft away from cover. She was dead.

Suddenly, a roar shook the room. Bed 4 exploded. Jackson Hayes, who was supposed to be sedated, ripped the metal railing off the side of the bed. The handcuffs snapped the thin metal bar of the stretcher with a shriek of tearing steel. The giant was awake, and he was angry.

He launched himself off the bed, placing his massive body between the soldiers and Aurora just as the first shots rang out.

Pop. Pop.

Two bullets slammed into Jackson’s back. He didn’t even flinch. He grabbed the nearest soldier by the helmet and slammed him into the floor so hard the tile cracked,.

“Move, Doc!” Jackson screamed at Aurora, his eyes clear and focused for the first time. “Get to the EL!”

Aurora didn’t hesitate. She slid across the floor, grabbed a scalpel from a tray, and slashed the straps holding Jackson’s legs.

“Basement!” She yelled. “Go!”

The Basement

The ER dissolved into a war zone. The elevator doors groaned shut just as the glass of the observation window shattered under a hail of gunfire. Aurora slammed her fist against the B2 button.

Basement Level Two: The Morgue.

Inside the metal box, the silence was deafening, broken only by Jackson’s labored breathing. The giant leaned heavily against the wall, blood soaking the back of his tattered army jacket.

“Check your six,” Jackson grunted, his voice thick with pain but surprisingly lucid. “Did they breach?”

“We are clear for the moment,” Aurora said, her hands already moving.

She ripped the back of his jacket open. “Two distinct entry wounds. The rounds hit your trapezius and latissimus. No exit wounds. They’re still inside. You’re losing blood, Sergeant.”

Jackson looked down at her. The fog of his PTSD had lifted, replaced by the hyperfocus of combat. He stared at the small woman who had choked him out just an hour ago. He saw the scar above her ear, usually hidden by her hair.

“Captain Jenkins,” Jackson whispered, his eyes widening. “Is that… Is that really you? They told me you died in the explosion in Aleppo.”

“They lied,” Aurora said, applying pressure to his back with a wad of gauze she’d swiped from a crash cart. “They scrubbed us just like they tried to scrub you.”

“The General,” Jackson grimaced as the elevator jerked downward. “Holay. He was there.”

“Why is he hunting us?”

“He’s not hunting us,” Aurora said darkly. “He’s cleaning up. He signed off on the off-book mission that got our squad killed. If we’re alive, his career and the private contractors he hired go to prison. Those men upstairs aren’t Army. They’re Black Arrow mercenaries. They don’t take prisoners.”

The elevator chimed. Ding..

The doors opened into the pitch-black basement,. The mercenaries had cut the power. The only light came from the red emergency bulbs, casting long, bloody shadows down the concrete corridor.

“Move!” Aurora commanded.

They moved into the labyrinth of the hospital’s underbelly. This wasn’t the sterile ER; this was where the dead were kept, where the laundry was washed, and where the furnaces burned. It was a maze of pipes, steam, and darkness.

“They have night vision,” Aurora whispered. “We’re blind. We need to even the odds.”

“I can hold the hallway,” Jackson growled, trying to stand tall despite the blood loss. “I’ll buy you time to exit.”

“Negative, Sergeant. We leave together or not at all,” Aurora hissed.

She scanned the room. They were in the chemical storage area next to the morgue. Her eyes landed on a row of industrial cleaning supplies—ammonia, bleach—and on the wall, a fire hose reel.

“Jackson,” Aurora said, her voice turning cold. “Can you rip that pipe off the wall?”

She pointed to a steam pipe running along the ceiling. It was insulated but hot.

“Easy,” Jackson said.

“When I give the signal, bust the pipe. Fill the corridor with steam. Their night vision goggles rely on thermal signatures and light amplification. Steam blinds thermal. It’ll make their optics useless.”

Footsteps echoed from the stairwell at the far end of the hall. The tactical team had bypassed the elevator. They were moving fast, boots thudding in unison.

“Contact front,” Jackson whispered.

Four laser sights cut through the red darkness, sweeping the hallway.

“Target acquired,” A voice crackled over a radio. “End of the hall. Take the shot.”

“Now!” Aurora screamed.

Jackson roared, jumping up and grabbing the steam pipe with both hands. With a heave that strained every fiber of his massive frame, he wrenched the steel pipe downward.

Crack-Hiss.

A jet of scalding white steam exploded into the hallway with the force of a jet engine. The noise was deafening. Within seconds, the corridor was a whiteout.

“I can’t see! Thermal is white! I’m blind!” One of the mercenaries shouted.

“Advancing!” Aurora yelled to Jackson. “Low crawl! Go!”

They dropped to the wet floor, crawling beneath the rising steam cloud. The mercenaries were firing blindly now, bullets sparking off the concrete walls above Aurora’s head.

Aurora didn’t retreat; she advanced. She was a ghost in the mist. She reached the first mercenary, who was frantically wiping his goggles. She didn’t use a gun; she used a scalpel she had palmed from the ER. She slashed his Achilles tendon, then rose up and drove the handle into his temple. He dropped without a sound.

She grabbed his falling assault rifle and tossed it back to Jackson.

“Support fire,” She ordered.

Jackson caught the weapon. Even wounded, he was a marksman. He fired three controlled bursts. The remaining three mercenaries in the hallway dropped, their armor sparked by the impacts.

“Clear!” Jackson shouted.

“Not clear,” Aurora said, checking the pulse of the lead mercenary. “Their comms are active. The rest of the team knows we’re down here. We need to get to the loading dock.”

They ran past the silver drawers of the morgue, the smell of formaldehyde mixing with the metallic tang of blood and steam,. They burst through the heavy double doors leading to the loading bay ramp. Fresh night air hit their faces. Rain was still pouring down.