Excerpt: Torchwood: Chicago

Jenny slammed shoulder first into the door to Lab 1, sending it flying open. She grabbed Caty by the shoulder and gently shook her. Derek was so close on her heels he could have been wearing her boots as well.

"Oh crap! Come on Caty, wake up," Derek hurriedly said. He was out of breath but didn’t seem to care, as Caty was still unresponsive.

Touching her hand to Caty's neck, she looked at Derek in surprise. "She's burning up," she stated. "We need to get her to the hospital, now."

"She won’t go," Derek said, his voice trembling. He looked at Jenny, his eyes wide.

"We don’t have a choice," Jenny said as she picked up Caty and hefted her off the stool. She pulled Caty back and laid her down on the floor, face-up, stretched out. Jenny fell to her knees next to Caty, taking her arm and feeling for the pulse.

"Oh God, oh God. They want to amputate the arm, maybe," Derek prattled on, barely stopping to breath or think. He raced on, "it got cut when she was attacked and some of the acid or whatever it was is still inside of her. They don’t know what the substance is exactly, and neither do we, yet."

Derek knelt down next to Caty, his hand on her forehead. He brushed a couple of strands of hair off her face. Jenny grabbed Caty's left arm and pulled away the loose bandage. Her mind tried to comprehend the situation and take in all the triage training she had in the marines. The girl's left arm was visibly enlarged and bloated. The area around the cut was starting to become pussy and was purple.

"F**k! This is not right," Jenny muttered as she dabbed at the small bit of ooze that was coming from the cut.

"It wasn't that bad before," Derek said as he rapidly looked from Caty to Jenny. Caty's breathing was becoming ragged. "I swear it was not like that an hour ago."

"It's in her system and her whole body is trying to fight it," Jenny said as she held Caty's arm above the heart to slow down the blood flow. "We need to get her to the hospital."

"They don’t know what they're dealing with," Derek yelled at Jenny.

She reached across Caty and grabbed him by the shoulder, holding him firm. "Neither do we Derek. If she loses the arm she will still be alive."