Chapter 23 - WHAT LAURA CONSENTED TOBennett smashed the glass cake cover.
Inside the silver butterfly was an emergency air capsule.
Laura had hidden it for Harper.
There was enough oxygen for one person.
Bennett forced it into Harper’s hands.
“No.”
“Use it.”
“I will not leave you.”
“You are not leaving me. You are surviving long enough to open the door.”
Harper pressed the mask over her face.
The others began weakening.
Evelyn crawled toward the wall panel.
Her vision blurred, but she entered a code.
Nothing happened.
Daniel laughed weakly.
“Victor changed it.”
Harper looked at the cake.
Nine candle bases.
One remained loose.
She pulled it free and found a mechanical key.
The key opened a manual vent beneath the bed.
Fresh air entered.
Nolan helped everyone into the shaft.
They escaped before the room filled completely.
Daniel came with them.
Bennett wanted him restrained.
Harper stopped him.
“Victor tried to kill all of us.”
Daniel looked at her in surprise.
“That does not make me trust him.”
“It should make you understand that you were never his partner.”
The shaft led into Laura’s private archive.
Her journals filled one wall.
Harper opened the volume from the year of the recording.
Laura had not willingly made Harper a control subject.
Victor threatened to place her inside the replacement program if Laura refused.
Laura agreed only to keep the testing nonmedical and to document every manipulation.
She built the ninth candle as evidence.
Daniel read over Harper’s shoulder.
The anger left his face.
“She never told me.”
“She did not trust you,” Adrian said.
“She was right.”
Daniel accepted the words.
Another journal revealed Laura’s final plan.
She intended to fake her death, free Bennett if he was taken and expose Victor.
But someone changed the timing.
The journal’s last page contained one sentence:
Evelyn knows where my body is.
Everyone looked at her.
Evelyn closed the book.
“Laura survived the hospital.”
“For how long?” Harper asked.
“Four months.”
“Where did she die?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Daniel drew Nolan’s spare weapon from the floor.
“Answer her.”
Evelyn looked toward the hidden elevator.
“She did not die.”
The elevator opened.
A woman stood inside wearing a white hospital coat.
She had Laura Hale’s face.
Harper dropped the journal.
May you like
The woman looked at her.
“Happy birthday, butterfly.”
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