Chapter 13 - The Blackout
Emergency lights flashed red.
A gunshot sounded in the corridor.
Cruz drew her weapon and pushed Vanessa behind the bed.
Margaret locked the door.
Samuel held the will against his chest.
Arthur removed the intravenous line from his arm.
“What are you doing?” Margaret demanded.
“Leaving.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can stand long enough.”
Another gunshot echoed.
The window in the door shattered.
A masked figure appeared outside.
Cruz fired through the opening.
The figure disappeared.
Arthur moved toward the bathroom, where a service exit connected to a private recovery suite.
Cruz grabbed his shoulder.
“You planned for a blackout?”
“I planned for an attack.”
“You might have mentioned it.”
“I didn’t plan this specific attack.”
The service door opened into a dark corridor.
Margaret led with a flashlight.
Samuel followed Arthur.
Cruz forced Vanessa ahead of her.
They reached a stairwell.
From below came the sound of boots.
From above, a door slammed.
They were trapped.
Vanessa whispered, “There’s another way.”
Arthur looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Irene showed me the hospital plans.”
“When?”
“Before you collapsed.”
Cruz pressed the gun against Vanessa’s back.
“Lead.”
Vanessa guided them through a maintenance door concealed behind a supply cabinet.
The passage descended toward the hospital’s older surgical wing.
Dust covered the floor.
Pipes rattled above them.
At the end of the tunnel, they found a locked steel gate.
Vanessa used the Zurich key.
Arthur stared at her.
“That key opens more than a deposit box.”
“Yes.”
“What’s behind the gate?”
“The original Dorian archive.”
Margaret looked around.
“Under this hospital?”
“The hospital purchased Dorian’s research facility twenty-five years ago. Most of it was sealed.”
Vanessa unlocked the gate.
Beyond it stretched a corridor lined with observation windows.
Old examination rooms stood behind the glass.
Child-sized beds remained bolted to the floors.
Arthur felt sick.
Vanessa stopped beside Room 17.
“I remember this one.”
Her voice had changed.
She touched the glass.
“They strapped Julian to that bed because he kept screaming.”
Arthur looked inside.
A faded red mark remained on the wall.
Vanessa had scratched her name into the paint.
Margaret whispered, “Eleanor kept this place intact.”
“No,” Vanessa said. “She kept it ready.”
The lights came on.
Not emergency lights.
Full power.
A speaker crackled overhead.
Eleanor’s distorted voice filled the corridor.
“Welcome home, Vanessa.”
Steel doors slammed shut at both ends.
Cruz aimed at the ceiling camera.
“Show yourself.”
A monitor activated behind the glass.
Dr. Irene Vale appeared on the screen.
She stood in an operating theater.
Beside her, tied to a chair, was Julian.
His wounded shoulder had been bandaged.
His face was bruised.
Vanessa rushed toward the monitor.
“Julian!”
He lifted his head.
“Don’t listen to her,” he shouted.
Irene stood behind him holding a syringe.
“My mother gave your family purpose,” she said.
Vanessa struck the glass.
“Eleanor destroyed us.”
“No. Arthur did.”
Arthur stepped forward.
“Where is Eleanor?”
Irene smiled.
“Closer than you think.”
Samuel looked toward the corridor cameras.
“What do you want?”
“The pages Arthur tore from the ledger.”
Arthur kept his face still.
“The pages are not here.”
“Margaret has them.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Margaret’s hand moved slowly toward her coat.
Arthur remembered the apartment.
The page had been left on the table.
Margaret must have taken it.
Irene continued.
“Place them inside Room 17, or Julian receives the same final injection planned for Arthur.”
Vanessa turned to Margaret.
“Give her the pages.”
Margaret shook her head.
“They contain the only proof tying Eleanor to the trials.”
“That is my brother.”
“He tried to kill Arthur.”
“He was manipulated.”
“So were you. Yet you still knew poison was poison.”
Vanessa lunged.
Cruz caught her.
Arthur looked at the monitor.
Irene pressed the needle against Julian’s neck.
“Thirty seconds.”
Arthur held out his hand to Margaret.
“The pages.”
“Arthur.”
“Give them to me.”
Reluctantly, she removed the folded sheets.
Arthur entered Room 17.
The door closed behind him.
A narrow slot opened in the wall.
“Insert the pages,” Irene ordered.
Arthur studied the room.
A child’s bed.
Restraints.
A drain in the floor.
A small microphone in the ceiling.
He placed the pages near the slot but did not release them.
“First, show Eleanor.”
Irene’s smile vanished.
“You are not negotiating.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Julian has twenty seconds.”
Arthur looked through the glass at Vanessa.
Her face was desperate.
He released the pages.
The slot closed.
On the monitor, Irene removed the syringe from Julian’s neck.
Vanessa exhaled.
Then a gunshot erupted inside the operating theater.
Irene fell sideways.
Julian stared at her in shock.
A second figure stepped into view.
Dr. Malcolm Holloway.
May you like
Alive.
Holding a gun.
