Chapter 14 - The Choice No One Could Make for Her
Dr. Reed examined Anna on a laboratory table.
The bleeding was limited but concerning.
The fetal heartbeat remained strong.
“We need to leave,” Lena said.
“The elevator is blocked.”
“There must be another exit.”
Sylvia searched the control system.
“Grant’s team will reach us in twelve minutes.”
Camille looked at the silver cup stored inside an evidence case.
“The formula.”
Dr. Reed shook her head.
“We don’t know whether it stabilizes the pregnancy or activates something dangerous.”
“What happens if she does nothing?” Camille asked.
“We monitor her and find legitimate medical care.”
“We are trapped underground.”
Anna listened to them arguing.
For months, every person around her had treated her body as a place where decisions could be made without her.
Aaron.
Sylvia.
Kessler.
Even Dr. Reed and Camille, despite their desire to save her, spoke as though she were absent.
“Stop,” Anna said.
No one heard.
She sat up.
“Stop!”
The room became silent.
Anna looked at Dr. Reed.
“Tell me only what you know.”
“The pregnancy is experiencing stress. The cause could be physical exertion, trauma, chemical withdrawal or the engineered vector Kessler described.”
“Can you test the cup?”
“Not fully in forty minutes.”
“Can you determine whether it contains the same poison Sylvia gave me?”
“Yes.”
They ran an emergency analysis.
The silver liquid contained sedatives and heavy metals, but it also held a second sealed compound inside microscopic lipid capsules.
Dr. Reed isolated it.
“This portion resembles a viral gene-delivery system.”
“The seventh formula?” Anna asked.
“No. Something modified from it.”
“Could it save the baby?”
“It could also harm both of you.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“Then I won’t drink it.”
Sylvia stared at her.
“You may lose the child.”
“It is my decision.”
“But Julian’s line—”
Anna stood and slapped the cup from Sylvia’s hand.
It rolled across the floor.
“This is not Julian. This is not Rebecca. This is not your inheritance. This is my pregnancy.”
Sylvia’s face hardened.
“Without that child, everything ends.”
“Then let it end.”
A blast shook the corridor.
Grant’s men had reached the security door.
Aaron’s voice came through the monitor.
“There’s an emergency ventilation route behind the J-Series freezers.”
Kessler grabbed his hair and pulled his head back.
“You’ve become disappointing.”
Aaron looked into the camera.
“I learned from my family.”
Lena and Camille moved the freezers.
Behind them was a maintenance hatch.
Dr. Reed guided Anna inside first.
Sylvia remained beside the controls.
“Aren’t you coming?” Camille asked.
“Someone must keep the hatch open.”
“You expect us to believe you’ll sacrifice yourself?”
Sylvia smiled faintly.
“No. I expect you to believe I dislike Malcolm more than I fear death.”
She activated the laboratory purge system.
Warning lights turned blue.
A digital timer appeared.
Ten minutes.
Grant’s team broke through the outer door.
Sylvia locked the inner chamber behind Anna and the others.
Camille stared at her through the glass.
“Tell me where Julian is.”
Sylvia placed her palm against the barrier.
“I don’t know.”
“Then give me one reason not to leave you here.”
Sylvia’s lips trembled.
“Because the night he disappeared, he called you Mama.”
Camille closed her eyes.
For thirty years, she had waited to hear that her son remembered her.
Sylvia turned away before Camille could answer.
Anna crawled through the ventilation route.
The pain in her abdomen increased.
Behind them, gunfire erupted.
The timer reached five minutes.
The passage split in two directions.
One route led toward the surface.
The other led toward the surgical room where Aaron was being held.
Lena pointed upward.
“We have to get Anna out.”
Camille looked toward the second tunnel.
“We can’t leave Aaron.”
“He helped them abuse her.”
“He also stayed behind at the church.”
Anna leaned against the wall, struggling to breathe.
Everyone looked at her.
For the first time, they waited for her decision.
“Surface first,” she said. “Then we expose everything.”
A distant scream echoed from the surgical wing.
Aaron.
Anna stopped.
The facility shook again.
The ceiling cracked.
She looked toward the surface passage.
Then toward Aaron’s voice.
“No,” she whispered.
Dr. Reed caught her arm.
“Anna, you cannot save everyone.”
“I know.”
May you like
She turned toward the surgical wing.
“But I decide who I try to save.”
