Chapter 8 - The Child in the Black Car
Emily did not remember crossing the hallway.
One moment, she was beside Elaine’s bed.
The next, she had Peter against the wall with his own gun pressed beneath his chin.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Helen has her.”
“She sent me the video.”
Emily pushed the weapon harder.
“Where would she take Maisie?”
“Emily,” Beck said behind her. “We need him conscious.”
She released Peter.
He slid down the wall, coughing.
Outside, the gunfire had stopped.
Beck’s team secured the cottage, but Helen and several guests had escaped through the main estate.
Security footage showed a black car leaving the south gate four minutes earlier.
Traffic cameras captured it heading toward the private airfield.
Beck ordered roadblocks.
Emily stayed beside Elaine while medics examined her.
Elaine was severely malnourished and heavily sedated, but stable.
Harrison’s condition was worse.
As paramedics prepared to move him, he pressed a silver pendant into Emily’s hand.
“Your father gave this to me.”
Inside was a tiny strip of transparent material covered in microscopic markings.
“What is it?”
“The first half of Eos.”
“Where is the second?”
Harrison looked toward Elaine.
“She hid it.”
Elaine was barely conscious.
When Emily asked about the formula, she whispered one word.
“Maisie.”
Peter stood under guard near the cottage door.
Emily walked toward him.
“You recorded that video four months ago.”
“Yes.”
“You knew they wanted her blood.”
“I thought I could stop the transfer.”
“By humiliating me?”
“By getting you out of the house before Helen’s people arrived.”
“You could have told me at the front door.”
“The house records everything.”
“You could have followed us.”
“She ordered me to get Maisie back.”
“And you obeyed.”
Peter looked at the ground.
“I delayed the custody order as long as I could.”
“You still filed it.”
“I thought Beck would intervene.”
Emily struck him across the face.
The sound silenced the room.
Peter did not defend himself.
“You do not get credit for hoping another man would save the daughter you betrayed.”
A federal agent approached Beck.
“The vehicle reached Halston Airfield. The gate camera shows Deputy Director Evelyn Cross in the passenger seat.”
Beck looked stunned despite already knowing she was involved.
“Did they board a plane?”
“No aircraft departed. The car left through the east service road.”
“Where does that road lead?”
Emily already knew.
“Orison’s abandoned research campus.”
The facility stood thirty miles north of the city.
Officially, it had closed after a contamination incident.
Unofficially, Carter Vale still paid utilities on two underground buildings.
The financial records on Grant’s drive proved it.
Beck gathered the tactical team.
Peter stepped forward.
“I know how to enter.”
Emily turned.
“You’re staying under arrest.”
“There’s a retinal scanner at the lower entrance. Helen registered my eyes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was supposed to bring Maisie there after the transfer.”
Emily wanted to refuse.
But Maisie was somewhere inside that facility.
They left Peter handcuffed inside the armored vehicle.
As the convoy traveled north, Emily sat across from him.
“Tell me everything you know.”
Peter swallowed.
“Helen believes Elaine’s compound can revolutionize battlefield medicine. Blood could be stored for years without refrigeration.”
“That could save millions of lives.”
“It could.”
“But?”
“The early version caused rapid cell mutation in some recipients.”
Emily remembered Beck’s mention of dead trauma patients.
“Orison buried the results.”
“Your mother changed the compound to prevent the mutation. She never wrote down the activation sequence.”
“She placed it in our bloodline.”
Peter nodded.
“The marker passes from mother to daughter.”
“Then I have it too.”
“Part of it. Helen believes pregnancy activates a second protein expression in the next generation.”
“Maisie.”
“Yes.”
Emily’s hands clenched.
Peter leaned forward despite his cuffs.
“I never let them test her.”
“You gave them her medical records.”
“I altered the blood samples.”
Emily stared at him.
“What?”
“The samples they tested were mine.”
That explained why Helen still needed Maisie.
Peter continued.
“I thought if I convinced them she didn’t carry the marker, they would leave her alone. But Helen discovered what I did.”
“When?”
“The day before you returned.”
“And that is when she ordered the fake DNA report?”
“Yes.”
The convoy slowed.
A burning vehicle blocked the road ahead.
Agents exited.
Beck’s radio crackled.
Then every light in the convoy went dark.
An electromagnetic pulse rolled through the vehicles.
In the sudden silence, the rear doors unlocked.
Peter looked at Emily.
May you like
“Get down.”
The windows exploded inward.
