Chapter 4 - BED SEVEN
The hidden staircase smelled of bleach and damp stone.
Emma and Nora descended with a single flashlight between them. The cabinet door closed above their heads, sealing away every sound from the mansion.
At the bottom, a narrow corridor stretched beneath the west wing.
Seven doors lined the walls.
The first six stood open.
Each room contained an iron bed, leather restraints, and rusted medical equipment covered by white sheets.
The seventh door was locked.
Emma pressed her ear against it.
Someone was breathing inside.
“Ethan?” she whispered.
The breathing stopped.
“It’s Emma. I heard you in the hallway.”
A small voice answered.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“We’re going to help you.”
“She watches the cameras.”
Nora looked toward the ceiling.
A red light blinked above the door.
Emma raised the flashlight and struck the camera lens with its metal handle.
The glass cracked.
An alarm began beeping softly somewhere in the corridor.
“Find the key,” Emma said.
They searched the abandoned treatment rooms.
In Room Four, Nora discovered a cabinet filled with old patient files. Most names had been blacked out, but one folder was recent.
Ethan Sterling.
Emma opened it.
The first page described hallucinations, aggression, and paranoid delusions.
The signature at the bottom belonged to Dr. Conrad Vale.
The man with the medical case.
Attached photographs showed bruises around Ethan’s wrists.
The report claimed they were self-inflicted.
Another page documented a transfer to North Pines Behavioral Academy in Maine.
But the transfer date was tomorrow.
The document had not yet been signed.
“There was never a school,” Emma said.
A metal crash echoed behind the locked door.
Ethan shouted, “She’s coming!”
Footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor.
Isabella emerged from the darkness.
Dr. Vale stood behind her holding a syringe.
Isabella looked at the broken camera, the open file, and the two housekeepers.
Her expression remained almost serene.
“I warned you about curiosity.”
Nora backed away.
Emma held Ethan’s file against her chest.
“William will see this.”
“No, he won’t.”
“You locked his child underground.”
“I protected William from a dangerous boy.”
“Ethan is afraid, not dangerous.”
Isabella’s eyes sharpened.
“You know nothing about him.”
“I know you forged his transfer papers.”
Dr. Vale looked toward Isabella.
“You told me no staff member knew the entrance.”
“Apparently I overestimated their intelligence.”
Nora ran.
She made it three steps before Dr. Vale caught her and pressed the syringe into her shoulder.
Nora collapsed.
Emma lunged toward him, but Isabella seized a metal tray and struck Emma across the temple.
The corridor spun.
Emma fell beside Nora.
Through blurred vision, she saw Isabella take the patient file from her hands.
“You should have listened,” Isabella said.
Emma tried to rise.
Dr. Vale injected something into her arm.
The cold entered first.
Then darkness.
When Emma opened her eyes, she was lying on Bed Six.
Leather restraints bound her wrists and ankles.
Nora occupied the bed beside her, unconscious but breathing.
Isabella stood between them.
“You will be found tomorrow afternoon near the southern railway station,” she said. “There will be stolen jewelry in your suitcase and enough sedatives in your blood to explain your confusion.”
Emma pulled against the restraints.
“What about Ethan?”
“He will remain where he is until the celebration.”
“And the woman behind the black door?”
For the first time, Isabella’s expression cracked.
Only slightly.
But Emma saw it.
“You heard Dr. Vale,” Emma continued. “She knows William’s name.”
Isabella leaned close.
“That woman has destroyed every life she touched.”
“Who is she?”
“You will never know.”
A faint voice came through the wall behind Bed Six.
“Emma?”
It was Ethan.
“There’s a vent between the rooms,” he whispered. “I can see the buckle.”
Isabella turned toward the sound.
Emma kicked the metal tray beside the bed.
It struck Isabella’s ankle.
Isabella stumbled, and Emma screamed, “Now!”
A small hand reached through the vent near Emma’s wrist.
Ethan’s fingers pulled at the restraint buckle.
Dr. Vale rushed into the room.
Nora suddenly opened her eyes and drove her shoulder into him.
They crashed against the medicine cabinet.
Glass shattered across the floor.
Ethan loosened Emma’s restraint.
She tore her hand free and grabbed a broken metal rail.
Isabella retreated toward the corridor.
“Stop them!”
Dr. Vale caught Nora by the throat.
Emma struck his arm with the rail.
He released her.
Together, Emma and Nora ran into the corridor.
Ethan’s door remained locked.
“Go!” he cried. “Get my father!”
Emma hesitated.
“We’re not leaving you.”
“There’s another way into my room. Behind the painting.”
The alarm grew louder.
Isabella reached for the emergency lock panel.
Metal shutters began descending over the corridor exits.
Emma shoved Nora through the narrowing gap at the staircase.
Then she turned back.
Isabella stood beside Ethan’s door.
“You cannot save everyone,” she said.
May you like
Emma dove beneath the shutter as it slammed down.
On the other side, Ethan screamed her name.
