Chapter 22 - Beatrice Opened the Door and Asked Elena to Kill HerElena regained consciousness in the old operating theater.
Lucy sat across from her, chained at the ankles.
For several seconds, neither sister spoke.
Then Elena crossed the room and held her.
Lucy felt real.
Thin, scarred, and trembling.
But real.
“I thought I invented you,” Elena said.
“That was the intention.”
Lucy remembered every year.
After Saint Orison took them, Elena had been conditioned for family placement. Lucy remained useful because she could recite the First House Record.
When Lucy resisted, Bernadette threatened Elena.
When Elena escaped with infant Lily, Lucy allowed herself to be declared dead to protect them.
“I watched you from a distance,” Lucy said. “I knew Lily’s schools, illnesses, and birthdays. Beatrice sent photographs.”
Elena pulled back. “Why would Beatrice help?”
The operating room door opened.
Beatrice entered carrying a pistol.
Blood covered her sleeve from a wound near her shoulder.
“Because I started the fire,” she said. “And I have been trying to undo it ever since.”
At twelve, Beatrice set the Vale house ablaze under Bernadette’s orders. She believed the house was empty.
It was not.
Lucy saved Elena. Their mother died in the cellar.
Bernadette used Beatrice’s guilt to control her.
Years later, Beatrice sabotaged experiments, falsified deaths, and built hidden paths through the archive. She had sent token 317 because Lucy could no longer survive inside the First House.
“Why threaten Lily?” Elena demanded.
“The calls were Bernadette. The photograph at Belladonna was mine.”
“You entered the restaurant?”
“No.”
Beatrice looked frightened for the first time.
“There is another Carter subject working for her.”
Footsteps approached.
Beatrice gave Elena the pistol.
“You must shoot me.”
Elena stared at her.
“Bernadette monitors my pulse. If she thinks I am alive and disloyal, she seals the building.”
Lucy pointed toward Beatrice’s coat. “The blood pack.”
Beatrice nodded.
The gun contained a blank. Elena had to fire while Beatrice triggered the pack and slowed her pulse with medication.
“I will not perform another one of your family’s experiments,” Elena said.
“This is not an experiment. It is the only way to open the child wing.”
A camera above them rotated.
Beatrice raised her voice.
“You were always weak, Eleanor.”
Elena understood.
She aimed at Beatrice’s chest.
The gunshot echoed through the theater.
Beatrice fell.
A green light appeared above the eastern door.
CHILD WING UNLOCKED.
Elena and Lucy ran.
Behind them, Beatrice opened her eyes.
The monitor above the door displayed a message neither woman saw.
May you like
SECOND DEATH ACCEPTED.
Then a hand emerged from beneath the operating table and dragged Beatrice into darkness.
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