Chapter 5 - THE DOCTOR’S SON
Adrian Kessler held no weapon, but the locked door was threat enough.
Ethan moved in front of Ava. “Open it.”
Adrian looked at the three beds. “You have no idea how many years I spent wondering which one was mine.”
Ava’s gaze shifted to the label A.K. “You were treated here.”
“I was raised here.”
Adrian touched the rusted bedframe. “My father told the world I was born in Zurich. In truth, I lived beneath Blackwood House until I was eight.”
Ethan stared at him. “Why?”
“Because Silas Kessler needed a control subject.”
Ava felt cold despite the sealed room. “For the twins.”
“For all three of us.”
Adrian opened a filing cabinet and removed a folder. Inside were photographs of three young boys in identical white shirts. Their heads had been shaved. Numbers were written on boards behind them.
Ethan took the photographs with shaking hands.
One boy had Ethan’s face.
The second had nearly the same face but a small scar above the left eyebrow.
The third was Adrian.
Ethan whispered, “I remember this room.”
Adrian’s smile held no kindness. “You should. We were brought together for cognitive tests. Your father wanted to know whether identity could be transferred through conditioning.”
“That is impossible.”
“He was not interested in what was possible. He was interested in what money could make permissible.”
Ava opened another folder. The pages described memory suppression, synchronized training, blood exchange, and inheritance suitability assessments.
At the bottom of one report was Jonathan Blackwood’s signature.
“Which twin came upstairs?” Ava asked.
Adrian looked at Ethan. “That is the mystery, is it not?”
“You know.”
“I know what my father told me. But my father lied as naturally as he breathed.”
Ethan grabbed Adrian’s coat. “Where is my brother?”
Adrian did not resist. “Alive, perhaps. Dead, perhaps. Or standing in front of me pretending to be you.”
Ethan struck him.
Adrian fell against the cabinet and laughed.
Ava said, “Enough. Why did you lock us in?”
“To show you what Margaret will destroy if she finds you here.”
“Then why are you helping us?”
“I am not helping you. I am choosing the moment when all sides become weak.”
He removed a small device from his pocket and pressed it. The wall behind the beds slid open, revealing a second passage.
“Where does that lead?” Ethan asked.
“To the old treatment ward.”
Ava looked into the darkness. “The cellar.”
Adrian nodded. “Your mother sealed it after Jonathan died.”
“Is someone down there?”
Adrian’s face changed. “Sometimes I hear footsteps.”
“You have never checked?”
“I value my life.”
Ava said, “But you sent me the anonymous messages.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
A speaker hidden in the ceiling crackled.
Margaret’s voice filled the room.
“Adrian, step away from them.”
He looked up.
The lights went red.
A mechanical alarm began to pulse.
Margaret continued, “You have thirty seconds before the room seals permanently.”
Adrian ran toward the hidden passage. Ethan pushed Ava’s wheelchair after him. The wall began to close.
They crossed the threshold with seconds to spare.
The passage sloped downward beneath the mansion. Emergency lights revealed old pipes and concrete walls. The air smelled of antiseptic, damp stone, and something metallic.
Behind them, the wall sealed.
Adrian swore. “She has cut power to the upper route.”
“Is there another exit?” Ava asked.
“One.”
“Where?”
“Through the ward.”
They moved deeper underground.
At the first junction, they found a recent footprint in the dust.
Bare.
Human.
Beside it lay a pearl earring.
Ethan picked it up. “My mother was here.”
Adrian shook his head. “Not this one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Margaret wears matched pairs. This pearl belonged to someone else.”
Ava turned the earring over. A tiny letter M had been engraved on the clasp.
From the darkness ahead came a child’s voice.
“Ethan?”
The three of them stopped.
The voice came again, older now, layered with static from a hidden speaker.
May you like
“Ethan, did Mother send you?”
Then every light in the passage went out.
