Chapter 6 - THE VOICE IN THE WALLS
In the darkness, Ava heard Ethan breathing beside her.
Adrian whispered, “Do not answer.”
The unseen voice repeated Ethan’s name.
It sounded young and old at once, as though recordings from different years had been stitched together.
Ava turned on her phone light. The beam revealed a speaker mounted high in the concrete. Wires disappeared into the wall.
“A recording,” Ethan said.
“Maybe,” Adrian replied.
Ava rolled closer. Beneath the speaker, someone had scratched a sentence into the wall.
HE ANSWERS IN YOUR VOICE.
The passage ended at a steel door. Adrian entered a six digit code. The lock rejected it.
“My father’s code,” he muttered.
Ethan examined the keypad. “Try our birth date.”
“Which birth time?” Ava asked.
Ethan looked at her.
Ava remembered the newspaper correction. “The public record was changed. Two babies, two times.”
Adrian entered 040311 for 4:03 and 4:11.
The lock clicked.
Beyond the door lay the abandoned treatment ward.
Rows of observation windows lined a central corridor. Most were cracked. Inside the rooms stood restraint chairs, medical cabinets, and narrow beds bolted to the floor. The equipment was old, but not all of it was dead. A monitor in the far room blinked with green light.
Someone had been using power.
Ava’s phone lost signal.
They reached the monitor. It displayed a live image of the executive office upstairs. Margaret stood behind the desk speaking with Charles Wren.
Charles paced. “They found the records room.”
“I know.”
“You should have destroyed it years ago.”
“I destroyed what mattered.”
“What about the original report?”
Margaret touched the desk drawer. “Still sealed.”
Charles lowered his voice. “And the patient?”
Margaret looked directly toward the hidden camera, as though she could see them watching.
“The patient is becoming impatient.”
The screen went black.
Ethan said, “She knows we are here.”
Adrian opened a drawer beneath the monitor and found fresh syringes, food packets, and a stack of newspapers from the past month.
Ava picked up the most recent paper. Several articles about Ethan had been circled. In the margins, someone had copied his signature again and again.
Then she found photographs of herself.
Ava leaving rehabilitation.
Ava entering the board office.
Ava asleep in the garden.
On the back of one photograph was written:
SHE MAKES HIM WEAK.
Ethan’s face darkened. “Who took these?”
A metal scrape sounded behind the observation glass.
A figure moved in the next room.
Ethan approached the glass. “Hello?”
A man stepped into view.
He wore a hood and held a surgical blade.
Adrian whispered, “Run.”
The man struck the glass once.
Twice.
On the third strike, it shattered.
Ethan pulled Ava’s chair backward as the man climbed through. Adrian grabbed a metal tray and swung it. The attacker ducked, slashed Adrian’s arm, and rushed toward Ethan.
They fought in the corridor, crashing into cabinets. Ethan tore away the hood.
The attacker was not his twin.
He was Thomas Reed.
Ava stared. “Thomas?”
His eyes looked unfocused. A fresh injection mark marked his neck.
“I am sorry,” he said through clenched teeth. “She has my daughter.”
Ethan twisted the blade from his hand.
Thomas collapsed against the wall. “Margaret said she would stop the treatment.”
“Whose treatment?” Ava asked.
“My daughter’s. She never had cancer. Kessler made her sick to keep me loyal.”
Adrian went pale. “What did you say?”
Thomas looked at him. “Your clinic poisoned her for twelve years.”
Adrian’s expression cracked. “I never knew.”
“None of you ever know,” Thomas spat. “That is how this family survives.”
The speaker crackled again.
Margaret’s voice said, “Thomas, you have failed me.”
A hiss began inside the vents.
Adrian smelled the air. “Sedative gas.”
They pushed through the next door. Thomas staggered after them. The corridor divided.
One path led to a stairwell marked WEST TOWER.
The other led deeper underground toward a door labeled PATIENT E.
Ethan looked at Ava.
She knew which path he wanted.
Before either could speak, the door to Patient E opened from the inside.
May you like
A hand appeared around the edge.
On its wrist was the same childhood scar Ethan carried beneath his watch.
