Chapter 6 - The Woman Beneath the Lake
Daniel moved toward the hidden staircase.
The scarred man grabbed Emily and pressed the gun against her shoulder.
“Stop,” Evelyn said.
The voice came again.
“Daniel, don’t come down.”
Laura sounded weak but unmistakably alive.
Daniel turned to Evelyn.
“You kept her here for three years.”
“Not continuously.”
“Where is she?”
“Below us.”
“Let me see her.”
“That depends on Taylor.”
Taylor remained frozen beside the fireplace, repeating numbers under her breath. Evelyn touched her temple.
“Margaret buried the lake coordinates inside the sequence. But she divided it between two carriers.”
Daniel looked at Emily.
“No.”
Evelyn smiled.
“One mother gave half to her daughter. Another mother gave half to hers.”
“Laura never knew those numbers.”
“Not consciously.”
Daniel understood.
The red room had not been built only to erase memory.
It had been built to extract it.
Evelyn turned toward Emily.
“Tell us the story your mother taught you.”
Emily shook her head.
“I forgot.”
The scarred man tightened his grip.
Daniel stepped forward.
“I’ll kill you.”
The man looked almost amused.
Evelyn said, “His name is Dr. Silas Voss. He is the reason you survived the first treatment.”
Daniel looked at the scar.
A memory surfaced.
A clinic room.
Voss leaning over him.
Laura screaming behind a glass wall.
“You were there,” Daniel whispered.
Voss nodded.
“You were difficult to stabilize.”
Daniel launched himself toward him.
The gun fired.
The bullet struck the wooden floor.
Emily bit Voss’s hand and dropped beneath his arm. Daniel collided with him. They crashed against the table, scattering the notebook and silver key.
Taylor screamed.
Evelyn pulled a small device from her pocket and pressed a button.
A piercing tone filled the cabin.
Daniel’s vision blurred instantly.
Pain tore through his skull.
He fell to one knee.
Images exploded behind his eyes.
Laura beside the mountain road.
Evelyn driving the burned car.
A woman’s body in the passenger seat.
Daniel signing a medical document.
Emily crying behind a red door.
He heard Ortiz shout from outside.
The windows shattered.
Police entered from three directions.
Voss grabbed Emily and dragged her toward the hidden staircase. Evelyn seized Taylor.
Daniel forced himself to stand.
“Emily!”
Voss disappeared below.
Daniel followed.
Gunfire erupted upstairs.
The staircase led into a concrete tunnel. Red lights flashed along the walls. Water dripped from the ceiling.
Voss ran ahead carrying Emily.
Daniel chased them.
The tunnel ended at a steel platform overlooking an underground chamber. Dark water filled most of the cavern. The frozen lake lay above them.
A glass room had been built on a narrow ledge.
Inside it stood Laura.
Her hair was longer. Her face was thinner. A metal collar circled her neck.
But she was alive.
Daniel stopped.
For one impossible second, neither moved.
Then Laura pressed both hands against the glass.
“Emily!”
Voss reached a control panel beside the chamber.
Laura shouted, “Don’t let him open the lower gate!”
Daniel tackled Voss.
The gun slid across the platform.
Emily crawled toward the glass room.
“Mommy?”
Laura dropped to her knees on the other side.
“My baby.”
Emily touched the glass.
Laura placed her palm opposite hers.
Daniel struck Voss until the man stopped moving.
He grabbed the gun and searched for a way to open the chamber.
The silver key was gone.
He had dropped it upstairs.
Laura pointed toward the control panel.
“Red switch, then the second lever.”
Daniel followed her instructions.
The glass door released with a hiss.
Laura stumbled out.
Emily ran into her arms.
Daniel could not move.
For three years, he had imagined this reunion in dreams he never remembered after waking. Now Laura stood ten feet away, holding their daughter.
She looked at him.
“Daniel.”
He crossed the platform and wrapped both of them in his arms.
Laura’s body shook.
“I tried to come home.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice broke.
“They brought me to you twice.”
Daniel pulled back.
“What?”
“You saw me. You spoke to me. Then they erased it.”
A door slammed at the far end of the cavern.
Evelyn appeared with Taylor.
She held a knife against Taylor’s throat.
“Step away from the panel.”
Daniel raised the gun.
“Let her go.”
“Your concern for Taylor is touching.”
“I do not want another person to die.”
Evelyn looked at Laura.
“You always did make him sentimental.”
Laura shielded Emily behind her.
Ortiz’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Police! Drop the weapon!”
Evelyn pulled Taylor toward a metal bridge crossing the water.
“Come closer and I open the lower gate.”
Laura’s face changed.
“She’ll flood the chamber.”
Evelyn reached the center of the bridge.
“Taylor, finish the sequence.”
“I don’t know it.”
“You do.”
Evelyn hummed the six-note melody.
Taylor’s eyes lost focus again.
She began reciting numbers.
A machinery system beneath the water came alive.
Daniel saw a huge circular door opening below the surface.
Water rushed into a lower passage.
The entire cavern shook.
Laura grabbed Daniel’s arm.
“She isn’t opening a floodgate.”
“What is it?”
“The entrance.”
“To what?”
Laura looked toward the dark water.
“The Archive.”
Something massive moved beneath the lake.
Not a machine.
Not entirely.
A row of lights appeared deep below the surface, forming a circle around a structure that should not have fit beneath the mountain.
May you like
Evelyn smiled.
“After thirty years, the Mercer door is finally awake.”
