Chapter 9 - The Boy With Ethan’s Face
Sarah and Margaret reached the hospital shortly after midnight.
Ethan’s room was empty.
The bed had been stripped.
His name had disappeared from the electronic board.
Sarah ran to the nurses’ station.
“Where is my son?”
The receptionist searched the system.
“I don’t see an Ethan Carter admitted.”
“He has been here for four days.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Nurse Elena Ruiz was not on duty.
Dr. Reeves did not answer his pager.
Sarah called Daniel repeatedly.
His phone was turned off.
Margaret grabbed Sarah’s arm.
“Cameras.”
A hospital security camera pointed toward Ethan’s former room.
They went to the security office and demanded the footage. The guard refused until Margaret claimed she had seen someone carrying a weapon.
While the guard called his supervisor, Sarah saw a monitor displaying recorded feeds.
At 11:42 p.m., two orderlies wheeled Ethan through a service corridor.
A young man walked beside them.
He was approximately twenty years old, tall and thin, with dark hair and Ethan’s eyes.
The same man Ethan had described.
Sarah photographed the screen.
The group entered an elevator labeled RESEARCH WING.
The research wing occupied three restricted floors funded by Mercer Biotech.
Sarah and Margaret took the public elevator as high as possible, then found a stairwell.
At the entrance to the research floor, they discovered Elena’s identification badge taped beneath the handrail.
A message had been written on the back.
LAB 3. TRUST NO ONE WEARING BLUE.
They entered using Elena’s badge.
The corridor beyond was silent.
Medical staff in blue uniforms moved behind glass walls.
Sarah avoided them.
Lab 3 was unlocked.
Inside, Ethan lay unconscious on a hospital bed. Electrodes covered his chest. An intravenous line ran into his arm.
The young man stood beside him.
He turned as Sarah entered.
Up close, the resemblance was undeniable.
He had the same gray-green eyes, the same curve of the mouth, and the same faint indentation in the chin.
“Who are you?” Sarah asked.
He looked terrified.
“My name is Noah Sloan.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
“Rebecca’s son?”
Noah nodded.
Sarah looked from Noah to Ethan.
“Then who is Ethan?”
Noah’s expression changed.
“That’s what they brought me here to find out.”
He lifted his sleeve.
Fresh needle marks covered his arm.
“They said I might be a donor match.”
“For Ethan?”
“For my brother.”
Sarah felt dizzy.
“Your brother?”
Noah held up an old photograph.
It showed Rebecca Sloan cradling two newborn boys.
Not one.
Two.
“Rebecca had twins,” he said.
Sarah struggled to understand.
“Then one of these babies is Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the other baby born that night?”
Noah looked at her carefully.
“The Carter baby?”
“My son.”
“He didn’t die.”
Sarah moved closer.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know where he is now.”
“Now?”
“I lived with him for twelve years.”
Every sound in the laboratory seemed to vanish.
Noah continued.
“We were raised in a Halcyon residential facility. They told us we were orphans. There were six children in the program.”
“Tell me his name.”
“They called him Subject Seven.”
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears.
“What did he look like?”
Noah handed her a second photograph.
Two boys stood beside a concrete wall.
One was Noah at age twelve.
The other boy had Sarah’s dark hair.
Around his neck hung half of a silver heart.
Sarah had owned the matching half since she was sixteen.
Daniel had placed it in her hospital bag before she went into labor.
Her son was alive.
May you like
A lock clicked behind them.
Daniel entered Lab 3 holding a gun.
