Chapter 24 - THE CHILD IN ROOM NINECassandra’s heart had stopped for two minutes and twelve seconds when the system rejected her as a destabilizing source.
Julian revived her.
She gasped awake, but Victor’s device remained active.
Successor D existed.
Nathaniel accessed the tower’s oldest medical records.
A neonatal transport had left the safe house on the night Amelia lost the pregnancy.
Destination: St. Catherine’s Research Hospital.
The hospital had closed six years earlier.
Orpheus records continued from an underground ward known only as Room Nine.
Theodore looked at Nathaniel.
“You knew she was pregnant. Did you see the body?”
“No.”
“Then why did you tell her the child died?”
“Helena showed me a death report.”
Elias laughed without humor.
“A Hart document.”
Amelia felt fury rising, but she forced it down.
Victor was escaping.
Her child—if alive—had spent seven years inside the system.
They tracked the black device to a helicopter leaving the tower roof.
It flew north.
Toward St. Catherine’s.
Samuel arranged transportation while federal teams secured Cassandra and Theodore.
Julian insisted on joining Amelia.
Elias refused to let him out of sight.
Nathaniel stood apart from her near the helicopter.
“I believed the report.”
“You also believed I should forget.”
“You asked me to help.”
“You could have searched for the truth.”
“I did.”
Amelia looked at him.
“For how long?”
“Every day for seven years.”
He showed her a file stored beneath his wedding ring. The metal band contained encrypted records from dozens of hospitals, adoption networks and Orpheus facilities.
He had never stopped looking.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because each time I found nothing, I would have forced you to lose the child again.”
Amelia looked away.
She was not ready to forgive him.
But she no longer believed his silence came from indifference.
At St. Catherine’s, they found the hospital dark and apparently abandoned.
Room Nine lay beneath the old maternity wing.
The door opened to Amelia’s blood sample.
Inside were children’s drawings.
Most showed a woman in a military uniform standing beside a tall man.
One drawing had been signed:
LUCY.
Age seven.
Amelia touched the paper.
Nathaniel stood behind her.
On the opposite wall was a photograph of a young girl with dark hair and Nathaniel’s blue eyes.
A nurse entered carrying an empty syringe.
She froze when she saw Amelia.
“You were not supposed to arrive before Victor.”
“Where is Lucy?”
The nurse backed toward the alarm.
Elias blocked her.
“Answer.”
The nurse looked at Amelia.
“She has been waiting for her mother.”
A small voice came through the ventilation speaker.
“Not that mother.”
A hidden door opened.
A girl stood behind it.
May you like
She held a gun with both hands.
It was aimed at Amelia.
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