Chapter 4 - The Motel Room
Shards of broken glass rained down onto the backseat like violent winter hail.
Elias swerved his vehicle violently to the left, narrowly missing a massive transport truck.
The menacing black SUV lost its traction for a fraction of a second on the slick asphalt.
It spun wildly out of control, crashing head-on into the solid concrete barrier.
Elias did not slow down to check the wreckage.
He drove in terrified silence for two straight hours until they reached the barren edge of the city.
He pulled into a cheap, neon-lit motel positioned on the side of the desolate highway.
He paid the sleepy clerk in crumpled cash and carried Lily safely into room number four.
The small room smelled heavily of stale cigarette smoke and cheap lemon cleaning supplies.
Lily sat quietly on the edge of the lumpy mattress, clutching her yellow backpack tightly.
“Are the bad men finally gone?” she asked with tears in her eyes.
“We are perfectly safe for now,” Elias lied smoothly to comfort her.
He locked the heavy brass deadbolt and pulled the dusty curtains completely shut.
He finally sat down at the small table and opened Anna’s leather diary once again.
He skipped the mundane older entries and focused entirely on the newest pages.
The frantic writing detailed a massive global conspiracy involving the exact pharmaceutical company Elias used to work for.
Apex Pharmaceuticals had never been developing legitimate medical cures.
They had been secretly developing a deadly neural weapon, and Anna had accidentally found the encrypted blueprints.
Elias quickly flipped the page to read the next entry.
A folded glossy photograph suddenly slipped out from the binding and fluttered to the dirty carpet.
Elias leaned down and picked it up.
It was a perfectly clear picture of himself, sitting peacefully on a park bench.
The digital date stamp printed on the bottom corner was from yesterday afternoon.
He had firmly believed he was completely alone in that empty public park.
But deeply hidden in the background of the photo, a strange man with a severely scarred face was watching him.
Elias curiously flipped the photograph over to check the back.
May you like
Anna had hastily scribbled a single, terrifying warning in red ink.
The message read, "They artificially wiped your memory, Elias; you were never in a car crash."
