Chapter 6 - The Poisoned Air
The sickly sweet smell of the gas filled the locked study almost instantly.
Ethan instinctively pulled his jacket over Noah’s face to filter the air.
“Claire, the windows!” Ethan shouted over the hiss of the vents.
Claire grabbed a heavy bronze bookend from the desk and swung it with all her strength.
The reinforced glass did not even crack.
“It’s impact-resistant!” Claire coughed, her eyes watering rapidly.
Ethan looked around the room in absolute desperation.
His vision was already beginning to blur at the edges.
He remembered something Eleanor had told him years ago when they bought the house.
The original owner had built a secret dumbwaiter to transport files to the basement.
Ethan dropped to the floor and crawled toward the massive oak bookcase.
He found the hidden latch behind a row of encyclopedias and yanked it hard.
A small wooden panel slid open, revealing a dark, narrow shaft.
“Put him inside!” Ethan choked out, his lungs burning.
Claire lifted Noah and pushed him into the small wooden box.
“I can’t fit!” Claire cried, her legs beginning to give out.
Ethan grabbed her by the waist and practically shoved her into the tight space with the boy.
“Pull the rope!” Ethan commanded.
He hit the manual release lever, and the dumbwaiter plummeted downward into the darkness.
Ethan tried to squeeze himself into the shaft, but his massive shoulders wouldn't fit.
The gas was unbearably thick now.
He collapsed onto the floor, gasping for clean oxygen that wasn't there.
The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the heavy mahogany door unlocking.
Dr. Vance stepped into the room wearing a black gas mask.
He held a long, silver syringe in his gloved hand.
When Ethan finally opened his eyes, he was no longer in the study.
He was strapped to a cold steel medical table.
The room was blindingly bright, smelling of strong antiseptics and bleach.
Margaret stood over him, holding a tablet computer.
“You are much stronger than your wife was, Ethan,” Margaret said casually.
Ethan struggled against the thick leather restraints, his muscles completely unresponsive.
“Where is my son?” he growled, spitting blood onto his own chin.
Margaret sighed and tapped the screen of her tablet.
“Noah is perfectly safe in the extraction room.”
“It is finally time for his harvest.”
Margaret leaned in close, her eyes completely dead.
“Did you really think you were the one who hired me, Ethan?”
“I have been preparing this child for my true employer since the day he was born.”
She turned a large monitor toward the medical table.
The screen displayed a live video feed of Noah lying unconscious in a surgical suite.
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Standing next to the boy, holding a scalpel, was a man Ethan hadn't seen in ten years.
It was Ethan’s own brother, Julian.
