Chapter 8 - The Boy Who Fought Back
Ethan fell to his knees in the doorway of the surgical suite.
Noah dropped the heavy red fire extinguisher, his small chest heaving violently.
“He was going to cut me, Dad,” the boy whispered, his voice trembling with shock.
Ethan crawled across the blood-slicked tiles and pulled his son into a desperate embrace.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” Ethan sobbed, burying his face in Noah’s neck.
“I’ve got you.”
Claire rushed past them, checking Julian’s pulse.
“He is dead,” she confirmed, her voice utterly devoid of sympathy.
She looked around the horrifying underground operating room.
“Where is Dr. Vance?” Claire asked, suddenly realizing the physician was missing.
A loud, metallic alarm began blaring through the hidden bunker.
Red emergency lights flashed aggressively from the ceiling.
“He initiated the lockdown protocol,” Ethan realized, pulling Noah to his feet.
“He is going to trap us down here and flood the bunker with gas.”
Ethan scooped his son into his arms, entirely ignoring the lingering weakness from the paralytics.
They sprinted back down the concrete hallway, leaving Julian’s body behind.
They passed the room where Claire had struck Margaret, but the space was entirely empty.
Margaret had vanished.
“We need to find the manual override switch for the blast doors,” Claire yelled over the alarm.
They reached the end of the corridor, facing a massive steel vault door that was slowly sliding shut.
Ethan pushed Claire and Noah through the narrowing gap just in time.
He tried to squeeze through, but the heavy steel clamped down firmly on his shoulder.
The crushing pressure was absolute agony.
“Dad!” Noah screamed, grabbing Ethan’s hand from the other side.
Claire grabbed Ethan’s belt and pulled with every ounce of strength she had left.
With a sickening tearing of fabric and skin, Ethan slipped through the gap.
The blast door sealed shut with a deafening boom.
They were on the other side, standing in the basement of the main house.
They hurried up the stairs, bursting into the grand foyer.
The estate was eerily quiet, the blaring alarms muted beneath the heavy floorboards.
Ethan grabbed his car keys from the silver bowl near the front door.
“We are going to the police station right now,” Ethan declared.
He threw the front doors open, expecting to see the empty driveway.
Instead, his front lawn was entirely surrounded by heavily armed men in black tactical gear.
They were not police officers.
They wore the insignia of Caldwell Meridian, Ethan’s own private security firm.
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Dr. Vance stood perfectly safe behind a line of armed guards.
“You really shouldn't have killed the boss, Ethan,” Vance said with a chilling smile.
