“Sir, do you need a maid? I can do anything. Please. My daughter is starving.”

The drainage tunnel was suffocatingly tight, forcing us to crawl on our hands and knees through cold, rushing water. The smell of mildew and wet decay was overwhelming, but Claire moved forward with terrifying focus, guided by the memory of her desperate escape days prior.

After fifty yards of agonizing crawling, the narrow concrete pipe opened into a larger brick drainage chamber directly beneath the historic chapel. Up above, the rusted iron frame where the grate had been pried open hung loosely from the ceiling.

I reached up, grabbed the edge of the brickwork, and hauled myself up into the room above, then reached down and pulled Claire up beside me.

We were standing in the abandoned boiler room of the St. Jude Facility. The air was warm and heavy, smelling of coal dust and ancient rust. Massive iron pipes ran along the low ceiling, whistling faintly as steam hissed from cracked valves.

“This way,” Claire whispered, taking my hand and guiding me toward a thick, fireproof steel door at the far end of the boiler room.

She stepped up to the digital keycard scanner beside the door, pulled a stolen keycard from her damp pocket—one she had managed to swipe from a nurse during her escape—and swiped it through the reader.

The reader chimed green, and the heavy door unlocked with a soft click.

We slipped into the sub-basement corridor.

The contrast was jarring. Leaving behind the dilapidated, industrial decay of the boiler room, we were now standing in a pristine, state-of-the-art medical corridor. White linoleum floors glistened under blinding fluorescent strip lighting. The walls were painted a sterile light blue, lined with digital monitors, medical supply carts, and sealed glass observation rooms.

It looked less like a hospital and more like a secret research facility built deep underground.

“Where is he?” I whispered, scanning the empty hall.

“Cell 01,” Claire whispered, pointing down the long corridor toward a set of reinforced double doors marked RESTRICTED MEDICAL ACCESS. “They keep him under 24-hour sedation. There are usually two medical technicians and a security guard posted outside.”

We crept down the hallway, using the recessed doorways of empty rooms for cover. Through small observation windows, I saw rows of sophisticated lab equipment, rows of filing cabinets, and chemical storage units. Eleanor hadn't just built a prison here; she had funded an entire off-grid medical facility to keep her secrets buried.

As we approached Cell 01, I heard the muffled murmur of voices from around the corner.

I peaked around the frame. Sitting at a high desk in front of a heavy reinforced glass wall were two men in white lab coats and a uniformed guard with a holster at his hip. They were watching a soccer match on a small portable TV, completely unaware that we were in the building.

Inside the glass room behind them lay my father, hooked up to an array of IV drips, heart monitors, and artificial respirators.

My blood boiled.

I looked at Claire and gave her a sharp nod.

I stepped around the corner, raising the pistol. “Don't move! Hands on your heads! Now!”

clear command shattered the quiet room. The security guard panicked, reaching instinctively for his holster.

I didn't hesitate. I squeezed the trigger once. The suppressed round struck the guard in the shoulder, knocking him backward off his chair with a loud grunt. The two medical technicians screamed, dropping to their knees instantly with their hands clasped over their heads.

“Keycards! On the desk! Now!” I ordered, moving quickly to secure the guard’s weapon and kicking it down the hall.

One of the technicians, trembling violently, grabbed a blue master keycard from his belt and slid it across the floor to me.

Claire picked it up and rushed to the central control console, her fingers flying across the touchscreens. “I’m disabling the sedation drip! I’m flushing his system with a reversal agent!”

I swiped the keycard across the lock of Cell 01. The heavy glass door slid open with a soft hiss of air.

I stepped inside the room.

The steady, rhythmic beep... beep... beep... of the heart monitor was the only sound in the small room.

I walked slowly to the side of the bed. The man lying there looked so fragile, his long white hair spread across the pillow, his skin pale and thin like parchment. But as the reversal medication began to cycle through his IV line, his eyelids fluttered.

His breathing changed, becoming deeper, more ragged.

Slowly, painfully, his dark brown eyes opened. He blinked against the harsh fluorescent light, trying to focus his blurred vision.

He turned his head slowly, looking up at me.

“...Daniel?” he whispered, his voice nothing more than a dry, rasping croak, untouched by human speech for years.

Tears spilled down my face, hot and fast. I dropped the pistol onto the bed, wrapped my hands around my father’s trembling, bony hand, and squeezed it with everything I had.

“Dad,” I choked out, sinking to my knees beside his bed. “It’s me. It’s Daniel. I’m here. I’m taking you home.”

My father’s fingers tightened weakly around mine, his eyes welling with huge, heavy tears. “You... you grew up... my boy...”

Before we could say another word, the emergency alarms throughout the entire facility suddenly began to blare—a screeching, high-pitched siren accompanied by flashing red strobe lights.

Over the intercom system, a voice echoed with terrifying, unmistakable authority: