Chapter 5 - Ten Minutes
Emergency lights flashed red along the walls.
I heard furniture crashing downstairs.
Someone screamed.
I dropped to the floor.
The remote.
I needed the remote.
My hand swept beneath the table.
Glass.
Metal.
Nothing.
Then my fingers touched plastic.
Another hand grabbed it at the same moment.
My mother.
We pulled.
“Let go,” she hissed.
“You first.”
She dug her nails into my hand.
I twisted the remote.
It slipped.
The guard returned.
He grabbed my shoulder.
Then a heavy impact sounded behind me.
The guard collapsed.
Elias stood there.
Bleeding from the forehead.
“How did you get up here?”
“Service stairs.”
“Sophie?”
“With the restaurant manager.”
“Camille?”
“Gone.”
Of course.
My mother crawled toward the remote.
Elias kicked it away.
It struck the wall.
The casing cracked.
A small circuit board slid loose.
Eleanor stared.
Then she laughed.
“You idiots.”
Elias froze.
“What?”
“That controller was only the interface.”
He looked toward Sophie’s scanner.
His face changed.
“The transmitter.”
My mother smiled.
“Is elsewhere.”
I grabbed her.
“Where?”
She said nothing.
I tightened my grip.
“Where?”
Her smile widened.
“Ask Camille.”
We ran downstairs.
Sophie sat in the wheelchair near the kitchen entrance.
Her face was pale.
The restaurant had been evacuated.
Only security remained.
Elias checked her spine.
“Signal increasing.”
“How long?”
“Ninety seconds.”
My heart stopped.
“Can you stop it?”
“If I find the transmitter.”
I looked around.
“Camille!”
No answer.
Then Sophie whispered.
“She took my bag.”
“What?”
“My backpack.”
Why would Camille—
Elias understood first.
“The transmitter could be inside something that stays near Sophie.”
I thought of every hospital visit.
Every therapy session.
Every family dinner.
Camille often carried Sophie’s bag.
“Find it!”
Security scattered.
Sophie grabbed my hand.
“Dad, I’m scared.”
I knelt.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to lose my legs again.”
“You won’t.”
I had no right to promise.
But I did.
Because fathers sometimes have to lend their children certainty even when they have none left.
A security guard shouted from the corridor.
“Found the bag!”
He threw it toward us.
Elias emptied it.
Books.
Headphones.
Water bottle.
A stuffed rabbit.
Then he stopped.
The rabbit.
Sophie’s favorite toy since her surgery.
Camille had given it to her.
Elias ripped the seam.
Inside was a black transmitter.
My stomach turned.
It had been beside my daughter every day.
Elias pulled out wires.
“Thirty seconds.”
Sophie started shaking.
“Dad.”
“I’m here.”
Elias disconnected one lead.
Nothing.
Another.
Nothing.
“Ten seconds.”
I looked at him.
“Do something!”
“I am!”
Sophie screamed.
Then—
Silence.
Her body went limp.
I thought she was dead.
“Sophie?”
No response.
“Sophie!”
Elias pressed fingers to her neck.
Then exhaled.
“She has a pulse.”
I nearly collapsed.
“Did you stop it?”
He looked at the scanner.
The red numbers dropped.
Slowly.
Then turned green.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in two years, I cried without trying to hide it.
Sophie opened her eyes.
“Dad?”
I laughed through tears.
“I’m here.”
“My legs…”
“What?”
“I can feel the floor.”
Elias stared at her feet.
“Move your toes.”
She tried.
Her right big toe twitched.
Then the others.
Sophie gasped.
I covered my mouth.
“Again.”
She did.
Both feet moved.
Small.
Weak.
But real.
Elias smiled for the first time.
“The nerves weren’t destroyed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the paralysis may have been maintained artificially.”
Sophie looked at me.
“I can walk again?”
Elias’s expression grew cautious.
“With rehabilitation, maybe.”
She smiled.
A real smile.
Then security rushed in.
“Mr. Voss.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Camille escaped.”
My relief vanished.
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
Another guard handed me a phone.
“There’s also something you need to hear.”
He played a voicemail sent to the restaurant manager’s office.
Camille’s voice.
“Adrian, Eleanor lied to both of us. Rebecca is not the only person who left evidence. If you want the truth about your wife’s death, meet me at St. Matthew’s Hospital before midnight.”
I checked the time.
11:21.
Elias looked at me.
“That hospital shut down years ago.”
“I know.”
It was where Sophie had undergone surgery.
And suddenly I understood.
The story had begun there.
So whatever truth remained—
May you like
It was waiting for us there too.
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