Chapter 6 - The Room Beneath the Hospital
St. Matthew’s looked abandoned from the outside.
Dark windows.
Locked doors.
No ambulances.
No patients.
But one light burned inside the old surgical wing.
Elias insisted on coming.
I left Sophie with Daniel and two security officers.
She didn’t want me to go.
“Promise you’ll come back.”
“I promise.”
This time I intended to keep it.
Elias and I entered through a maintenance door.
The corridors smelled of dust and disinfectant.
Every step echoed.
“Why here?” I asked.
“Because this wing housed Voss Biomedical trials.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Your family funded the renovation.”
“I thought it was for spinal rehabilitation.”
“That’s what the public was told.”
We reached an old operating theater.
Camille stood in the center.
Alone.
Her ivory blazer was stained.
Her hair was disheveled.
She looked nothing like the woman from the restaurant.
“Where is Eleanor?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You worked for her.”
“I did.”
“Then you nearly destroyed my daughter.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
I moved toward her.
Elias stopped me.
“Let her talk.”
Camille took out a key card.
“There’s something under this wing.”
She led us through a staff corridor.
A concealed elevator opened behind an equipment cabinet.
Downstairs was another world.
Servers.
Medical equipment.
Archived patient files.
Rows of storage boxes.
Elias stared.
“My research.”
Camille nodded.
“Eleanor kept everything.”
I looked at her.
“Why show us?”
“Because she was going to kill me too.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So now you care?”
“No.”
She met my eyes.
“Now I’m afraid.”
At least that was truthful.
She opened a secure room.
Inside were dozens of hard drives.
One was labeled REBECCA-17.
My breath stopped.
Camille inserted it into a terminal.
Rebecca appeared on-screen.
Alive.
Smiling sadly.
My knees nearly gave way.
“Adrian,” the recording began, “if you’re seeing this, then Eleanor survived.”
I moved closer.
Rebecca continued.
“What your family built was supposed to restore movement to patients with spinal injuries. Eleanor redirected the research toward neurological suppression and behavioral control.”
Elias looked away.
Rebecca’s voice softened.
“I discovered she had tested early versions without consent.”
Documents appeared beside her.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
“And when I threatened to expose her, she staged her death.”
I whispered, “Rebecca…”
Then she said the words I had feared.
“If I die unexpectedly, assume Eleanor ordered it.”
I closed my eyes.
My wife had known.
She had been alone with this terror.
And I had never seen it.
The recording continued.
“Camille knows part of the truth.”
I looked at her.
“She was frightened and compromised, but she was not involved when the program began.”
Camille cried silently.
“However, if she chooses Eleanor over Sophie, she must be held responsible.”
Camille covered her face.
Rebecca’s final message was for Sophie.
“My sweet girl, if you ever see this, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from everything. But nothing they did to you defines what comes next.”
The screen went black.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Elias noticed something.
“A live connection.”
He pointed at the server.
Someone was remotely accessing the system.
Eleanor.
“Can she delete it?”
“Yes.”
I pulled out my phone.
“No.”
I sent the entire archive to federal investigators, my attorneys, three journalists, and multiple encrypted backups.
Upload complete.
Camille stared.
“It’s over.”
A voice came from behind us.
“No.”
Eleanor stood in the doorway.
She held a pistol.
Her elegance was gone.
For the first time, she looked old.
Desperate.
“You always were your father’s weakest child,” she said to me.
I stepped in front of Elias.
“It’s done.”
“I can still remove witnesses.”
Camille stepped forward.
“Eleanor—”
The gun shifted toward her.
“You disappointed me.”
A shot exploded.
Camille fell.
I lunged.
Elias grabbed Eleanor’s arm.
The pistol fired again into the ceiling.
I twisted her wrist.
The weapon fell.
Security rushed through the corridor seconds later.
Daniel had tracked my phone.
Eleanor screamed as they restrained her.
“You think Rebecca won?”
I stared at her.
“No.”
I thought of Sophie moving her toes.
“Sophie did.”
Camille lay on the floor.
Blood spread across her shoulder.
She looked at me.
“Tell Sophie…”
I crouched beside her.
“You can tell her yourself.”
“I don’t deserve that.”
“No.”
I looked at her coldly.
“You don’t.”
Then I stood.
“But surviving what you did comes before forgiveness.”
Outside, police lights flooded the abandoned hospital.
My mother was taken away in handcuffs.
Camille went into an ambulance under guard.
Elias stood beside me.
“It’s over.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
He looked at me.
May you like
“Not until Sophie walks.”
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