Chapter 14 - Ethan’s last hiding place
Ethan heard the mortuary lock disengage.
Emily lifted Lily from the portable crib.
“We have to move.”
State officer Donnelly had gone with Caroline, leaving one trooper outside the door. A muffled impact sounded in the hallway.
The trooper fell against the glass.
A man in black tactical clothing stepped over him.
Ethan pointed toward the laundry hatch.
“Mommy used that.”
Emily opened it.
“You first.”
“No. Lily first.”
Emily wrapped the baby against her chest and climbed into the chute. Ethan followed.
They landed in the underground loading room where Caroline had discovered the blood samples.
Above them, boots entered the morgue.
Emily searched for an exit.
The loading door was electronically locked.
Ethan looked toward the refrigerated crates.
“Can Lily fit?”
“We aren’t putting her inside one of those.”
“Not inside. Behind.”
They pushed two crates apart, revealing a narrow maintenance opening.
Ethan crawled through first.
The passage led beneath the hospital’s oxygen lines.
He could hear men searching the loading room.
Emily followed with Lily.
“You remember everything,” she whispered.
“Mommy says remembering keeps you alive.”
At the blue nursery, Caroline and Rachel reached the primary oxygen controls.
Dr. Bell stood waiting.
He was in his early sixties, dressed in a dark military-style coat. Two armed men stood behind him.
“You resemble Nora,” he told Rachel.
“I’m not your daughter.”
“No. You are the woman who stole mine.”
“Lily belongs to herself.”
Bell smiled.
“Children belong to whoever protects their future.”
“You murdered Nora.”
“She jeopardized decades of research.”
Caroline moved subtly toward the valve panel.
Bell raised a gun.
“Do not.”
Pierce looked at the countdown.
Thirty-two minutes.
“If the sterilization activates, your granddaughter dies too.”
“Her tracking capsule includes an antidote reservoir.”
Pierce stared at him.
“You built immunity into her and no one else.”
“C-7 was always meant to survive.”
Rachel stepped forward.
“Her name is Lily.”
Bell’s expression tightened.
“Nora used that name.”
“You knew?”
“She sang it during the pregnancy.”
For a moment, something almost human appeared in his face.
Then it vanished.
The intercom activated.
“Sir, the subject is no longer in the morgue.”
Bell looked toward the nearest guard.
“Search lower maintenance.”
Caroline realized Ethan had moved Lily.
A seven-year-old boy had outmaneuvered trained men again.
Bell examined the tracking tablet.
“The signal is beneath us.”
The capsule led him toward the oxygen tunnels.
Caroline attacked.
She struck Bell’s wrist and knocked the gun aside.
Pierce tackled one guard. Rachel pulled the emergency valve.
Alarms sounded throughout the hospital.
OXYGEN SYSTEM MANUAL SHUTDOWN.
Patients above switched to reserve tanks.
The sterilization timer stopped at 28:06.
Bell struck Caroline across the face and recovered the gun.
“You have delayed nothing.”
Rachel grabbed the black sanitation switch and ripped the wiring from the wall.
Sparks exploded.
Bell fired.
The bullet struck Rachel’s side.
She fell.
Caroline screamed.
Pierce reached Bell before he could fire again. Both men crashed into the blue wall.
Donnelly entered and shot the second guard in the leg.
Bell escaped through the maintenance opening.
He followed Lily’s signal.
Ethan and Emily reached a junction beneath the operating rooms.
Lily began crying.
Emily covered the baby’s mouth gently.
“She’s hungry.”
Ethan heard footsteps.
“He’s coming.”
The tunnel split.
One path led toward the emergency department.
The other descended beneath the original maternity ward.
A faded hummingbird had been painted on the lower wall.
Emily touched the symbol.
“I’ve seen this.”
“Where?”
“In dreams.”
She followed the hummingbird path.
It ended at a circular room containing an old nursery crib, a cassette player, and boxes of photographs.
Caroline’s voice played from the cassette.
She was singing to newborn Emily.
The room had been built to study whether Emily remembered her mother.
Emily stood frozen.
Ethan looked around.
A steel door at the far end displayed the same silver-star symbol from the ledger.
Lily’s tracking capsule caused it to unlock.
Inside was a laboratory elevator.
The panel listed destinations below St. Agnes that did not appear on any hospital map.
LEVEL FOUR: GENETIC ARCHIVE.
LEVEL FIVE: SUBJECT DEVELOPMENT.
LEVEL SIX: C-7 PROGRAM.
Emily stared at the lowest button.
“Bell didn’t come from outside.”
Ethan understood.
“He was already under the hospital.”
The footsteps approached.
They entered the elevator.
Ethan pressed LEVEL SIX.
The doors closed as Bell reached the circular nursery.
The elevator descended deep beneath the building.
When it opened, Ethan saw a vast underground chamber.
Rows of transparent cribs filled the room.
Inside them slept babies wrapped in identical pink blankets.
Every crib was labeled C-7.
Emily covered her mouth.
Lily opened her eyes.
May you like
Across the chamber, all the other babies opened theirs at the same time.
👉 Ethan discovered an underground nursery filled with babies labeled C-7, proving Lily was not the only child created from the stolen genetic program.
