Chapter 5 - what the nurse had forgotten
Nurse Amanda Price sat beside Victoria’s hospital bed, listening to the rhythm of the monitor.
The child had been sedated after another wave of pain. Doctors were preparing to remove the device, but the surgical team had delayed the procedure because its tiny reservoir appeared connected to a network of delicate nerves.
Amanda stared at Victoria’s sleeping face.
Fragments of memory moved at the edge of her mind.
A white corridor.
Children in blue gowns.
A silver cane tapping against a polished floor.
Dr. Marcus Vale telling her that the program would “change pediatric medicine forever.”
Then darkness.
Amanda pressed her fingers to her temples.
For months she had experienced missing time, headaches, and dreams about a place beneath the earth. She had blamed stress.
Now Dr. Warren’s words repeated in her mind.
The implant was placed during Victoria’s appendectomy.
Amanda had been present that night.
She remembered entering the operating room.
She did not remember leaving.
The hospital-room door opened.
Ms. Clara and Renee entered, breathing hard. Clara’s sleeve was torn, and blood stained the edge of the red notebook in her hand.
Amanda stood.
“What happened?”
“Principal Hall was attacked.”
“Is he alive?”
“We don’t know.”
Ms. Clara placed the photograph on the table.
Amanda stared at her younger self standing beside Dr. Vale.
Her knees weakened.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“You were there.”
“No.”
“Hall said your memory was altered.”
Amanda stepped backward.
“That’s impossible.”
Victoria stirred.
“Ms. Price?”
Amanda moved to her immediately.
“I’m here.”
Victoria opened her eyes.
“Do you remember the singing room?”
Amanda froze.
“What room?”
“The one under the clinic.”
Ms. Clara moved closer.
“What happened there?”
Victoria’s eyes remained half-closed.
“They made us listen to the same song. They said it would help us sleep.”
Amanda heard a melody in her mind.
Three soft notes.
Then a child’s voice counting backward from ten.
She gripped the bed rail.
The hospital walls seemed to disappear.
She saw twelve children lying on narrow beds beneath blue lights. She was standing at a control panel. Dr. Vale held the silver cane behind her.
“Begin memory consolidation,” he had ordered.
Amanda whispered, “North Ridge.”
Ms. Clara heard her.
“What?”
“The children were taken to North Ridge Behavioral Center.”
“Where is that?”
“It closed ten years ago.”
“Then why take them there?”
“It didn’t close.”
Amanda looked at Victoria.
“It went underground.”
Dr. Warren entered.
“We’re moving Victoria to surgery.”
Amanda caught her arm.
“You can’t.”
“The device is leaking.”
“Do you know who authorized the surgical team?”
“The hospital chief.”
“Name?”
“Dr. Marcus Vale.”
The room became silent.
Ms. Clara reached for her phone.
“No signal.”
Renee checked hers.
“Mine too.”
The monitor flickered.
A message appeared across the screen.
TRANSFER APPROVED.
PATIENT V-09 TO NORTH RIDGE.
Amanda pulled the cables from the wall.
“Someone has control of the hospital system.”
Dr. Warren looked toward the corridor.
“Security should be here.”
Instead, two orderlies entered with a transport bed.
Amanda recognized one of them from the memory of the underground clinic.
He had not aged in her mind, but a scar now crossed his forehead.
“Step away from the child,” he said.
Dr. Warren moved in front of Victoria.
“This patient is not being transferred.”
The orderly produced a document.
“Court authorization.”
Ms. Clara snatched it.
The signature at the bottom belonged to Judge Raymond Bell.
Principal Hall’s brother-in-law.
“This was issued three minutes ago,” Clara said.
The orderly smiled.
“Then it is current.”
Amanda reached beneath the bed and pressed the emergency button.
Nothing happened.
The second orderly locked the door.
Victoria began crying.
“Daddy.”
Ms. Clara whispered to Renee, “Fire extinguisher.”
Renee slowly moved toward the wall.
The scarred orderly noticed.
“Stop.”
Dr. Warren threw a metal tray at him.
Renee grabbed the extinguisher and discharged it across the room. White powder filled the air.
Amanda released the bed brakes.
Ms. Clara pushed Victoria toward the bathroom while Dr. Warren fought the second orderly.
The scarred man caught Amanda by the hair.
She struck him with the monitor cable.
He fell against the wall.
Renee opened the bathroom window.
It was too narrow for the bed.
“We need another exit.”
Amanda remembered the old hospital floor plan.
“There’s a service elevator behind the linen closet.”
They pushed Victoria into the corridor.
Alarm lights flashed, but no siren sounded. Several nurses were unconscious at their stations. A sweet chemical odor drifted from the ventilation ducts.
“The same gas from the school,” Ms. Clara said.
They covered Victoria’s face with a damp towel and moved toward the linen room.
Amanda opened the hidden elevator with an emergency key.
The control panel had no floor numbers.
Only letters.
B1.
B2.
NR.
North Ridge.
Renee stared.
“The clinic is connected to the hospital?”
“By a sealed transport tunnel,” Amanda said.
Victoria cried out again.
The device inside her was heating.
Dr. Warren checked the portable monitor.
“We have minutes, not hours.”
Footsteps approached from both ends of the corridor.
Amanda pressed B2.
The elevator descended.
When the doors opened, Officer Reed stood outside with Rodrigo.
Rodrigo was no longer handcuffed.
He saw Victoria and limped forward.
“My baby.”
Victoria reached for him.
Behind Reed, Officer Cole held the red notebook rescued from the station fire.
“We know where the other children are,” Reed said.
Amanda looked at the NR button.
“So do I.”
Then the elevator speaker came alive.
Dr. Marcus Vale’s calm voice filled the compartment.
“Excellent. You have brought Victoria, the ledger, and every surviving witness into the same tunnel.”
The doors closed by themselves.
May you like
The elevator began descending toward North Ridge.
👉 The group believed they had escaped the hospital, but Dr. Vale had manipulated them into carrying Victoria and all the evidence directly into his hidden facility.
