Chapter 18 - Thirty-Seven Seconds
“Put his hand back.”
Elizabeth shouted.
Security dragged Calder toward the transmitter.
He fought like an animal.
“No.”
Damian grabbed his shoulder.
Arthur grabbed the other.
Together they forced Calder’s thumb onto the sensor.
The countdown stopped.
3.
Everyone froze.
Calder laughed.
“You can’t hold me here forever.”
I crouched in front of him.
“We don’t need forever.”
I looked at my mother.
“Can you clone his biometric signal?”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed.
“Maybe.”
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
Calder smiled.
“You don’t have minutes.”
Behind us, Halden’s doctor shouted.
“His pulse is dropping.”
Two triggers.
Two men.
Two unstable heartbeats.
One estate full of people.
Rebecca ran to the archive terminal connected through security.
My mother worked beside her.
My father coordinated the evacuation.
Only seventy guests remained.
Then forty.
Then twenty.
I looked toward the tunnel.
“Get everyone out.”
My father shook his head.
“We stay.”
“Dad.”
“No.”
Elizabeth looked at him.
“For once, listen to your daughter.”
Jonathan almost smiled.
“No.”
My mother rolled her eyes.
“I forgot how irritating you are.”
“You missed me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Even now.
Even with seconds hanging over us.
They were still themselves.
I realized then that I had spent nine years mourning a mother who had spent those same years trying to return.
Anger would come later.
Questions would come later.
If we had later.
Rebecca shouted.
“Clone ready.”
She attached a small pad to Calder’s thumb.
The device beeped.
SIGNAL CAPTURED.
She transferred it to the transmitter.
Green light.
Calder’s physical hand was no longer required.
Security dragged him away.
One threat solved.
Then the doctor shouted.
“Halden has no pulse.”
The heartbeat sensor turned red.
Elizabeth spun.
“No.”
The bomb timer activated.
00:37.
Exactly where Halden had stopped it.
Thirty-seven seconds.
Doctors began CPR.
Thirty.
Twenty-nine.
Twenty-eight.
I stared at the sensor.
My mother ran toward it.
“His monitor reads electrical activity.”
“What does that mean?”
“If we imitate a heartbeat signal…”
Rebecca understood.
“We don’t need him alive.”
“We need the machine to think he is.”
They ripped wires from the portable medical equipment.
Twenty seconds.
My father grabbed me.
“Tunnel.”
“No.”
“Now.”
“No.”
He shouted.
“Evelyn.”
I shouted back.
“I spent my whole life being protected from the truth.”
“I am not running from it now.”
Ten seconds.
Elizabeth connected the final wire.
Nothing.
Eight.
Seven.
Rebecca switched polarity.
Six.
Five.
The sensor flashed green.
The timer froze.
00:04.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Then the system announced.
DETONATION CIRCUIT SUSPENDED.
I closed my eyes.
Around us, people began crying.
Laughing.
Collapsing into one another.
Halden remained unconscious.
Calder was handcuffed.
Arthur sat beside Damian.
My parents stood together for the first time in nine years.
I thought it was over.
Then federal agents poured through the breached greenhouse entrance.
Their commander walked toward us.
“Evelyn Vale?”
“Yes.”
“You need to come with us.”
My father stepped forward.
“Why?”
The agent looked directly at me.
“Because Catherine Rowan is alive.”
May you like
My heart stopped.
“And she has been asking for her daughter.”
