Chapter 36 - The Memory in the Locket
Vanessa’s finger hovered over the trigger. Her emerald eyes were wide, dilated, burning with years of suppressed rage, trauma, and betrayal. Every lie she had ever been told, every beating Claire had endured, every nightmare they had survived—it all converged on this one, broken woman lying on the floor.
"Vanessa, wait," Claire breathed, holding Dominique down by her shoulders.
"Why should I wait?" Vanessa’s voice shook with suppressed tears. "She tried to bury us alive! She took everything! She’s the one who betrayed Father, who helped Evelyn set the fire at Margaret House! She isn't a sister, Claire—she’s a parasite!"
"Look at her neck," Claire whispered.
Vanessa hesitated, her gun never wavering.
Beneath Dominique’s torn collar, knocked loose during the violent struggle, hung a silver chain. Attached to the chain was a worn, tarnished silver locket—identical to the one Claire had kept hidden inside the lining of her maid's apron for over a decade.
Dominique’s arrogant facade suddenly shattered. Her breath caught in her throat. She tried to raise her uninjured hand to hide the locket, but Claire gently reached down and pulled it open.
Inside the miniature silver oval was a photograph.
It was not a picture of the Syndicate. It was not a picture of Charles Whitmore.
It was a faded black-and-white hospital photograph of three newborn infants sleeping side-by-side in an incubator, with a woman’s hand resting gently over them. On the back of the tiny metal casing, scratched into the silver with a surgical pin, were three dates of birth and a single handwritten phrase:
*Forgive me. I could only save one at a time.*
Dominique closed her eyes, a single, bitter tear cutting a clean path through the blood and grime on her cheek.
"She didn't sell me," Dominique whispered, her voice barely audible over the roaring engine. "She gave me away to her sister in France to hide me from Charles. But Evelyn found me when I was seven years old. Evelyn took me. She told me... she told me Mother threw me into the river. She made me watch videos of you two growing up in the mansion, having birthday parties, while they kept me in a basement in Marseille!"
Silence descended over the swaying carriage, heavy as a funeral shroud.
Vanessa slowly lowered the weapon, her face pale as ash. "Evelyn... Evelyn lied to you. She lied to all of us."
"It doesn't matter," Dominique rasped, looking up at the train's digital speedometer display on the wall.
*115 MPH. DISTANCE TO TRESTLE: 1.2 MILES.*
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"The train can't be stopped from the cabin," Dominique whispered, terror finally breaking through her hardened exterior. "The manual override is locked in the engine car. We’re out of time."
***
