Chapter 11 - THE UNDERGROUND WARD
The elevator descended below the basement.
No one spoke.
Ethan leaned against the wall, conserving strength.
Dr. Carter checked the emergency medical bag.
Officer Ramirez called for backup, but the signal vanished below ground.
The doors opened onto a brightly lit corridor.
Rows of observation windows lined both walls.
Behind them were empty nursery beds.
Not abandoned.
Prepared.
We passed storage rooms filled with numbered newborn blankets.
CP-01 through CP-30.
Thirty previous children.
My stomach tightened.
“What happened to them?”
Ethan looked away.
“Some survived.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
A cry echoed through the corridor.
Tiffany.
We followed it into a surgical suite.
Bradley stood beside the operating table.
Tiffany was strapped down.
Dr. Adrian Vale adjusted an IV line.
He looked exactly like the man from my photograph.
Calm.
Clean.
Unbothered.
Bradley held a gun toward us.
“You came.”
I looked at Tiffany.
Her eyes were open.
Terrified.
“Let her go.”
Vale checked her contractions.
“The delivery has begun.”
“She needs a hospital.”
“This is a hospital.”
Dr. Carter stepped forward.
“You are performing an illegal extraction.”
Vale smiled.
“William Carter. The disappointing son.”
William did not react.
“What did you give her?”
“A labor accelerator.”
“You could rupture her uterus.”
“That is statistically acceptable.”
Tiffany screamed through another contraction.
I looked at Bradley.
“This child is mine.”
His expression shifted.
“You heard the file.”
“You stole my eggs.”
“I preserved your bloodline.”
“You violated both of us.”
He raised the gun slightly.
“You should be grateful.”
Ethan moved subtly to the left.
Bradley noticed.
“Stay where you are.”
Ethan stopped.
Vale opened a steel cabinet.
Inside were medical samples labeled Sarah Miller.
Egg retrieval.
Embryonic tissue.
Blood.
Bone marrow.
They had been collecting parts of me for months.
Dr. Carter looked at the labels.
“These pregnancies are not the final stage.”
Vale’s smile widened.
“No.”
He pointed toward the nursery windows.
“The children are compatible donors.”
My blood went cold.
“For whom?”
A door opened behind the surgical room.
A teenage boy entered in a hospital gown.
He looked about fourteen.
Pale.
Weak.
His face resembled Bradley.
But his eyes looked like mine.
Bradley lowered the gun slightly.
“This is Matthew.”
I stared at the boy.
“Who is he?”
Bradley’s voice softened.
“Our son.”
I stopped breathing.
I had never given birth before.
At least that was what I remembered.
Matthew looked at me.
May you like
His lips trembled.
“Mom?”
