Chapter 13 - The Sister Who Had to Choose
Claire stared into the service shaft.
It was dark, narrow, and nearly forty feet long.
At the end, she would need to reconnect the power relay by hand.
“I cannot do that.”
“Yes, you can,” Thomas said.
“You do not know me.”
“I know fear.”
Claire looked at me.
“You go.”
“My ribs are cracked, and my left leg has nerve damage.”
“You climbed onto ships.”
“That was before an explosion your father arranged.”
The words struck her.
She looked toward Victor.
He smiled.
“Let them suffocate. Agents will open the bunker eventually.”
Thomas shook his head.
“The emergency doors use a separate mechanical lock. Without ventilation power, the interior release will seize.”
Victor had expected rescue.
Now he understood he might die too.
He offered instructions in exchange for immunity.
“No,” I said.
“You need me.”
“We need the wiring diagram, not your freedom.”
Grandmother had left maintenance manuals in the vault.
Claire took them.
Her hands trembled.
“What if I get stuck?”
“I will talk you through it.”
“What if I cannot breathe?”
“You keep moving.”
She laughed bitterly.
“That is easy for you.”
“No. It is practiced.”
For thirty minutes, Claire crawled through the shaft.
I guided her through an old intercom line.
At one point she stopped.
“I cannot do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“You do not know that.”
“I know you opened the dumpster lid after Harold closed it.”
Her breathing changed.
She had never told me.
“I saw the quarry footage,” I said. “You went back after he left.”
“I was afraid.”
“You still opened it.”
That act had not erased her betrayal.
But it proved she was not incapable of choosing differently.
Claire reached the relay.
She reconnected the first cable.
A spark burned her hand.
She cried out.
“Keep going,” I said.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“You always sound calm.”
“I am terrified.”
That surprised her.
The final connection restored the ventilation.
Emergency lights returned to white.
The manual lock released.
Agents opened the bunker forty minutes later.
Claire crawled out covered in dust and blood.
Paramedics placed her on a stretcher.
Before they carried her away, she looked at me.
“I helped Dad because I thought being chosen meant being safe.”
“You know better now.”
“Yes.”
Victor was arrested.
Thomas survived.
The bunker files transformed the investigation.
But one sealed folder remained unopened.
It bore Margaret’s initials.
Inside was a signed confession dated twenty years earlier.
My mother had once planned to expose Harold.
Then she withdrew the confession after Claire was kidnapped for three days.
May you like
No report had ever been filed.
Claire had no memory of being taken.
