Chapter 6 - THE SISTER IN THE CAMERA
Agent Sloan ordered facial analysis.
The result showed a ninety-nine percent probability that the woman was my identical twin.
Grace Bennett was alive.
She had entered through the exterior basement door seven minutes before Laura arrived.
She used a biometric code registered to Victor Carter.
She disabled one internal alarm.
Then she left.
Without that action, Laura and the agents would never have entered.
Grace saved me.
She also knew the cage existed.
That meant she had known where I was.
“How long?” I asked.
Agent Sloan did not answer immediately.
“We found surveillance photographs in Victor’s files.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
“Taken by Grace?”
“Possibly.”
For years, I had felt watched.
Daniel called it anxiety.
Dr. Collins called it prenatal paranoia.
Cars appearing twice on the same street.
A woman in grocery-store reflections.
A shadow outside my office.
Grace had been near me.
Maybe protecting me.
Maybe studying me.
The difference mattered.
My father was brought to a secured interview room at the hospital.
His handcuffs remained on.
I sat behind glass because doctors would not allow me to leave the maternity floor.
“You knew Grace was watching me?”
He looked exhausted.
“I suspected.”
“You suspected?”
“Victor used her to monitor you when you were younger.”
“And now?”
“I lost contact with her three years ago.”
“You had contact?”
“Yes.”
My anger rose.
“You spoke to my sister while I believed she was dead?”
“She wasn’t ready to meet you.”
“Who decided that?”
“She did.”
“After Victor raised her inside an experiment?”
My father lowered his head.
Grace escaped Victor at twenty-one.
Robert found her six months later.
She was intelligent, suspicious, and trained in surveillance.
She refused ordinary life.
She believed every institution belonged to Victor.
Robert asked her to contact me.
She refused.
Then she began watching from a distance.
“She wanted proof Daniel was part of Victor’s program,” he said.
“Did she know before I married him?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
His silence answered.
“You knew Daniel was Victor’s son?”
“Yes.”
“And you let me marry him?”
“I tried to warn you anonymously.”
I remembered letters arriving before the wedding.
DON’T MARRY HIM.
I thought they came from an ex-girlfriend.
Daniel burned them.
“You could have called me.”
“Victor monitored your phone.”
“You could have come back.”
“I was under indictment and believed he would kill you if I surfaced.”
“You always believed leaving me was protection.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“That was easier for you than asking what I needed.”
He looked away.
I understood something.
Victor controlled through force.
Robert controlled through secrecy.
Both men decided what truth I could survive.
Different motives.
Same theft of choice.
Agent Sloan entered.
“Grace contacted us.”
My body went still.
“How?”
“A secure message.”
“Where is she?”
“She won’t say.”
The message contained a video.
Grace sat in darkness.
Her resemblance to me was unbearable.
Same face.
Different posture.
Her eyes never stopped scanning.
“Emily,” she said, “Victor is moving the birth team.”
I gripped the bedrail.
“What birth team?”
Grace explained that Dr. Collins and two nurses had been relocated to a private clinic called Northwood.
Victor intended to trigger premature labor remotely through medication already in my system.
The supplements Daniel gave me contained compounds that could increase uterine activity when combined with a second drug.
The second drug might be administered through hospital treatment.
“Do not accept magnesium from anyone except Dr. Wells,” Grace said.
The video ended.
A nurse entered two minutes later carrying an IV bag.
“Magnesium infusion for contractions.”
Agent Sloan stopped her.
“Who ordered it?”
“Dr. Phillips.”
There was no Dr. Phillips assigned to my case.
The nurse looked confused.
She had collected the bag from the medication station.
Security sealed the floor.
Testing found the IV contained another drug.
One that could induce labor rapidly.
Victor had someone inside the hospital.
The nurse was innocent.
The order was forged.
Every monitor, medication, and white coat became suspicious.
Dr. Wells transferred me to a private surgical floor under another name.
Only four people knew the room number.
Laura.
Agent Sloan.
Dr. Wells.
My father.
Two hours later, a bouquet arrived.
No card.
Inside one white rose was a tiny camera.
Someone knew.
Agent Sloan questioned everyone.
My father denied leaking the location.
Laura denied it.
Dr. Wells allowed his phone to be searched.
The breach came from a federal device.
Someone inside Sloan’s team had sent the room number.
The investigation turned inward.
Grace sent another message.
ONE OF THE AGENTS BELONGS TO VICTOR.
Then the hospital fire alarm activated.
Smoke entered the corridor.
Guards moved patients toward emergency exits.
Agent Sloan stood beside my bed.
“Do not let anyone separate you from me.”
The lights flickered.
A masked orderly rushed into the room and attacked her.
They crashed against the wall.
Laura pushed my bed toward the service elevator.
The doors opened.
My father stood inside.
“Come on!”
Agent Sloan shouted, “No!”
I looked between them.
My father reached for me.
The masked orderly tore off his hood.
Male Agent Paul Reeves.
Sloan’s second-in-command.
He aimed a weapon at the bed.
“Move her.”
Robert pulled me into the elevator.
Laura jumped inside.
The doors closed as a gunshot struck the metal.
The elevator descended.
My contractions began.
Sharp.
Regular.
Too early.
My father pressed the emergency stop.
“We need to reach Northwood.”
Laura stared at him.
“That is Victor’s clinic.”
“It is also where Grace is waiting.”
The elevator lights went out.
A voice came through the emergency speaker.
Grace.
“Dad, do not bring Emily here.”
Robert froze.
Then another voice joined hers.
May you like
Victor.
“Too late.”
