Chapter 7 - NORTHWOOD
The elevator began descending again without anyone touching the controls.
Victor had remote access.
Floor numbers passed.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Then B2.
The hospital had no public second basement.
The doors opened into a private loading corridor.
A medical transport team waited.
Three people in white coats.
No visible identification.
My father stepped in front of the bed.
“Where is Grace?”
One man smiled.
“Waiting.”
Laura grabbed the bedrail.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
A woman raised a syringe.
My father moved first.
He struck her wrist.
The syringe flew.
The corridor erupted.
One orderly grabbed Laura.
Another drove Robert against the wall.
I locked both hands around the bedrail as contractions tightened through me.
A transport worker pushed the bed toward an ambulance bay.
Then overhead lights shattered.
Darkness.
A suppressed gunshot.
Someone fell.
Grace appeared from behind the ambulance.
She moved exactly like me and nothing like me.
Fast.
Controlled.
Emotionless.
She struck one attacker behind the knee, disarmed another, and pulled me toward the vehicle.
“Can you stand?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to.”
She cut the restraint straps.
My feet touched the floor.
Pain doubled me over.
Grace held my arm.
Our eyes met for the first time.
The same face.
Her forehead scar.
My bruised cheek.
Two lives looking through one set of eyes.
“Hello, Em.”
I almost laughed.
Almost cried.
Instead, I said, “You left.”
“I came back.”
Gunfire struck the ambulance door.
Grace pulled me behind it.
Laura crawled toward us.
Robert fought with the last orderly.
Agent Sloan’s team entered from the far corridor.
Paul Reeves was not with them.
Grace shoved a handgun toward Sloan.
“Victor’s convoy is leaving from Northwood.”
“How do you know?”
“I was inside.”
“Where?”
“Since yesterday.”
Sloan stared at her.
“You let us search blind.”
“I don’t trust federal systems.”
“You used one to message us.”
“I used yours to find the leak.”
Grace had deliberately sent different room numbers through separate channels.
Only Reeves received the compromised one.
She exposed him.
Agent Sloan looked toward my father.
“You knew?”
“No.”
Grace never told anyone the full plan.
That was how she survived Victor.
It was also how she resembled our father.
My contraction ended.
A warm rush followed.
My water had broken.
Dr. Wells arrived with the response team.
He examined me quickly.
“You’re in preterm labor.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Maybe. Not here.”
Northwood had the equipment needed for an emergency premature delivery.
The nearest secure hospital was forty minutes away.
Victor had designed the trap perfectly.
The clinic he controlled was also the place most capable of saving my baby.
Grace knew a hidden entrance.
Agent Sloan proposed taking a tactical team.
My father said Victor would kill the staff and flee.
Laura said we had no choice.
I looked at Grace.
“What would you do?”
Her expression remained unreadable.
“Go in.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor believes the baby belongs to his work.”
“And you?”
Her eyes changed slightly.
“I believe she belongs to you.”
We entered Northwood through an underground service tunnel.
Dr. Wells stayed beside me.
Contractions came every four minutes.
Laura held my hand.
Grace led with a weapon.
My father walked behind Agent Sloan in cuffs attached to a waist chain.
He had agreed to remain detained.
The tunnel opened beneath the clinic laundry room.
No staff.
No alarms.
Too quiet.
Grace led us upstairs.
Rooms contained incubators.
Observation windows.
Locked cabinets.
The clinic appeared ready for patients, but every bed was empty.
A monitor displayed my name.
EMILY BENNETT — DELIVERY PROTOCOL.
My birth had been scheduled.
Not predicted.
Scheduled.
The plan included immediate sedation after delivery.
The baby would be transferred to Unit G.
My records would state psychotic collapse.
Daniel would sign temporary custody.
Victor would become medical guardian through a foundation.
A life erased through paperwork before blood dried.
Dr. Wells found the labor-suppression medication.
He inspected every vial.
One appeared legitimate.
He connected the IV himself.
The contractions slowed slightly.
Then a loudspeaker activated.
Victor’s voice filled the clinic.
“Grace, bring your sister to Delivery Room One.”
She aimed toward the ceiling.
“Show yourself.”
“You know I never enter a room without leverage.”
A camera feed appeared on the wall monitor.
Sarah sat tied inside a room.
Her injured wrist bandaged.
Beside her was Agent Reeves.
He held a gun against her head.
Sarah had been abducted from the hospital during the fire alarm.
Victor continued.
“Emily enters Delivery One, or Sarah dies.”
Grace looked at me.
“No.”
Sarah stared into the camera.
“Don’t come.”
Reeves struck her.
I flinched.
Grace stepped toward the monitor.
“She helped save Emily.”
“That is why she matters.”
Victor understood loyalty only as a weakness to exploit.
I looked at Dr. Wells.
“How long until the medication works?”
“Twenty minutes.”
I looked toward Delivery Room One.
“We don’t have twenty.”
Grace blocked the doorway.
“I spent fourteen years finding you. I’m not handing you back.”
“You’re not handing me anywhere.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can still choose.”
Her jaw tightened.
She hated the sentence because it exposed her own control.
Laura touched Grace’s arm.
“Let her decide.”
Grace looked at our mother.
Old anger moved between them.
Then she stepped aside.
We entered Delivery Room One.
The doors locked behind us.
A glass wall divided the room.
On the other side stood Victor Carter.
Alive.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
Untouched by the chaos around him.
Beside him was Dr. Collins.
She held a surgical mask.
Victor looked at me.
Then at Grace.
“My two best results.”
Grace raised her weapon.
The glass between us was bulletproof.
May you like
Victor smiled.
“Now let us see what the third generation becomes.”
