Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE WHITE COAT
Emergency power returned three seconds later.
The man in the corridor had vanished.
Detective Hayes ordered the hospital exits sealed while I stabilized Ethan. His blood pressure was collapsing, and the purple fingertips suggested severe loss of circulation.
We removed the cast in sections.
Under the outer fiberglass was a second shell made of black polymer, wires, and medical adhesive. A small battery pack rested near Ethan’s elbow.
The device had been delivering intermittent electrical stimulation.
Not enough to kill him.
Enough to keep him weak, confused, and in pain.
Clara’s hands trembled as she disconnected it.
“I’ve never seen this in a child.”
I had.
Not exactly this device, but its medical ancestor.
Years earlier, Vale Behavioral Institute used aversion bands in illegal trials. The program shut down after two patients died.
Martha heard the name and began crying.
Detective Hayes noticed.
“You know Vale?”
She refused to answer.
We removed the inner shell.
Ethan’s arm was badly swollen but still viable. Beneath the padding, written directly on his skin in black marker, were seven numbers.
43-11-08-6-2-17-9.
Hayes photographed them.
Ethan whispered that the white-coated man wrote them.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Dr. Father.”
Martha shouted from behind security.
“Stop asking him questions!”
Ethan flinched so violently that his IV pulled tight.
Hayes had Martha removed to a separate interview room.
Once she was gone, Ethan reached for my sleeve.
“My mom isn’t my mom.”
The statement came without drama.
Like something he had practiced silently.
He said Martha collected him from school after his real mother supposedly died. She showed legal papers and told him his name had always been Ethan Harris.
Before that, he had another name.
He could not remember it clearly.
Detective Hayes showed him the missing flyer.
“Lucas?”
Ethan stared at the face.
Then shook his head.
“That’s the hand boy.”
The preserved hand belonged to Lucas Reed, but Ethan was another missing child.
Hayes searched national databases using his photograph.
No immediate match appeared.
His identity had likely been altered before his disappearance was officially reported.
The metal key from the cast opened a locker at a bus terminal across town. Inside, officers found children’s shoes, medicine bottles, and photographs of six boys wearing identical casts.
Each stood beside the same man in a white coat.
Dr. Samuel Vale.
Former director of Vale Behavioral Institute.
Officially dead for five years.
No body had been independently identified.
The numbers on Ethan’s arm matched archive coordinates.
Building 43.
Room 11.
Cabinet 8.
Shelf 6.
Box 2.
File 17.
Patient 9.
Hayes obtained an emergency warrant for the abandoned Vale campus.
Meanwhile, Ethan developed sepsis.
The toxins in the cast lining had entered through small puncture wounds.
We rushed him to surgery.
Before anesthesia, he grabbed my hand.
“Don’t let them remove the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
He touched his chest.
A scan revealed a small transmitter beneath his skin near the collarbone.
It was actively sending his heartbeat and location.
Someone outside the hospital was still monitoring him.
Technicians blocked the signal.
Seconds later, every phone in the trauma unit received the same message.
May you like
PATIENT 9 OFFLINE.
RECOVERY TEAM DISPATCHED.
