Chapter 12 - The countdown began.59:59.
Hammer stared at the screen.
59:58.
Clara grabbed his arm.
“We have to leave.”
“No.”
“Ray.”
“This ends tonight.”
Mara looked at the Red Ledger.
“Where is the archive?”
“Beneath the old Saint Mercy foundation.”
Hammer shook his head.
“That's twenty miles away.”
Clara nodded.
“Exactly.”
Hammer looked at Ellie.
“Can you hear the voice?”
Ellie nodded.
“What voice?”
“The one from the machine.”
“Can you remember what it says?”
Ellie closed her eyes.
A faint hum filled the room.
Then Ellie whispered:
“Four numbers.”
Hammer leaned closer.
“What numbers?”
“Seven.”
She swallowed.
“One.”
“Six.”
“Four.”
Hammer stared.
Clara's face changed.
“That isn't a password.”
“What is it?”
“A grave number.”
Hammer frowned.
“Whose?”
Clara looked at him.
“Yours.”
The countdown continued.
51:42.
Hammer stared at his own name inside the ledger.
Then he understood.
His identity had been used so often that he had become a key himself.
The scars.
The prison record.
The fake bank accounts.
Everything had been built around him.
Mara looked at him.
“They created the perfect scapegoat.”
Hammer nodded.
“And they needed him alive.”
Clara whispered:
“To unlock the archive.”
They drove through the night.
No police.
No lights.
Only the roar of Hammer's motorcycle escorting them through abandoned roads.
Ellie rode between Hammer and Clara in the SUV.
She held the red heart.
The plastic charm glowed faintly beneath the dashboard light.
Hammer looked at it.
“Why is it glowing?”
Clara stared.
“That's not supposed to happen.”
Ellie held it closer.
The heart began projecting a tiny beam of light.
It landed on the windshield.
A map appeared.
Mara whispered:
“It has a tracking mechanism.”
Hammer frowned.
“No.”
The map moved.
Then stopped.
At Saint Mercy.
Clara stared.
“They upgraded it.”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
A phone rang.
Mara answered.
A voice spoke.
“Bring the girl.”
Mara recognized it.
“Father?”
Daniel laughed.
“Yes.”
Mara's hands shook.
“Where are you?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to finally understand.”
The call ended.
They reached Saint Mercy.
The hospital was abandoned.
Windows shattered.
Walls covered in vines.
Hammer looked at the ruins.
“Where?”
Ellie stepped forward.
She pointed at a sealed entrance.
“Down there.”
Hammer moved the rubble.
A staircase appeared.
They descended.
The deeper they went, the cleaner the walls became.
Modern.
White.
Sterile.
A functioning hospital existed beneath the abandoned one.
Mara whispered:
“They rebuilt it.”
Clara nodded.
“For the archive.”
They reached a glass corridor.
On either side were rooms.
Children's rooms.
Empty beds.
Old toys.
Photographs.
Ellie stopped.
“I remember.”
Hammer touched her shoulder.
“Don't look.”
“I need to.”
She entered the nearest room.
On the wall was a drawing.
A red heart.
Three scars.
And four figures.
Ellie.
Clara.
Hammer.
And a man without a shadow.
Underneath the drawing was written:
FAMILY.
Hammer stared.
Clara began to cry.
Then the lights switched on.
Daniel Voss stood at the end of the corridor.
Older.
Elegant.
Perfectly dressed.
He smiled.
Mara stepped forward.
“You're alive.”
Daniel nodded.
“I had to be.”
“You murdered people.”
“I built a system.”
“You stole children.”
“I protected them.”
“You destroyed my sister.”
Daniel looked at Clara.
“Your sister destroyed herself.”
Hammer stepped forward.
“You used my identity.”
“Yes.”
“You killed Rachel.”
“No.”
Hammer raised his gun.
Daniel smiled.
“Not me.”
Hammer paused.
“Who?”
Daniel looked behind him.
A man stepped from the shadows.
Eddie Knox.
Hammer froze.
Daniel laughed.
“Your best friend.”
Eddie was holding a gun.
He looked devastated.
“I’m sorry.”
Hammer stared.
“You always were.”
Daniel pointed toward Ellie.
“Bring me the girl.”
Hammer stepped in front of her.
“No.”
Daniel sighed.
“Then I'll show you what your daughter is capable of.”
He pressed a button.
A screen descended.
On it appeared a video.
Hammer watched.
It showed Ellie.
Six years old.
Standing in a room.
And beside her stood Hammer.
Except Hammer was unconscious.
A technician spoke.
“Subject remembers him.”
Ellie, on the screen, whispered:
“Daddy.”
Hammer's heart broke.
He had never known.
Daniel smiled.
“She remembered you before she knew your name.”
Then the screen changed.
A second video.
Clara.
Daniel.
Hammer.
All three standing together.
Before the warehouse fire.
Hammer stared.
Clara whispered:
“Ray.”
He turned.
“You were part of the plan.”
Hammer's face went blank.
“What plan?”
Clara looked at him.
“To bring the entire organization down.”
Daniel laughed.
“And you forgot.”
Hammer's scar began to burn.
The fourth scar.
The hidden one.
Suddenly, Hammer remembered everything.
The warehouse wasn't a kidnapping.
It was an operation.
Hammer had agreed to sacrifice his identity.
Clara had agreed to disappear.
Ellie had been the witness.
Eddie had been the inside man.
And someone had betrayed them.
Hammer looked at Eddie.
Eddie whispered:
“I didn't.”
Hammer's memory sharpened.
The traitor was not Eddie.
It was someone else.
Someone who had been beside them from the beginning.
Someone still alive.
Hammer looked at Daniel.
“No.”
Then he smiled.
“You were the one without a shadow.”
Daniel's smile disappeared.
The countdown reached:
00:10.
Daniel raised his gun.
“Kill them.”
The corridor filled with armed guards.
Hammer grabbed Ellie.
Clara pulled Mara toward a side door.
Gunfire erupted.
The countdown reached zero.
Somewhere beneath Saint Mercy, a massive vault began to open.
And a recorded voice echoed through the facility.
Clara's voice.
“Hello, Ray.”
May you like
Hammer looked up.
“I knew you'd come.”
