Chapter 2 - Seven Minutes MissingEmergency lights painted the room red.
Mara reached for Noah.
“Come here.”
He backed away.
“No.”
“Why?”
“They always come through the door.”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
The metallic click came again.
Closer.
Mara switched on her phone flashlight.
“Security!”
No answer.
Daniel grabbed the packet.
“We need to move.”
Elias laughed.
It was a small, dry sound.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he knew something they didn’t.
“You should have let me keep pretending.”
Mara stared at him.
“Who are they?”
Elias looked at Noah.
“My enemies.”
Noah shook his head.
“No.”
Mara turned.
“What?”
“They aren’t his enemies.”
The boy pointed at the old man.
“They work for him.”
A violent crash came from the corridor.
The door handle turned.
Daniel pushed the bed against the entrance.
“Stairwell!”
They moved.
Elias screamed as though he couldn’t walk.
But Mara had already seen the truth.
When they lifted him from the bed, his supposedly useless leg bent perfectly.
“You can walk,” she whispered.
Elias looked at her.
“Yes.”
That single word changed everything.
Daniel pulled open the service door.
“Go!”
They ran into the stairwell.
Behind them, the hospital room door exploded inward.
Three men in black clothing entered.
One of them looked at the empty bed.
“Where’s Vane?”
The others spread out.
Inside the stairwell, Mara pushed Noah ahead.
“Keep moving.”
The boy ran.
Elias moved beside them surprisingly fast.
Daniel stared.
“You’ve been faking this for how long?”
“Four years.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone watches the crippled man.”
Elias looked at him.
“Nobody watches the man who can walk.”
They reached the basement.
Noah stopped.
Mara almost collided with him.
“What happened?”
He pointed at the floor.
There were muddy footprints.
Fresh ones.
Leading toward a locked steel door.
Daniel frowned.
“Security?”
Elias said nothing.
Noah walked toward it.
Mara grabbed him.
“Don’t.”
He looked at her.
“My mother used to draw this door.”
Elias suddenly stepped forward.
“Noah.”
The boy turned.
Elias had lost all color.
“Noah, come back.”
The boy looked at the door.
Then at his grandfather.
“You know what’s behind it.”
Elias whispered:
“I know what happened to your mother.”
That stopped everyone.
Mara stared.
“You said she died.”
“I said she was gone.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Elias looked at the steel door.
“She was taken.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“By whom?”
Elias didn’t answer.
Instead, a sound came from behind the door.
Three slow knocks.
Noah’s eyes widened.
His mother had taught him something when he was six.
Three knocks meant I’m alive.
Mara whispered:
“Is someone in there?”
Elias shook his head.
“No.”
Three more knocks.
Noah moved forward.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
Then a woman’s voice came through the steel.
“Elias.”
The old man stopped breathing.
Daniel stared at him.
Mara’s hand covered her mouth.
The voice came again.
“You promised you’d never let him find me.”
Noah’s world seemed to tilt.
Because he knew that voice.
Not from memory.
From a recording his mother had left behind.
His mother.
Still alive.
The steel door clicked open.
Just an inch.
And from the darkness beyond it, a hand slowly emerged.
A wedding ring gleamed under the emergency light.
May you like
Noah recognized it instantly.
His mother’s ring.
