Chapter 12 - ThomasMy Dead Brother Was Calling Me
The voice was unmistakable.
Thomas.
Older.
Weaker.
But Thomas.
I stopped breathing.
Mara stared at the ceiling speaker.
“No.”
The detective burst into the room.
“What happened?”
I stood.
“You heard that?”
He looked confused.
“Heard what?”
The speaker was dead.
No sound.
No recording.
Nothing.
I looked at Mara.
“You said Thomas was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did he tell me not to trust you?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
That answer terrified me.
Because I knew it wasn't a recording.
Thomas had used one phrase only he and I knew as children.
A secret.
The detective unlocked the door.
“Mr. Dawson, come with me.”
“Where?”
He didn't answer.
Mara grabbed my sleeve.
“Don't.”
The detective's gun appeared.
“Now.”
Vince stepped from the corridor.
“Put the weapon down.”
The detective turned.
Everything happened quickly.
Vince knocked the gun away.
The detective fought back.
Mara ran.
I followed.
We escaped through the evidence room.
Behind a storage shelf was a narrow maintenance tunnel.
We climbed down.
The tunnel led beneath the city.
At the far end was an abandoned clinic.
Mara stopped.
“This is it.”
I looked around.
Old hospital beds.
Medical monitors.
One room still lit.
Inside was a man.
Older.
Thinner.
A scar ran along his temple.
He sat in a wheelchair.
When he looked up, I knew.
Thomas.
My knees gave out.
He smiled.
“Hey, little brother.”
I couldn't speak.
Then I crossed the room and grabbed him.
He was real.
Warm.
Alive.
He hugged me with one arm.
I started shaking.
Not from the tremor.
From the impossibility.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I had to.”
“You destroyed me.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“I know.”
I stepped back.
“Why?”
“Because Richard wasn't the biggest threat.”
“Who is?”
He looked at Mara.
She lowered her head.
“Me.”
I stared.
“What?”
Thomas pointed toward the table.
There lay a file.
NORA VALE.
Mara walked toward it.
Thomas spoke.
“I didn't tell you the truth because the woman you met in the hot spring wasn't supposed to find me.”
Mara looked at him.
“She wasn't.”
Thomas nodded.
“She was supposed to die three years ago.”
My chest tightened.
“Nora.”
Mara flinched.
Thomas continued.
“Your sister wasn't killed because she remembered.”
He looked at me.
“She was killed because she remembered who created Project Halcyon.”
I swallowed.
“Who?”
Thomas's eyes filled with something between fear and regret.
“Our mother.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him.
“That isn't possible.”
Thomas pointed to the final page of the ledger.
My mother's signature was there.
Under it:
DIRECTOR OF NEUROLOGICAL RESEARCH
I shook my head.
“My mother died when I was ten.”
Thomas whispered:
“She didn't.”
A door slammed somewhere behind us.
Then a woman started walking down the hallway.
Slowly.
Calmly.
And when she appeared in the doorway, every lie I had ever been told became a weapon.
She looked exactly like the woman in my childhood photographs.
May you like
My mother.
Alive.
