Chapter 11 - TWO SONSGabriel had never known terror like this.
He had two sons.
One he had raised.
One he had never known existed.
And someone was forcing him to choose between them.
A monitor turned on.
Two camera feeds.
Eli in one room.
Noah in another.
Both tied to chairs.
A timer appeared.
15:00
Julian's voice returned.
“Choose.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“No.”
Julian laughed.
“Then both die.”
Hannah stepped closer.
“There has to be another way.”
“There is always another way,” Gabriel said.
He looked at the cameras.
“Find the source.”
His security system was destroyed.
But the hidden cameras remained.
Thirty-one.
Gabriel remembered the original network architecture.
Every camera had an independent emergency battery.
He accessed Camera 27.
Basement.
Then Camera 19.
Laboratory.
Camera 8.
Garage.
He searched.
There.
Camera 31.
It showed a corridor he had never seen.
At the end was a red door.
Gabriel realized something.
The kidnapping location wasn't beneath the mansion.
It was above them.
The old west wing.
Abandoned since Claire's death.
He and Hannah ran.
Gabriel broke the locked door.
Inside was a control room.
Screens covered the walls.
Every screen showed Eli.
Every screen showed Noah.
But one screen showed something else.
Claire.
Alive.
Gabriel walked toward it.
“Mom,” he whispered.
Hannah stared.
It wasn't old footage.
It was live.
Claire sat in a chair.
Her hair shorter.
Her face thinner.
Older.
But alive.
Gabriel pressed his hand against the monitor.
“Claire…”
Her eyes opened.
She looked directly at the camera.
“Gabriel.”
He almost collapsed.
“Where are you?”
She shook her head.
“Don't come looking for me.”
“Why?”
“Because they're using me.”
“Who?”
Claire looked terrified.
“Your father is dead.”
Gabriel swallowed.
“I know.”
“No.”
Claire's voice broke.
“He's not.”
Gabriel stared.
“He died six years ago.”
Claire shook her head.
“That man was a decoy.”
The screen flickered.
Then a man entered the room behind Claire.
Gabriel recognized him.
His father.
Older.
Alive.
Gabriel stumbled backward.
“No.”
Claire whispered:
“Now you understand.”
The older man looked toward the camera.
“Gabriel.”
Gabriel's body went numb.
“You were always the difficult one.”
Gabriel shouted:
“Where are my sons?”
His father smiled.
“Exactly where they need to be.”
“Why?”
“Because only one of them can survive the procedure.”
Gabriel stared.
Claire began crying.
“Gabriel, listen to me.”
Her voice became urgent.
“The experiment isn't about healing paralysis.”
Gabriel froze.
“It was never about Eli's legs.”
“Then what?”
Claire said:
“Memory.”
Silence.
“Their brains were designed to preserve memories that others can't.”
Gabriel looked at Eli's camera.
Then Noah's.
His father continued:
“The twins were born with a mutation.”
Gabriel's blood ran cold.
“It lets them remember everything.”
Claire shook her head.
“And that is why they must never leave.”
Gabriel understood.
The explosion hadn't been designed to paralyze Eli.
It had been designed to erase his memories.
But it failed.
Eli remembered.
Noah remembered.
And the twins together could remember the entire experiment.
All of it.
Every name.
Every crime.
Every murder.
Every secret.
Gabriel turned toward Hannah.
“What are you?”
Hannah removed a small necklace.
Inside was a photograph of Claire.
And behind it, a badge.
FEDERAL INVESTIGATOR.
She looked at Gabriel.
“I've been building this case for eleven months.”
Then a gunshot came through the control room.
Hannah fell.
Blood spread across her shirt.
Gabriel caught her.
Claire screamed from the monitor.
“GABRIEL, RUN!”
The lights went out.
When they came back…
Hannah was gone.
And the screen showed Eli and Noah standing side by side.
No chains.
No guards.
Just the two boys looking directly into the camera.
Eli spoke first.
“Dad.”
Noah continued.
“We remember everything.”
Then the screen changed.
A list of names appeared.
Thirty-seven names.
Including Gabriel Marlowe.
And at the top of the list was:
CLAIRE MARLOWE.
May you like
Status:
ALIVE.
