Chapter 8 - Aster Ridge
The children froze when the alarm sounded.
Their supervisors did not.
Two women in gray uniforms immediately began directing the children toward a stairwell.
Emily moved toward Lucy.
A large guard stepped between them.
“Return to the administrative office.”
“That is my daughter.”
“Dr. Vale, do not make this difficult.”
Emily struck him with the metal clipboard.
He staggered.
Nora grabbed Lucy and pulled her behind a desk.
The covert agents entered through the east corridor, but the metal shutters divided the building into sealed sections.
A voice continued over the speaker.
“Emily, you were always impulsive. Nora, you were always predictable.”
Nora recognized the voice.
Beatrice.
“She’s supposed to be in a hospital,” Nora said.
Emily looked toward a camera mounted above the doorway.
“Pre-recorded message.”
“No,” Beatrice replied through the speaker. “I assure you, I am very much awake.”
Beatrice had either escaped custody or never reached the hospital.
Nora’s phone had no signal.
The facility’s walls blocked communication.
Lucy clung to Emily.
“You came back.”
Emily dropped to her knees and held her daughter.
“I never stopped looking.”
A guard appeared in the doorway.
Nora threw a chair into his path.
Emily pulled Lucy toward the stairwell.
They joined three agents who had forced open an internal shutter.
“Residential wing is below ground,” one agent said. “We found elevator access.”
They descended.
The lower level did not resemble a school.
White corridors stretched beneath fluorescent lights. Observation windows revealed examination rooms, laboratories, and recovery wards.
Children lay in beds connected to monitors.
Nora felt sick.
An agent photographed everything as they moved.
At the far end, they found a locked dormitory containing nine children.
Emily used her clearance code.
The door opened.
The children did not rush out.
They stared silently.
One boy whispered, “Is this another test?”
Nora crouched.
“No. We’re taking you somewhere safe.”
The boy looked unconvinced.
“Safe is what they call the room before surgery.”
Nora’s throat tightened.
The agents began evacuating them.
Emily examined the wristband on one child.
“These children have procedure dates scheduled today.”
“For what?”
“Cell harvesting.”
A mechanical sound echoed overhead.
Smoke began entering through the ventilation system.
“Fire protocol,” an agent said.
Emily shook her head.
“Sterilization protocol. They are going to destroy evidence.”
The smoke smelled chemical, not like fire.
Agents distributed emergency masks.
They moved the children toward a service tunnel, but a steel door blocked the route.
Nora found a control panel.
It required biometric authorization.
Emily pressed her hand to the scanner.
ACCESS DENIED.
Lucy stepped forward.
“Grandma uses my finger.”
Nora looked at her.
“Which grandma?”
“The old lady with pearls.”
Lucy placed her small hand against the scanner.
The door opened.
Beatrice had registered a five-year-old child as an emergency administrator.
They entered the tunnel just as the first laboratory ignited behind them.
The passage led toward the woods.
Halfway through, a figure appeared at the opposite end.
Garrett.
He wore no handcuffs.
He held a pistol.
Nora stopped.
“You escaped.”
“Avery had people inside the transport unit.”
Emily pushed Lucy behind her.
Garrett looked at the children.
“You cannot take them.”
“They are not property,” Nora said.
“You don’t understand what they represent.”
“Your mother’s treatment?”
“More than that. Decades of research. Billions of dollars. Therapies that could save millions.”
“You tortured children.”
“We used what we had.”
Nora stared at the man she had once loved.
“You never saw them as human.”
“I saw the future.”
“You saw profit.”
Garrett raised the gun.
“Give me Lucy.”
Emily stepped in front of her daughter.
“No.”
“She is the strongest match.”
“For Beatrice?”
“For the entire Vale line.”
Nora slowly moved sideways, drawing Garrett’s attention away from the children.
“You married both of us because you needed access to our DNA.”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Garrett’s face flickered.
“I did love you.”
Nora almost pitied him.
“You have no idea what that word means.”
He aimed at Emily.
Nora lunged.
The gun fired.
The bullet struck the tunnel wall.
An agent tackled Garrett, but he fought with desperate strength.
Emily moved the children past them.
Nora helped restrain Garrett until handcuffs secured his wrists.
This time an agent locked both cuffs through a steel transport chain.
Garrett looked at Nora from the ground.
“My mother will never stop.”
“Then neither will I.”
Outside, helicopters circled above the burning facility.
Emergency teams treated the children in a clearing.
Lucy refused to leave Emily’s arms.
Nora watched them together.
It was the first beautiful thing she had seen since Mia’s teeth hit the marble.
Then one of the medical officers approached.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Three children are missing from the facility count.”
Emily searched the rescued group.
“Which children?”
The officer handed her a roster.
One name stood out.
Mia Whitcomb.
Nora stared at him.
“My daughter is in protective custody.”
“According to this file,” he said, “a child using her identity entered Aster Ridge six months ago.”
Nora looked at the identification photograph.
The girl had dark hair, gray-green eyes, and Nora’s birthmark.
Another child created from her family’s stolen embryos.
A child living under Mia’s name.
At the bottom of the record was a transfer destination.
May you like
Vale Meridian Pediatric Center.
Elias’s hospital.
