CHAPTER 21 NORA #2
Each step rang under our shoes. Declan kept his body between mine and Vale until the stairs forced us single file. His gun stayed low, angled away from Marian's cradle but ready for Vale's chest. My injured arm throbbed with each heartbeat. Blood had soaked the bandage and dried stiff at the edges.
The lower chamber was warmer than the gallery. Heat breathed from vents under the cradle, soft and constant. That softness made my stomach twist. Mercy had stolen gentle things for horror.
Marian looked smaller up close.
Her cheekbones stood sharp under pale skin. Fine lines bracketed her mouth. A white hospital blanket covered her to the ribs, and beneath the edge of it, tubes disappeared into her chest and side. One wrist was restrained with a soft cuff. The other lay free, palm up, fingers slightly curled.
I made a sound I hated.
Declan's arm came across my stomach before I could rush forward. "Slow."
"That's my mother."
"That is also his room. Slow."
Vale stood beyond the cradle, near the console. A second man waited in the far corner, half hidden behind a standing oxygen unit, hand under his jacket.
Declan saw him at the same time I did.
"Friend of yours?" Declan asked.
Vale did not look away from me. "Security. You understand."
"If he clears leather, I drop him."
"If you fire, the wake cycle spikes."
"Then tell him to keep his hand where I can see it."
The guard's hand withdrew slowly, empty.
My pulse beat in my ears. I stepped around Declan's arm, then stopped when his hand tightened against my coat. He gave me one furious look. I answered it by touching his wrist, careful of the blood.
"I'm still behind your shoulder," I whispered.
"Barely."
"Take the win."
Vale's gaze moved between us. "Mercer never understood why fathers made such trouble over mothers.
He thought it was ownership. My grandfather understood better.
It was witness. A father who sees the mother taken creates record outside the system.
Red access was built to manage that problem.
Men like Martin moved the bodies. Men like Thomas tried to make noise. "
"Thomas was my father," I said. "Say his name with respect or choke on it."
Vale's eyebrows lifted. "There she is."
"You wanted daughter route. You got her."
"Then place the guardian token on the cradle."
The ringer burned hotter in my pocket.
Declan's voice cut in. "Why?"
"Because Marian will respond to it."
"And then?"
"Then Nora asks her mother to release the Brooks hold and confirms what was interrupted. The archive opens. The old Mercy trust transfers. Everyone learns who owned what."
Cormac spoke in my ear, sharp and low. "Nora, do not say release. Do not confirm transfer. He is tying witness language to property language."
Maeve came in beneath him. "Ask for proof of life under protective return. Proof is safer than release."
Vale smiled toward the comm pin at my collar. "Still correcting girls from the balcony, Maeve?"
"Still hiding behind stolen women, Patrick?" Maeve replied.
His face hardened for one breath.
Good.
Fear was chewing through my ribs, but anger gave me somewhere to stand. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Thomas's ringer. The brass disc lay against my bloody fingers, dull and old and warm. Marian's free hand twitched on the blanket.
My breath caught.
"Mom?" I whispered.
The monitor ticked faster.
MATERNAL RESPONSE DETECTED
GUARDIAN TOKEN RECOGNIZED
DAUGHTER ROUTE WITHIN RANGE
Vale's eyes brightened. "Place it."
"Proof first," I said.
"You see her breathing."
"Machines breathe for people. I want my mother."
Declan made a rough sound beside me, a warning or a prayer. His injured hand brushed my lower back. The touch steadied me so fast it scared me.
I stepped closer to the cradle.
Vale's guard shifted.
Declan's gun lifted an inch. "Try it."
The guard froze.
I placed the ringer on the edge of the cradle, near Marian's free hand, and kept my fingers on it.
"Daughter route Nora Marian Brooks requests proof of mother identity under protective return," I said. My voice trembled, then hardened around the next words. "Guardian token present. Red witness protects. Release denied. Transfer denied. Property command denied. Mother answers daughter only."
Vale lunged for the console.
Declan moved.
The guard reached under his jacket. Declan fired once, a brutal crack that punched through the warm room. The bullet hit the guard in the shoulder and spun him into the oxygen unit. A red warning flashed over Marian's monitor, but the cradle did not jolt.
Vale's hand struck a white switch. Marian gasped, and the sound tore me open.
Her fingers curled around the ringer. Her eyelids fluttered, and the monitor screamed in sharp little bursts. I grabbed her hand because my body moved before fear could stop it. Her skin felt warm and dry, fragile under mine, alive.
"Mom," I said, and this time the word broke out of me. "Mom, it's Nora."
Her eyes opened. They were dark like Isabella's. Dark like mine. Clouded with drugs, pain, and years stolen by machines, but there.
Her lips moved.
I bent close. "I'm here. Bella is here too. Dad sent me. Thomas sent me."
Tears blurred her face. I blinked hard and lost them anyway.
Marian's fingers tightened around mine weakly. "Nora."
My name in my mother's mouth nearly took me to the floor.
"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, it's me."