CHAPTER 23 NORA #2
The ceiling voice clicked.
CARE DESIGNATION FORFEITED
NURSE AUTHORITY LOCKED OUT
A crash burst over the comm. Aidan swore. Bell's scream cut off into a muffled howl.
"Bell down," Aidan said, breathing hard. "Rina's conscious. Pissed as hell, but conscious."
"Tell Rina I owe her," I said.
Rina's faint answer came through. "Bring your mother out. Then owe me coffee."
The tiny ordinary word hit me in the chest. Coffee. A kitchen. A cup between hands. A world where mothers came home and witnesses lived long enough to want caffeine.
Declan reached the edge of the cage. The light snapped at him when he shoved his burned palm through it. He hissed but did not pull back.
"Emergency return," he said. "Red witness mobile. Protective interference active. Daughter route and maternal body are under my guard. Open the cage."
The blue light thinned around his wrist. He looked at me through it, face pale under the blood and dirt.
"Your ankle," I said.
"Still attached. I'm counting it as a win."
"Declan."
"Nora." His voice dropped. It did more to me than the touch of his fingers pushing through the light. "Put your hand in mine. We move her together."
"If the cage shocks you again?"
"It can get in line."
My laugh broke softer this time, wet and shaking. I slid my hand into his. The cage burned cold around our joined fingers, then opened with a sound like a lock giving up.
For one breath, I was close enough to touch his face. I did it because I needed to, because he was bleeding and alive and looking at me with murder behind him and tenderness in his hand. My fingertips brushed the edge of his jaw. His eyes closed briefly, and his grip tightened around mine.
"When this is over," he said, low enough that the comm almost lost it, "I'm going to be furious with you for scaring me."
"You were restrained to a murder machine and tore your own skin open."
"Aye. So we can be furious at each other somewhere with a bed and locks I approve of."
Heat rushed under my face, bright in the middle of alarms. "Focus."
His mouth tilted. "Trying. Failing in places."
The monitor shrieked again, dragging us back.
EMERGENCY RETURN AVAILABLE
MANUAL RELEASE REQUIRES DAUGHTER HAND AND RED WITNESS HAND
TRANSFER CRADLE TO RETURN TRACK
Panels in the floor slid apart beneath Marian's cradle. A track rose from under the tiles, old steel polished by use I did not want to imagine. The cradle unlocked from its base with a heavy clank.
Siobhan started giving instructions before I asked. "Do not lift her body. Move the cradle. Keep the line at her chest clear. Declan, if there are wheel locks, release them. Nora, stay near her head and keep talking."
Declan found the first lock and kicked it loose with his good foot. Pain flashed across him. He swallowed it down and moved to the second. I pressed both hands near Marian's shoulders and bent close.
"Mom, we are moving you. Bella is waiting. You are going to hear her voice again without a machine between you. You are going to meet Gabriel, and you can be angry at him after Siobhan says your blood pressure is safe."
"Nora," Isabella said, and her voice broke around my name.
"You heard me. He deserves at least a little mother judgment."
A rough sound came from Gabriel's side of the comm. It might have been pain. It might have been the closest thing to a laugh he could manage while cancer sat exposed between him and his wife.
"Marian Brooks may judge me after she is stable," Gabriel said. "Tell her I accept the appointment."
My mother's lips moved. I caught one faint word.
"Bella."
Isabella cried out. The sound almost took my knees.
"I'm here," Bella said. "Mom, I'm here. Nora has you. I have Dad's proof coming through. We're both here."
A chime rang from the guardian port. Thomas's ringer flashed gold.
REMOTE COPY IN PROGRESS
RECIPIENT ONE: ISABELLA brOOKS STONE
RECIPIENT TWO: NORA MARIAN brOOKS
RECIPIENT THREE: GAbrIEL STONE COMMAND NODE
MATERNAL ARCHIVE PARTIAL
MERCER ROUTE KEY REMOVED
"Cormac," Gabriel said.
"We're receiving fragments," Cormac replied. "Names. Birth records. Saint Brigid route logs. Mercy invoices. It can hurt him. The case he took is still beyond us."
"Find the service route."
"Already working."
The cradle shifted under my hands. Declan shoved his shoulder against the side, muscles bunching under his blood-streaked shirt. The wheels caught the track. For a terrible second, the cradle tilted toward him.
I grabbed the upper rail. "Declan."
"I've got it."
"Your leg is giving."
"The cradle isn't."
He pushed again. The wheels settled into the track with a grinding click.
RETURN TRACK ENGAGED
DESTINATION: MATERNAL EXIT LIFT
RED WITNESS REQUIRED TO ESCORT
DAUGHTER ROUTE REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN BODY ATTACHMENT
"Of course it wants us both," Declan muttered.
"You thought it would become polite now?"
"I had a brief fantasy."
"Keep it brief."
We moved. Slow at first, then faster as the track took some of the weight.
The cage traveled with us, a blue glow around my feet and Marian's cradle, while a thinner red line followed Declan's burned hand where he gripped the side rail.
The chamber behind us opened and closed in pieces: screens dimming, drawers sealing, warning lights blinking over names I could not read.