CHAPTER 26 - Madeline #2
"Take your time, Doctor. You’ve been through hell," Sterling says, his tone softening with a pity that infuriates me. He leaves the office to coordinate the transport, leaving me alone.
The second the door closes, I collapse into my chair. My body is shaking so violently I can barely breathe. The silence of the office is deafening. I look at my hands. The hands that held him, the hands that sent him behind bars.
I am absolutely broken.
I feel like a traitor to my own heart. I saved Lucy, but at what cost? I turned the man who looked at me with a spark of hope into a caged animal. I gave him back to the system that designed him to be a monster in the first place.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the silver key he left me before. My eyes blur with fresh tears as I stare at it.
"Where is she, Deimos?"
I whisper, a sob catching in my throat.
"Where did you put her?"
Then, I notice it.
On the underside of the silver key, there is something I didn't see before. A tiny, laser-etched string of numbers. Not a GPS coordinate. A timestamp and a frequency.
He knew.
He knew I might betray him. Or maybe he hoped I wouldn't, and this was his way of letting me into his world for good. Even when he kidnapped Lucy, he wanted me to find her, if something went wrong.
Either way, the information isn't for the police. It is for me. I wipe my eyes, my grief shifting into a cold determination. I won't tell Sterling. I won't tell anyone. I am going to find Lucy on my own, using the map of a broken man carved into a key.
I force my breathing into a shallow rhythm and rub my eyes until they are red and raw. I let my hair fall over my face in a tangled mess. I need to look like a woman whose world has just collapsed, because it has, but for a very different reason than they think.
I stumble out of my office and into the brightly lit hallway. The sight of the officers milling around, congratulating each other on the "big catch," makes my stomach churn.
"Sterling!"
I choke out, my voice thin and trembling.
The detective turns from a group of officers, his expression instantly shifting from triumph to concern. He rushes over to me, catching me by the elbows as I pretend to sway. He’s so blinded by the victory that he looks like he forgot about the fact that he knew about me having a “shadow.”
"Madeline? Hey, easy. It's okay," he says, his voice low and fatherly.
"I... I can't stay here," I sob, leaning my weight into him just enough to sell the act.
"The smell... the lights... I keep seeing his eyes. Please."
Sterling looks over his shoulder at the chaos of the crime scene.
"I should have someone stay with you. For protection. We don't know if he has associates—"
"No," I hiss and pull away with a sharp, panicked jerk.
"No more police. No more guns. I just want to lock my door and sleep. Please, Detective. You have him. You don't need me anymore tonight."
He sighs, the pity I counted on finally winning out.
"Alright. I'll have one of my men drive you—"
"I have my car," I interrupt, clutching my keys so hard they bite into my palm.
"I just need to drive. I need to feel the air. Just... tell them to let me through the cordon."
Sterling hesitates, then nods to the officer at the door.
"Let the Doctor through. She's done enough for one night. Madeline, go home."
"Thank you," I whisper, looking down so he doesn't see the sudden, cold focus in my eyes.
I walk past the forensic teams, past the yellow tape, and into the cool night air. The police lights strobe against the brick walls of the hospital, blue and red. I don't look at the high-security van idling near the exit, the one where Deimos is sitting in the dark, thinking about my betrayal.
I get into my car and start the engine. I drive slowly, obeying every traffic light, watching my rearview mirror until the morgue is a distant speck.
I keep my eyes on the road, but my gaze flickers constantly to the rearview mirror. A pair of headlights has been behind me since I left the hospital perimeter. They don't switch lanes. They don't fall back. They maintain a precise distance.
My heart begins to hammer against my ribs. I accelerate, hoping to lose them in the winding streets near the river, but the car behind me matches my speed effortlessly. It is a sleek, black car.
Suddenly, the engine behind me roars. The black car swerves into the opposite lane, pulling alongside me.
Before I can react, it cuts sharply across my path.
I slam on the brakes, the tires screaming against the asphalt.
I sit there, gasping for air, my hands trembling on the wheel.
The street is deserted, illuminated only by a flickering orange streetlamp.
The driver’s door of the car opens.
A man steps out. He is older, dressed in a suit that costs more than my entire education, his silver hair groomed to perfection.
He doesn't look like a criminal. He looks like a king.
But as he walks toward my window, I see the eyes.
The same piercing, cold, and analytical gaze I just saw on the floor of the morgue.
The same man that surprised me in the vault that night.
It is Charles. The man who is the source of every nightmare I have lived through. I am paralyzed. I want to lock the doors, to put the car in reverse and fly away, but his presence is like a physical weight pinning me to the seat.
He reaches my window and taps on the glass with a heavy signet ring. I slowly roll it down, my breath hitching in my throat.
"Dr. Madeline," he says, his voice a rich, cultured baritone that sounds like velvet over gravel.
"You had a very busy evening. I believe you have something that belongs to me. Or rather, someone."
He leans down, peering into the car, his gaze falling directly on the silver key sitting in the center console.
"My son is a sentimental fool," Charles whispers, a thin, cruel smile touching his lips.
"He thinks that key leads to a rescue. But you and I know better, don't we?"
"She is my little girl," Charles continues, his tone shifting with practiced ease from menacing to almost paternal.
"My legacy. Deimos is many things. Efficient, cold, brilliant. But he is broken beyond repair.”
I stare at him, my mind spinning. Every instinct tells me to flee, but the desperation in my chest is louder. I am a doctor without a lab, a savior without a clue. And here is the man who built the imperium.
"You want to find her, Madeline," he says, his eyes boring into mine, reading the fracture in my soul.
"You know I have the resources the police lack. I can have her safe within the hour. No more games."
He reaches toward the car handle. I hesitate, my hand hovering over the lock, but then I think of the fact that I have no idea where to start. And the way Deimos looked at me in the morgue. I am already a traitor. I am already drowning.
"Why?"
I whisper, my voice a ragged thread.
"Why would you help me?"
"Because Deimos is a variable that needs to be contained," Charles replies, his smile widening just enough to reveal the shark beneath the skin.
"And because I know you want to fix the mess you made. Let's go, Madeline. The clock is ticking for Lucy."
I swallow the bile in my throat. I am at my most vulnerable, stripped of my logic and fueled by a raw, bleeding guilt.
"Alright," I say, the word feeling like a death sentence.
"Show me where she is."
I step out of my car and into the shadow of his black vehicle. As I close my door, I catch a glimpse of the silver key still lying on the console. I leave it behind. I am stepping into a new world now. One far more dangerous than anything Deimos ever conceived.