CHAPTER 21
SURGICAL PRECISION
POV: Elodie Fray
Location: The Basement Corridor (Morgue Level) -> The Pharmacy/Lab
Track: Glory and Gore – Lorde (Slowed they see prey.
"Well, look what we have here," the lead man says, lowering his rifle slightly. "The Asset."
"Director Graves?" the second man asks, scanning the hall.
"He's dead," I sob, lifting my head. I make sure my face is a mask of terror. "He drowned. In the river. Please... help me."
The leader chuckles. "Drowned like a rat. Good." He walks toward me. He reaches for his radio. "Command, this is Team 4. We secured the Asset. Graves is K.I.A."
He stops two feet away from me. "Get up, sweetheart. The Buyer is waiting."
He reaches down to grab my arm. He enters my space. He enters the kill zone.
Now.
I don't get up. I launch myself upward. My right hand—concealed behind my back—whips forward. The scalpel flashes in the blue light. I aim for the gap between his helmet and his body armor. The carotid.
The blade sinks in. It feels like cutting through a tough steak. Then, a pop. Hot, pressurized liquid sprays across my face. The man gurgles, his hands flying to his neck, dropping his rifle.
"Contact!" the second man screams, raising his weapon.
He doesn't get to fire. From the shadows behind me, a dark shape lunges. Alaric. He swings the bone saw like a hammer. CRACK. The heavy motor housing connects with the second man’s helmet. The sound of plastic shattering is sickening. The man drops like a stone, unconscious or dead.
The first man—the one I cut—is on his knees. Blood is jetting between his fingers, painting the wall, painting me. He looks at me with wide, shocked eyes. He can't breathe. He can't speak. He falls face forward. He twitches once. Then stops.
Silence returns to the hallway, broken only by the drip, drip, drip of blood.
I stand there, panting. I am covered in it. It’s in my mouth. It’s in my eyes. I killed him. Up close. With a knife.
Alaric steps over the second body. He kicks the rifle away. He looks at me. He doesn't ask if I'm okay. He knows I'm not. He knows I am something else now. He reaches out with his thumb and wipes a splatter of blood from my cheek. He brings it to his lips. He licks it.
"Perfect execution," he whispers.
It is the most twisted praise I have ever heard. And God help me, it steadies my hands. "We need their weapons," I say, my voice devoid of emotion.
Alaric nods. "Take the rifle. It’s an HK416. Low recoil. Can you handle it?"
"I'll figure it out." I pick up the rifle. It is heavy, smelling of oil. I strap it across my chest. I take the dead man’s sidearm—a Glock—and tuck it into my waistband. Alaric takes the other man’s pistol. He can't use a rifle with one arm.
"Service ladder," he commands.
We leave the bodies where they fell. We climb. The ladder is inside a narrow maintenance shaft. It is cold and greasy. Alaric struggles. I have to push him from below, my shoulder under his good buttock, heaving him up rung by rung. He is bleeding through the bandages again.
"Second floor," he gasps.
We reach the grate. Alaric peers through. "Clear." He pushes the grate open. We crawl out.
We are in the West Wing hallway. The carpet here is plush. The walls are lined with art. But the vibe is wrong. Doors are open. Papers are scattered on the floor. It looks like a looting.
We move toward the administrative suite. Toward Dr. Sterling’s office. There are no guards here. They are all searching the woods or the basement. We reach the double doors of the Medical Records department. They are ajar. Light spills out.
We stack up on the doorframe. Alaric nods to me. I swing in, rifle raised. "Don't move!"
The room is in chaos. File cabinets are overturned. Piles of paper are burning in a metal trash can in the center of the room. Standing by the fire, feeding documents into the flames, is Dr. Sterling.
She doesn't flinch. She doesn't scream. She turns slowly, a file in her hand. She is wearing her pristine white coat. Her blonde hair is in a perfect chignon. She looks like she is ready for rounds, not burning evidence in the middle of a hostile takeover.
She looks at me. At the blood on my face. At the rifle. Then she looks at Alaric. At the wet rags. The deathly pallor. She smiles. A sad, clinical smile.
"You're late, Alaric," she says softly. "I expected you an hour ago."
"Step away from the fire, Julia," Alaric growls, stepping into the room, his pistol trained on her chest.
"Or what?" She throws the file into the flames. "You'll shoot your Chief of Medicine? Your oldest friend?"
"You are not my friend," Alaric says, his voice dripping with ice. "You are the mole. You gave Vance the codes. You gave them the perimeter access."
"I gave them the key," she corrects. "To save the house."
"Save it?" I interrupt, stepping forward. "They destroyed it! They blew up the helicopter! They are hunting us like animals!"
Sterling looks at me with pity. "Collateral damage, my dear.
Unfortunate. But necessary." She walks around the fire, her heels clicking on the parquet floor.
"The facility was going under, Alaric. You were bleeding money.
You spent millions on security, on silence, on her.
The Board was going to oust you. They were going to shut us down. "
"So you sold us to the Syndicate?" Alaric asks.
"I secured a partnership," she claims. "They wanted the land rights.
They wanted the girl. In exchange, Hallowed Halls remains open.
My research continues. The patients stay.
" She stops in front of her desk. "I did it for the legacy, Alaric.
You lost sight of the mission. You became obsessed with the Muse.
You forgot that we are doctors, not jailers. "
"You are a traitor," Alaric says. His hand is shaking, but the gun remains level.
"And you are a monster," she counters calmly. "Look what you did to her. Look at her eyes, Alaric. They are dead. You hollowed her out and filled her with your own darkness."
"She saved me," Alaric snarls.
"She is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and acute trauma bonding," Sterling diagnoses, her voice professional. "She thinks she loves you because you are the only thing keeping her alive. It’s textbook."
She looks at me. "Put the gun down, Elodie. You are free now. The Buyer is here. He just wants the signature on the trust. Sign it, and you can go. You can go back to Paris. To Vienna. You can play piano again."
Piano. The word hangs in the air. I look at the fire. I look at Alaric. I look at the woman who tried to gaslight me through the dumbwaiter.
"You told me he killed Clara," I say quietly.
Sterling pauses. "He did. In every way that matters."
"Did he push her?" I ask.
"He drove her to the edge," Sterling says carefully. "Does the physical push matter?"
"Yes," I say. "It matters."
I walk toward her. The rifle is heavy. "You tried to make me hate him. You tried to make me leave the Safe House. You wanted me to walk out into the snow so your men could grab me."
"I wanted to spare you the crossfire!"
"Liar," I spit. "You wanted the Asset intact. You wanted your commission."
I stop three feet from her. "You talk about his darkness? You sold a human being for a research grant. You are the monster, Dr. Sterling. He just doesn't hide it."
Sterling’s composure cracks. Her eyes dart to the phone on her desk. "Security is on the way," she warns. "They heard the shots downstairs."
"Then we have to be quick," Alaric says.
He moves. He pistol-whips her. A short, brutal strike to the temple. Sterling crumbles. She hits the floor, unconscious.
Alaric stands over her. He is breathing hard, swaying. "We should kill her," he says. "She knows too much."
I look at the unconscious woman. The woman who gave me pills. The woman who tried to turn me. I raise the rifle. I aim at her head. It would be easy. Surgical. Clear the board.
But then I look at the fire. The files. "Alaric," I say. "The files."
I reach into the trash can, ignoring the heat, and pull out a stack of burning papers. I stomp out the flames. I look at the header. PROJECT: ORPHEUS. Subject: Elodie Fray. Phase 3: Conditioning Complete. Asset ready for transfer.
It’s not just a land deal. It’s a program. I flip the page. Buyer Identity: Archibald Thorne.
Thorne. The Senator. The man whose son is a patient here. The man Sterling mentioned at dinner.
"Thorne," Alaric reads over my shoulder. "The Senator wants the land?"
"Why?"
"Because the land isn't just minerals," Alaric realizes, his eyes widening. "It sits on the aquifer. The water rights. In ten years, that water will be worth more than oil."
He laughs. A desperate, jagged sound. "It’s always about money. Boring, pedestrian money."
He looks at Sterling. "We leave her," he decides. "She’s not the head of the snake. Thorne is."
"We can't leave her to call them."
Alaric grabs a roll of medical tape from the desk. "Bind her. Gag her. We take the service elevator to the roof. We need an exit strategy."
"The helicopter is gone, Alaric."
"But the Medevac chopper isn't," he says. "It’s on the South Pad. Reserved for critical transfers."
We bind Sterling quickly. I tape her mouth shut. I look into her unconscious face. "I hope your research was worth it," I whisper.
We turn to leave. The door bursts open.
Three men. Heavily armored. They don't shout. They fire. RAT-TAT-TAT.
I dive behind the heavy oak desk. Alaric spins, firing his pistol. Bang. Bang. He hits one in the leg, but the body armor absorbs the rest. Bullets chew up the wood of the desk above my head. Splinters shower down on me.
"Suppressed!" Alaric yells, dropping behind a filing cabinet. "I'm empty!"
I have the rifle. I have never fired a rifle on full auto. Rhythm. I pop up. I squeeze the trigger. The gun bucks like a living thing, spraying bullets in a chaotic arc. It’s messy. It’s loud. But it works. The men duck for cover.
"Go!" Alaric shouts. "Window!"
"We're on the second floor!"
"Jump!"
He grabs a heavy bronze bust of Hippocrates from the shelf. He hurls it through the plate glass window. SMASH. Cold air and snow rush in.
"Jump, Elodie!"
I look at the drop. Twenty feet. Into a snowdrift. I look at the door. The men are regrouping. I look at Alaric. He holds out his hand.
I take it. We run. We leap into the void.
For a second, we are flying. Then we hit the snow. It’s cold. It’s hard. But we are out.
We scramble up from the drift. The alarm is blaring now. Sirens wail in the distance. "The South Pad," Alaric gasps, clutching his shoulder. "Half a mile. Through the gardens."
We run. Behind us, Hallowed Halls burns with the light of the fire Sterling started. We are battered. Bleeding. Hunted. But we have a name. Thorne.
And as we run into the frozen night, I know one thing for certain. We aren't running away anymore. We are running toward the war.