Chapter 11 - Six Seconds
Mara tore at Lily's collar. A flat black device was taped against her skin, its red numbers flashing 00:06.
“Adrian!” Mara screamed.
He burst through the greenhouse door as the clock changed to five. One look at the device and he yanked Lily's jacket open.
“Get down.”
He ripped the device free and threw it into the garden's irrigation tank. At 00:01, the water flashed white. The tank burst, spraying them with a chemical-smelling mist. The explosion was small enough to spare their lives and loud enough to bring security running.
Lily coughed. “It was a warning charge. Price said she'd use the real one next time.”
Adrian wrapped his jacket around her. Mara stared at the woman she'd lost twelve years ago. Lily was taller, sharper, and exhausted. She wasn't the little girl Mara had spent a decade dreaming of rescuing.
“Why did you tell me not to trust him?” Mara asked.
Lily looked at Adrian. “Because he signed the transfer papers.”
“I was nineteen,” he said. “I didn't understand—”
“I was seven. Neither did I.”
His face crumpled for one unguarded second. “I'm sorry.”
Lily's eyes filled. “Sorry doesn't return twelve years.”
“Nothing does,” Mara said quietly. “But we have today.”
They hurried toward the stairwell. Ruiz reported that armored men were approaching the lower floors. June had a van waiting at the loading dock.
Halfway down, Lily seized Mara's arm. “There's something you need to know. The children weren't the experiment. They were witnesses.”
“Witnesses to what?”
“Graham used the filtration system to spread a nerve agent in apartments. He was testing crowd-control technology for private defense contracts. When people got sick, he evacuated the children who had seen the equipment.”
Mara felt the stairs tilt beneath her. “How many died because of the tests?”
“More than the seventeen from the fire.”
May you like
They reached the landing. At the bottom stood Dr. Helen Price, holding a syringe against Ruiz's neck.
“Nina,” Price said softly, “come back to your mother.”
