Chapter 2 - Two Tanks
For three seconds, Ethan forgot how to move. The girl on the screen had dark curls, a crescent-shaped birthmark under her chin, and the green jacket Mia had worn the night she disappeared.
“Mia?” His voice came out thin.
“Ethan, don't listen to him,” Nora mouthed from inside the cylinder.
Victor's smile never moved. “One door opens. One stays closed. You're a man who understands consequences.”
Ethan ran toward the stage. Two guards cut him off. The first went down when Ethan caught his wrist and slammed him into a champagne tower. The second pulled a gun. Guests screamed and scrambled beneath the tables.
“Put it down!” the woman in gold snapped.
Something in her voice stopped the guard. She stepped in front of Ethan. “Victor, I signed the papers. I did everything you asked. You promised she was safe.”
Victor looked at her the way a man looks at a stain on expensive carpet. “You should have stayed upstairs, Celeste.”
Ethan saw a red fire lever near the service doors. He sprinted, yanked it, and set off every sprinkler in the ballroom. Cold water spilled over silk dresses and white tablecloths. The screen flickered. So did the lock on Nora's tank.
Nora shoved one shoulder against the hatch. It gave an inch. Ethan ran back, caught the edge, and hauled until the metal tore his palms. Water crashed onto the stage. Nora fell into his arms, coughing so hard she could barely breathe.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Where's Mia?”
Nora clutched his lapel. “Not here. The video is delayed. He wants you chasing it.”
“Then why show me?”
“Because you have the key.”
“I don't have a key.”
“You do. Your sister hid it where only you'd look.”
Sirens sounded outside. Victor had already slipped through a private exit, leaving the guests to shout at the guards. Celeste took Nora's face in both hands, trembling.
“You're alive,” she said.
Nora pulled away. “Don't pretend you didn't know.”
Ethan caught a glimpse of blue ink written along Nora's wet wrist: 11:47 / NORTH PIER.
Before he could ask, Nora's knees buckled. As she fell, she pressed a tiny object into his hand: a brass button, still warm from her skin.
May you like
On its back, scratched into the metal, were three words.
MIA DID IT.
