CHAPTER 7 — THE BOY WHO KNEW THEIR NUMBERS
The child’s name was Noah.
He refused to give a last name.
He refused to let the paramedics touch him.
And every time an adult male stepped too close, he pressed himself against the ambulance wall and covered the back of his neck with both hands.
Clara recognized the gesture.
She had seen Olivia do the same thing as a child whenever doctors entered a room.
At the time, no one had understood why.
Now she did.
Noah allowed Clara to sit beside him.
No one else.
A blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders, but he continued shivering.
Ryan returned from the woods, soaked and furious.
“The driver had a motorcycle waiting beyond the fence. We lost him.”
He looked toward Noah.
“Is that Ethan’s son?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
Noah’s eyes darted toward Ryan.
“He’s police.”
“Yes,” Clara said gently.
“Police brought me there.”
“Where?”
“The white building.”
“Blackridge?”
Noah looked confused.
“They never called it that.”
“What did they call it?”
“Home.”
Clara’s heart twisted.
“How long were you there?”
Noah stared at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you remember living anywhere else?”
“A yellow house.”
“With your mother?”
His face tightened.
“She went to sleep.”
Clara glanced at Ryan.
“What was her name?”
Noah pulled the blanket closer.
“Lena.”
“Lena what?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Why?”
“They said names make people easier to find.”
Clara lowered her voice.
“Noah, your father has been trying to find you.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“Ethan is not my father.”
Clara went still.
Ryan moved closer but kept his distance.
“Who told you that?”
“The Warden.”
“What did he say?”
Noah looked directly at Clara.
“He said Ethan was only the keeper.”
Clara felt cold despite the warm ambulance.
“Who is your father?”
Noah’s eyes filled with tears.
“B-17C.”
Clara stopped breathing.
Her brother.
The man Blackridge had raised.
The child they claimed had extraordinary blood.
Noah believed that man was his father.
“Did you ever meet him?” Ryan asked.
Noah nodded.
Clara’s voice shook.
“What was his name?”
“He had lots of names.”
“Which one did he use with you?”
Noah hesitated.
“Gabriel.”
Clara looked at Ryan.
“Gabriel Bennett?”
Noah flinched at the last name.
“He doesn’t like that name.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas gave it to him.”
Their father.
Clara’s thoughts raced.
“Is Gabriel alive?”
Noah nodded again.
“Where?”
“He moves.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
Noah stared toward the cemetery.
“He said he had to wake Mother.”
Clara’s blood ran cold.
“Our mother is dead.”
Noah’s gaze shifted toward the empty coffin.
“No, she isn’t.”
Olivia was moved to a guarded hospital floor before dawn.
Ryan assigned two officers to her room and another to Noah’s.
Clara entered Olivia’s room carrying the blue bracelet and one surviving photograph from the grave.
The black case had been transferred to a secure evidence facility.
Most of the documents were intact.
The vial was not.
Olivia looked at Clara’s face.
“You opened the grave.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She wasn’t there.”
Olivia closed her eyes.
“I knew it.”
Clara stopped beside the bed.
“You knew the coffin might be empty?”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know if what I remembered was real.”
Clara placed the childhood photograph on Olivia’s blanket.
Olivia looked down.
Her face collapsed.
In the image, five-year-old Olivia sat beside the boy while a nurse drew blood from her arm.
“I remember the room,” Olivia whispered.
“Tell me.”
“It smelled like oranges.”
Clara frowned.
“Oranges?”
“They gave us candy after the tests. Orange slices covered in sugar.”
Tears slid down Olivia’s cheeks.
“I thought it was a dream.”
“You weren’t dreaming.”
“The boy used to sing.”
“Gabriel?”
Olivia’s eyes lifted.
“You know his name?”
“Noah told me.”
“Who is Noah?”
“Ethan’s son.”
Olivia stared at her.
“Ethan doesn’t have a son.”
“He does. But Noah says Ethan isn’t his father.”
Confusion moved across Olivia’s face.
“Then whose?”
“Gabriel’s.”
Olivia stopped breathing for several seconds.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan told me Gabriel died.”
“When?”
“Ten years ago.”
“The same age Noah is now.”
Olivia slowly understood.
“Oh God.”
“Who was Lena?”
Olivia looked toward the door.
“How do you know that name?”
“Noah said it was his mother.”
Olivia’s face turned pale.
“Lena Mercer.”
Clara felt the pieces shifting again.
“Dr. Mercer’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know her?”
“She contacted me six weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to expose her father.”
Olivia struggled to sit upright.
“She said Gabriel had escaped Blackridge and taken her with him. They were together for nearly a year.”
“And Noah?”
“She was pregnant when Mercer found them.”
Clara leaned closer.
“What happened?”
“Lena said they took Gabriel first. Then they kept her under observation until Noah was born.”
“Why would Ethan claim Noah as his son?”
“He was part of the extraction plan.”
“What extraction?”
“Lena was trying to get Noah out.”
Olivia covered her face.
“She asked Ethan for help because she knew he had access to the lower levels.”
“Did he help her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Noah ended up at Blackridge.”
“Then something went wrong.”
Clara’s anger returned.
“Something always goes wrong in Ethan’s version.”
Olivia looked at her.
“He may have been trying.”
“He helped bury you.”
“He also kept me alive.”
“No. The dosage failed.”
“Or he changed it.”
Clara stopped.
Olivia continued.
“I heard Mercer arguing before they moved me. He said the sedative concentration was too low. Ethan told him my weight had been entered incorrectly.”
“Do you think Ethan did that deliberately?”
“Yes.”
“He still watched them close the coffin.”
Olivia’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
For the first time, Clara saw the full weight of Olivia’s grief.
Not only terror.
Not only betrayal.
Love refusing to die even after the person she loved had done something unforgivable.
Clara sat beside her.
“Why did you write ‘I lied to her’?”
Olivia frowned.
“What?”
“At the funeral, before I broke the coffin, I said I lied to you.”
Olivia stared.
“You did.”
“I kept hearing your voice.”
“What lie?”
Clara looked down at her hands.
“Three days before you supposedly died, you called me.”
Olivia’s expression sharpened.
“I don’t remember.”
“You were frightened. You asked whether Mom ever said anything strange before she died.”
“What did you tell me?”
“That she didn’t.”
“But she did.”
Clara nodded.
“The night before she died, Mom woke up and recognized me.”
Olivia waited.
“She said, ‘Your brother came back for me.’”
Olivia’s lips parted.
“I thought she was hallucinating. I never told you because you were already falling apart.”
“What else did she say?”
Clara forced herself back into the memory.
Their mother’s thin hand gripping her wrist.
Her eyes suddenly clear after months of confusion.
The machine beside the bed beeping steadily.
“Mom said the man downstairs had forgiven her.”
“What man?”
“I asked.”
Clara looked at Olivia.
“She whispered one name.”
“Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
Olivia leaned back against the pillow.
“Then he was alive twelve years ago.”
“And he found her.”
“Or Blackridge brought him to her.”
A soft knock came at the door.
Ryan entered carrying a laptop.
“We recovered footage from one of the tapes.”
Clara stood.
“What was on it?”
“Your mother.”
He placed the laptop on the rolling table.
“The recording is dated two months before her official death.”
Olivia stared at the screen.
Ryan pressed play.
The video showed Margaret Bennett seated in a dim room.
She looked healthier than either sister remembered.
Her hair was longer.
Her face alert.
A camera timestamp confirmed the date.
A man spoke from behind the camera.
“State your name.”
“Margaret Eleanor Bennett.”
“State your patient designation.”
“B-17.”
“Do you understand why you’re being recorded?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
Margaret looked directly into the camera.
“If my daughters see this, then Thomas failed to destroy the program.”
Clara gripped the bedrail.
Their mother continued.
“Clara and Olivia were told they were conceived naturally. That was a lie.”
Olivia covered her mouth.
“They were both born after the procedure,” Margaret said. “But they were not the intended result.”
The unseen man asked, “Who was?”
“My son.”
“Name?”
“Gabriel.”
“Status?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Alive.”
The man behind the camera shifted.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You helped him escape.”
Margaret said nothing.
“You understand the consequences.”
“I understand what you call consequences.”
The camera moved closer.
“Why did you return?”
Margaret’s expression broke.
“Because they took Olivia.”
Olivia let out a small gasp.
The recording continued.
“What did they do to her?” the man asked.
“They tried to activate what they believed was dormant.”
“How?”
Margaret’s voice became almost inaudible.
“They used Gabriel’s blood.”
Clara looked at Olivia.
The childhood photograph.
The needle.
The boy watching behind glass.
The experiment had not merely tested Olivia.
They had transferred something into her.
On-screen, Margaret leaned toward the camera.
“Olivia, if you remember the orange room, listen carefully. The pain in your head is not an illness. The blackouts are not stress. They put something inside you.”
Olivia’s hand flew to the back of her neck.
Clara remembered the scar.
Their matching crescent marks.
Margaret continued.
“Clara, they performed the same procedure on you, but your body rejected it. That is why they left you alone.”
A strange relief flashed through Clara.
Then vanished when Margaret added:
“At least, that is what they believed.”
Ryan paused the video.
“There’s more.”
“Play it,” Clara said.
He did.
The unseen man asked Margaret one final question.
“What is the lower room?”
Margaret looked directly into the lens.
“The place where Mercer keeps the children who survive.”
“Where is it?”
“Beneath the old east campus.”
Ethan had given the same location.
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
“If Gabriel reaches this recording, tell him I didn’t abandon him.”
A noise sounded outside the room.
Margaret looked toward a door beyond the camera.
Then she spoke quickly.
“Tell him the truth about Thomas.”
The unseen man asked, “What truth?”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“Thomas Bennett was not his father.”
The video ended.
No one spoke.
Clara finally whispered, “Then who was?”
Ryan closed the laptop.
“We don’t know.”
Olivia stared at the black screen.
“No.”
Her voice trembled.
“I think I do.”
Clara turned toward her.
Olivia’s face had become white.
“The photograph from Blackridge. The one with Gabriel at six.”
“What about it?”
“Ethan was standing beside him.”
“You told me.”
“I was wrong.”
Olivia looked terrified.
“I thought it was Ethan.”
“Who was it?”
“His father.”
Clara frowned.
“Ethan’s father died before you met.”
“That’s what Ethan told me.”
Olivia looked at Ryan.
“His name was William Voss.”
The coded W.
The Warden.
Ryan slowly stood.
“And you think William Voss fathered Gabriel?”
Olivia nodded.
Before anyone could respond, a nurse rushed into the room.
“Detective, the boy is gone.”
Ryan spun around.
“What?”
“The officer outside his room was found unconscious in the stairwell.”
Clara headed for the door.
“Where are the cameras?”
“Security is checking.”
Ryan called for a lockdown.
The hospital doors sealed.
Elevators stopped.
Officers searched every floor.
Five minutes later, security located Noah.
Not leaving the hospital.
Entering Olivia’s room.
Clara turned toward the doorway.
Noah stood there barefoot, still wrapped in the hospital blanket.
No one had seen him approach.
He held a syringe in his right hand.
Olivia recoiled.
“Noah?”
The boy looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara stepped between them.
“Put it down.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Noah’s hand shook violently.
“He said she has to remember.”
“Who said that?”
Noah’s eyes shifted toward the ceiling camera.
May you like
“Gabriel.”
Then he drove the needle into his own arm.
