Chapter 4
In the sudden, suffocating darkness, the only light came from the neon green battery-backup rings around the heart monitors and the faint amber glow of the city streetlights bleeding through the window blinds.
Lily’s crying escalated into a frantic shriek from the bassinet.
"What happened to the power?" Denise screeched, stumbling blindly against the bedside armchair. "Richard! Where are you?"
"I’m right here! Nobody move!" Richard barked. "Mark, do you have the boy?"
"I've got him! I've got him!" Mark’s voice was strained, panicked. "Dad, the emergency generators should have kicked on immediately! Why haven't the hall lights turned back on?"
"Because this isn't a power outage," Emma’s voice drifted through the gloom, silky, cold, and entirely undisturbed. "It's an isolation protocol."
A faint mechanical whine purred from the ceiling. A bank of tiny red infrared lenses flickered to life along the upper molding of the walls, bathing the room in a ghostly crimson haze.
In the dim light, Carla was visible huddled against the bassinet, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at the infant girl. Lily was kicking her small legs within the swaddle, her face red from crying.
"Carla," Emma spoke softly.
Carla froze, her breath hitching in her throat. "Emma... please. I didn't know about any plane. I swear I didn't know."
"Then look at my daughter, Carla," Emma said, her voice cutting through the dark with absolute clarity. "Look at her. You held her twenty minutes before your father walked into this room. You told me she had Ethan’s chin. You told me she was beautiful."
"Don't talk to her, Carla!" Denise hissed, groping through the shadows toward the bassinet. "Pick the girl up! If Mark has the boy, we take the girl too! They can't split the leverage!"
"Don't you touch that bassinet, Mother!" Carla suddenly screamed, backing up against the plastic crib and throwing her arms out to block Denise. "Don't you dare touch her!"
"Have you lost your mind?" Denise slapped Carla’s arm away with a stinging crack. "This is forty million dollars, you stupid girl! This is our entire survival!"
"She's a baby, Mom!" Carla wept, her voice breaking into hysterical sobs. "They're both babies! Look at what we're doing! Look at where we are!"
"Mark, secure the door!" Richard ordered, lunging forward in the red gloom toward the tray table. He grabbed the legal documents and slapped them against Emma’s blankets. "Sign it, Emma! While you still have the chance to negotiate! When those doors open, whoever is out there won't save you from what happens next!"
"You still don't understand, do you, Richard?" Emma whispered.
She reached up, took the pen from the table, and twirled it slowly between her fingers.
"Understand what?" Richard demanded, leaning in until his breath hit her face.
"Ethan didn't design this security system to keep people out," Emma said, her eyes flashing in the crimson light. "He designed it to lock his executioners in."
A sharp, electric hiss crackled through the doorframe. The heavy deadbolt didn't unlock—it snapped with a deafening metallic pop as secondary magnetic clamps engaged from the outside, sealing the thick steel door into its frame like the hatch of a submarine.
"What was that?" Mark cried, rushing to the handle. He pulled with both hands, using his entire body weight, but the door was immovable. "Dad! It's sealed! It's completely sealed from the outside!"
"Try the service hatch!" Richard shouted.
"There is no service hatch," Emma said.
From the shadows, Mark turned around slowly, cradling Noah against his chest. His eyes were wide with wild, unhinged panic.
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"Then we use the window," Mark muttered, his voice cracking. "We break the glass. We take the fire ladder."
"Try touching that window, Mark," Emma warned, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "And find out why the glass has copper wiring running through the pane."
