CHAPTER 8 — THE BOY BEHIND THE GLASS
For several seconds, no one spoke.
The boy on the screen stared through the glass wall of the laboratory.
His hair was lighter than Leo’s, but the eyes were unmistakable.
Ethan’s eyes.
Samuel’s eyes.
My eyes.
Grant stood behind the child with one hand resting on his shoulder.
“This is Noah,” he said.
My mother whispered, “Dear God.”
Grant smiled at the camera.
“Noah has been prepared his entire life to inherit Walker Medical Technologies.”
Rachel stepped toward the screen.
“You experimented on children to fabricate a blood heir.”
“I advanced medical science.”
“You tortured babies.”
“Emotion is not evidence, counselor.”
Charles looked ill.
“Where did you get the genetic material?”
Grant turned toward the boy.
“Ethan was generous, although not intentionally.”
I felt sick.
“You used Ethan’s blood.”
“After his death, tissue samples were retained during the autopsy.”
Sophie stared at the screen.
“Doyle gave them to you.”
“Doyle understood progress.”
Noah remained still.
Too still.
A ten-year-old child should have been frightened, curious, restless.
He sat with his hands folded in his lap like someone trained not to move without permission.
“Is he Ethan’s son?” Leo asked.
Rachel answered carefully.
“Biologically, he may share Ethan’s DNA. But we don’t know how he was created.”
Grant looked directly into the camera.
“He is superior to Leo in every measurable way. Health, intelligence, emotional discipline.”
Leo’s face tightened.
I knelt beside him.
“Do not listen.”
Grant continued.
“At noon tomorrow, Noah’s genetic claim will be recognized. Emma’s instability, criminal charges, and inappropriate relationship with Ethan will make her unsuitable to manage the trust.”
I stood.
“You don’t get to decide whether I’m suitable.”
“The board does.”
“The board ran.”
“The board follows money.”
Rachel muted the screen.
“We cannot let him present Noah as an heir.”
Charles looked at the address on the photograph.
“The underground lab has three access points. Grant expects us to use the main entrance.”
Sophie checked her ammunition.
“I can reach the service tunnel from the northern drainage road.”
Rachel looked toward my parents.
“Helen stays with Leo.”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
“Someone must protect him.”
“I will,” my father said.
We all looked at him.
He faced Leo.
“I failed your mother when she needed me. I won’t leave her now unless she asks me to.”
I did not know whether to forgive him.
But I believed him.
“Stay with Leo,” I said.
My father nodded.
No argument.
No command.
For once, he respected my decision.
We divided into two teams.
Rachel, Charles, Sophie, and I would approach the laboratory.
My father, mother, and Leo would remain in a secure federal field office.
Copies of the evidence were transmitted to a federal prosecutor in Washington, but the nearest tactical team was still more than an hour away.
Grant had chosen his timing carefully.
He wanted us desperate enough to enter before help arrived.
The abandoned research facility stood beyond a chain-link fence covered in vines. The upper floors were burned and hollow, but generators hummed beneath the ground.
Sophie led us to a drainage culvert behind the property.
We crawled through ankle-deep water until we reached a steel grate.
Charles entered an old code.
The grate unlocked.
“Grant never changed Samuel’s emergency systems,” he whispered. “He always believed the past belonged to him.”
We entered a service corridor lit by dim red lamps.
Voices echoed ahead.
Rachel checked the building map.
“Rosa is likely in the records room. Noah is in Laboratory Three.”
“We split up,” I said.
“No,” Charles replied.
“I’m getting Noah.”
“You don’t know what’s inside that room.”
“He’s ten.”
“So is Leo.”
“Exactly.”
Rachel studied me.
“I’ll go with Emma. Sophie and Charles retrieve Rosa.”
We separated.
Rachel and I moved through a row of storage rooms. Each contained medical equipment, locked cabinets, and numbered files.
In one room, small hospital beds lined the walls.
Twenty-six beds.
I stopped.
Some still had faded name tags attached.
Not names.
Numbers.
Rachel placed a hand on my shoulder.
“We document it later.”
“They were babies.”
“I know.”
“How many died here?”
“I don’t know.”
A faint sound came from the end of the corridor.
Singing.
A child’s voice repeated the same four notes again and again.
We followed it to Laboratory Three.
Noah sat behind the glass.
When he saw me, he stopped singing.
I approached slowly.
“My name is Emma.”
He tilted his head.
“You are Subject’s mother.”
“Leo’s mother.”
“Subject Leo.”
“No. Just Leo.”
Noah looked toward the camera mounted in the corner.
“Doctor Grant says names create attachment.”
My chest tightened.
“Grant isn’t a doctor.”
“He created me.”
“He hurt you.”
Noah’s face showed no reaction.
“Pain is corrective.”
Rachel turned away for a second, overcome by anger.
I placed my palm against the glass.
“You don’t have to stay here.”
Noah studied my hand.
“Doctor Grant says you will terminate me.”
“What?”
“He says natural heirs destroy synthetic heirs.”
“Noah, I would never hurt you.”
“You terminated your first pregnancy.”
I froze.
“That isn’t true.”
“He showed me the medical report.”
“I kept my baby. Leo is alive.”
Noah looked uncertain.
“He said Leo was taken from another woman.”
“Grant lies.”
“Doctor Grant does not lie.”
An alarm sounded.
The laboratory door locked behind us.
Grant appeared on a monitor above the glass.
“Attachment forms quickly, doesn’t it?”
I looked up.
“Let him go.”
“He is safer with me.”
“You raised him in a cage.”
“I gave him purpose.”
Rachel aimed at the camera and fired.
The monitor shattered.
Gas began entering the outer room.
Rachel covered her mouth.
“Same system as the boardroom.”
I searched for a release panel.
Noah stood.
“Emergency access is beneath the third cabinet.”
I found a keypad.
“Code?”
He hesitated.
“Grant says obedience is survival.”
“Grant is going to kill us.”
Noah looked toward the gas vents.
Then he entered six numbers from inside the glass room.
The cabinet opened.
Rachel pulled the emergency lever.
The outer door unlocked.
The glass wall separating us from Noah remained sealed.
I grabbed a metal stool and struck it.
The glass did not crack.
“It’s reinforced,” Rachel said.
Noah approached the wall.
“You should leave.”
“Not without you.”
“I am not natural.”
“You are a child.”
“I have no mother.”
The words cut through me.
I struck the glass again.
“My mother died when I was a baby. That didn’t make me less human.”
He looked at me.
I hit the glass until my hands hurt.
Rachel found a compressed-gas cylinder beside the medical station.
“Move back.”
She slammed it against the glass.
A crack appeared.
Noah stared.
I hit the crack with the stool.
The glass shattered inward.
I climbed through.
Noah backed away.
I held out my hand.
“You can come with us.”
He looked at my bleeding palms.
“Why did you injure yourself?”
“To reach you.”
“No one does that.”
“I just did.”
He slowly placed his hand in mine.
The laboratory doors opened.
Grant stood outside holding a syringe.
Two guards flanked him.
Noah immediately released my hand and stood at attention.
Grant looked at the broken glass.
“I am disappointed.”
Noah lowered his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
“Come here.”
Noah took one step toward him.
I caught his shoulder.
“No.”
Grant raised the syringe.
“Do you know what happens when Noah misses his treatment?”
Rachel aimed her gun.
“Put it down.”
“He dies.”
Noah looked at me.
“My body requires stabilization.”
Grant smiled.
“The genetic process left certain weaknesses.”
“What is in the syringe?” I asked.
“The compound that keeps his immune system functioning.”
Rachel’s voice was cold.
“Or the compound that keeps him dependent.”
Grant’s smile faded.
“You don’t know enough to make that accusation.”
“I know abusers create illnesses they can pretend to cure.”
Noah began breathing rapidly.
“Doctor, I need treatment.”
Grant stepped closer.
“Then come to me.”
I held Noah back.
“Rachel?”
She looked at the label on the emergency medical cabinet.
“There may be a legitimate substitute.”
“No,” Grant said sharply.
That told us she was right.
Rachel opened the cabinet and found sealed immune-support medication.
Grant ordered his guards forward.
Before they could move, gunfire erupted behind them.
Sophie appeared at the end of the corridor.
“Federal agents are entering the facility!”
Grant turned.
Charles struck one guard with his cane.
Rosa, her hands now free, shoved the other into the wall.
Rachel tackled Grant.
The syringe flew from his hand.
I pulled Noah into the laboratory.
Grant threw Rachel aside and grabbed a pistol from the fallen guard.
He aimed at me.
My father appeared from the opposite corridor.
“Emma!”
The gun fired.
My father stepped between us.
The bullet struck his chest.
He fell.
My mother screamed from behind him.
She and Leo had followed the federal team into the facility.
I dropped beside my father.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“Dad.”
He struggled to breathe.
“Get the children out.”
Grant grabbed Noah.
He pressed the pistol against the boy’s head.
“No one moves.”
Federal agents entered from both ends of the corridor.
Weapons aimed.
Grant pulled Noah backward.
“This child is company property.”
Noah went completely still.
Leo stepped away from my mother.
“No, he isn’t.”
Grant looked toward him.
Leo stood in the center of the corridor, small and unarmed.
But his voice did not shake.
“You said Noah is better than me.”
Grant smiled.
“He is.”
“Then you don’t need me.”
“Leo,” I whispered, “come back.”
He ignored me.
“Let Noah go. Take me.”
Grant considered it.
Noah looked at Leo through terrified eyes.
Then Noah did the first disobedient thing of his life.
He drove his elbow backward into Grant’s stomach.
Grant lost his grip.
Sophie fired.
The bullet struck Grant’s shoulder.
Federal agents rushed forward and forced him to the floor.
The gun slid away.
Noah ran toward Leo.
The two boys stood face-to-face.
They looked like distorted reflections of each other.
Noah asked, “Why did you offer yourself?”
Leo shrugged, though tears filled his eyes.
“Because that’s what brothers do.”
Behind them, paramedics surrounded my father.
I held his hand.
His pulse was weak.
As they lifted him onto the stretcher, he looked at me.
“I should have chosen you.”
I leaned closer.
“What?”
“Ten years ago.”
His eyes filled.
“I should have chosen my daughter.”
The heart monitor alarmed.
The paramedics began CPR as they rushed him toward the exit.
My mother collapsed against me.
Grant lay handcuffed on the laboratory floor.
As agents pulled him away, he looked at me and smiled through the pain.
“You think you won?”
I stared at him.
“It’s over.”
“No.”
He leaned closer as an agent lifted him.
“Ask Charles who signed Ethan’s autopsy report.”
I turned toward Charles.
His face had gone pale.
Grant laughed.
May you like
Then he said the words that opened one final wound.
“Charles knew Ethan was still alive after the crash.”
