Chapter 4 - WHISPERS IN THE RAINGabriel froze, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“Henri? You sick bastard. You tried to burn her alive! There’s an arrest warrant with your name on it!”
“You idiot!” Henri hissed on the line, coughing through ragged breaths. “You don’t understand what’s happening! The people after Claire don’t care about me or you. They were going to kill her whether I intervened or not!”
“You poisoned her with Ghost Amber!” Gabriel spat, stepping into the empty stairwell to avoid being overheard.
“Because it was the only way to get her out of the city alive!” Henri cried out, his voice cracking with desperate sincerity. “They were going to shoot her in our living room, Gabriel! The paralytic was supposed to make her appear dead so I could take her body to my private mortuary contact and administer the reversal agent before the burial! But the syndicate hijacked the transport and routed her directly to the crematorium to turn her to ash!”
“Why should I believe a single word you say?” Gabriel demanded.
“Because Kane isn’t a homicide detective,” Henri whispered, his voice trembling. “Look at his right hand, Gabriel. Look at his index finger. See what’s tattooed between his knuckles. If Kane gets Claire into that unmarked van, she will never reach any military base. She’ll vanish into a furnace, and this time, you won’t be there to touch her skin.”
The line went dead.
Gabriel pushed open the heavy stairwell door and stepped back into the corridor.
Detective Kane was standing by the nurses’ station, writing in a small black leather notebook. He was talking softly to two armed transport officers dressed in sterile tactical gear.
Gabriel approached cautiously, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
“Detective,” Gabriel called out smoothly.
Kane turned, offering an empathetic, tired smile. “Almost ready, Gabriel. The transport is pulling into the basement loading bay now. We’ll have Claire safe behind concrete walls in twenty minutes.”
Kane reached into his pocket to pull out a pen, exposing the top of his right hand under the fluorescent lighting.
Gabriel’s vision narrowed.
Between the knuckles of Kane’s right index and middle finger was a faint, faded tattoo: an eagle gripping a broken anchor.
It was the insignia of the Black Anchor Consortium—an international private security syndicate notorious for corporate espionage, black-market recoveries, and state-sanctioned liquidations.
Gabriel felt a cold sweat coat his spine.
Henri wasn't lying.
“Something wrong, son?” Kane asked, noticing Gabriel’s fixed stare.
“No,” Gabriel lied, forcing a steady breath. “Just… making sure Madeleine has a seat in the transport van.”
“Of course. Family rides together,” Kane nodded smoothly. “Go gather her things. We roll in three minutes.”
Gabriel turned on his heel, walked straight past Madeleine, and slipped back into Claire’s ICU room.
Dr. Vance was disconnecting the stationary monitors, preparing Claire for the portable battery packs.
“Doctor,” Gabriel whispered urgently, locking the door behind him.
Vance frowned. “Mr. Moreau? What are you doing?”
Gabriel leaned across the bed, showing Vance the titanium cylinder and the tattoo he had just witnessed.
“The men in that hallway are going to execute my wife,” Gabriel said, his voice deadly serious. “We cannot let her leave through that basement bay.”
Vance stared at the cylinder, then at the door, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Gabriel, that sounds insane—”
“Look at her!” Gabriel pleaded, pointing to Claire’s pale, fragile face. “She was sent to the furnace alive. They just tried to inject potassium into her line twenty minutes ago. If you help them wheel her out, you are signing her death warrant.”
Dr. Vance looked down at Claire, then back at Gabriel. The physician’s professional oath warred with sheer terror.
“There’s a laundry chute at the end of the western service hall,” Vance whispered shakily. “It leads directly to the subterranean linen incinerator room. It’s decommissioned for maintenance this week. It opens to the alleyway behind the pharmacy.”
“Can she survive without the ventilator for ten minutes?” Gabriel asked.
“With a manual ambu-bag, yes,” Vance said, grabbing an emergency portable oxygen kit. “Take the service elevator. But Gabriel… if she doesn't get the reversal agent within six hours, the Ghost Amber will permanently paralyze her central nervous system. Her brain will suffocate from the inside out.”
Gabriel grabbed the ambu-bag, unhooked Claire’s primary lines, and lifted his wife’s frail, limp body into his arms.
She weighed almost nothing. Her head rested against his shoulder, her faint breath brushing against his neck.
Gabriel kicked open the room's secondary emergency exit just as the heavy hallway door handle began to jiggle violently from the outside.
May you like
Then came a sharp, metallic click.
A master key card flashed green on the lock.
Related Stories
