Chapter 39 - The Sister's Treason
"You murdered Mother?" Chloe screamed, her voice cracking into madness. "She spent her entire life covering up your crimes! She buried the bodies you left in the foundation of St. Jude's!"
"She served her purpose," Arthur said coldly, lifting a frail, trembling hand toward the incubator. "Just as you did, Chloe. You provided the cover. You signed the birth registrations. But your blood is thin. Your mother was weak. Only Elizabeth inherited my true biological sequencing. Only her offspring carries the cellular longevity required to regenerate my bone marrow."
He looked at the lead surgeon cowering in the corner. "Resume the protocol. Extract the central marrow core. Now."
"Touch that machine and I’ll paint this wall with your brain," Daniel barked, stepping toward the medical console with his rifle leveled at the surgeon's chest.
"You won't shoot," Arthur whispered, a ghastly smile spreading across his cracked lips. "Look at the telemetry monitor, Detective. The plasmapheresis pump is linked directly to my central arterial line. If my heart stops, the machine initiates an automated purge. The infant’s blood will be drained into the waste reservoir in ninety seconds."
My heart plummeted into an icy void. Daniel's finger froze on the trigger.
The baby let out another feeble wail from inside the incubator. I could see his tiny chest rising and falling, the thin plastic tube running from his arm toward the humming centrifugation unit.
"You're a demon," I whispered, tears blinding my eyes as I stepped toward the incubator. "He’s an innocent child."
"He is Vance property," Arthur hissed. "And you, Elizabeth... you will watch him save his creator, or you will watch him die. Step away from the console, Detective. Drop your weapons."
Daniel’s jaw worked silently. He glanced at the heart monitor linked to Arthur's chest, then at the tubing leading to the baby. Arthur wasn't bluffing. The failsafe was hardwired into the surgical machinery.
"Elizabeth..." Daniel murmured, his voice tight with agonizing despair. "The bypass... I can't decouple the lines without collapsing the infant's vascular pressure..."
Suddenly, a choked sob tore from Chloe's throat.
"No," she screamed.
Before Arthur could react, before the armed mercenaries stationed outside could break down the door, Chloe lunged across the gurney. She didn't stab the machine. She didn't cut the line.
She drove the surgical scalpel straight down into Arthur Vance’s right thigh, twisting the blade with all the manic strength left in her broken body.
May you like
Arthur let out a guttural, inhuman roar of agony, his hand reflexively clutching the wound as arterial blood sprayed across the sterile white sheets. In his panic and shock, his thrashing arm caught the main infusion manifold, ripping the arterial central line clean out of his own jugular vein.
"The line!" Daniel shouted, lunging forward.
