Chapter 16 - The Blueprint of Blackwood
Ethan did not waste another second on tears.
The realization that his monstrous mother had used his greatest guilt to turn him into an obedient slave had obliterated the last remnants of his cowardice.
He leaned against the partition, his lips almost brushing the glass.
"Blackwood Isle isn't registered under the Whitmore name," Ethan said, his voice dropped to an urgent, conspiratorial rasp.
"It’s held under a dummy shell corporation called 'Borealis Marine Holdings' out of the Cayman Islands."
"It was Father's private testing facility during the late eighties, before the federal bioethics committee banned intra-familial stem cell transfers."
"How is it protected?" I demanded.
"Satellite-linked radar, three deep-water patrol boats, and an automated biometric grid along the rocky shoreline," Ethan answered without hesitation.
"There are no civilian docks."
"The only way in without triggering the alarm buoys is through the sea caves on the western bluff at dead low tide."
"Father used to smuggle centrifuge equipment through there to bypass customs."
"Who runs the facility now?"
"Dr. Alistair Finch," Ethan said, spitting the name out like poison.
"The chief neuro-pediatrician who vanished from St. Jude’s the day after your crash."
"Finch was Mother’s private ghoul."
"He was obsessed with stopping cellular aging through pediatric bone marrow rejuvenation."
"Sarah... if Leo has been in Finch’s hands for ten years..."
Ethan choked on the words, unable to complete the sentence.
I knew what he couldn't say.
Ten years of bone marrow harvests.
Ten years of biological isolation.
Ten years without sunlight, without love, without a mother's voice.
A normal human mind would shatter in three months under those conditions.
What had they turned my sweet, gentle boy into?
"How do I get past the biometric grid, Ethan?" I asked, refusing to let my thoughts descend into the nightmare.
"You need my genetic clearance code," Ethan said.
"The entire security system runs on the original Whitmore DNA key."
"Even though Mother faked her death, the mainframe's root directory still requires an active direct-line biological authentication to open the inner containment sectors."
"Your blood won't work—you're a Whitmore by marriage, not by blood."
"Mine will."
He looked down at his cuffed wrists, then toward the guard standing ten paces away by the steel door.
"In three minutes, the guard is going to escort me back to cell block D," Ethan said quietly.
"The corridor has a blind spot between the sally port and the laundry chute."
"Ethan, what are you doing?"
"I spent ten years letting you carry the blame for my weakness," he whispered, a strange, terrifying calm settling over his bruised features.
"I let my sister frame you, I let my mother rob you, and I drank myself blind while my son was screaming in a cage."
"I am going to give you my blood, Sarah."
"You take it, and you get our boy back."
Before I could answer, Ethan stood up abruptly and smashed the heavy plastic telephone receiver directly into his own cheekbone.
The sound of cracking bone echoed through the visiting room.
Ethan screamed, a manufactured shriek of rage, and lunged forward against the partition, spraying blood from his split eyebrow and shattered cheek across the counter.
The guard lunged forward instantly, unholstering his taser.
"Inmate step back! Step back now!"
In the chaos, while the guard wrestled Ethan down onto the cold linoleum, Ethan’s bloody left hand swiped violently across the plastic partition’s transfer slot.
A thick smear of arterial blood clung to the edge of the metal slider.
As the guard drove his knee into Ethan’s spine and slammed his head against the floor, Ethan twisted his neck upward, his one good eye locking onto mine through the glass.
"Take it and run, Sarah!" Ethan screamed through the blood filling his mouth.
"Kill her! Kill my mother!"
I didn't hesitate.
I reached my scarred right hand through the transfer slot, pressed a sterile gauze pad from my pocket firmly against the blood-soaked steel, and sealed it inside a sterile specimen bag.
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The alarm bells in the facility began to shriek, their red strobes flashing violently against the concrete walls.
I turned on my heel, slipping the bag into my jacket, and walked out the heavy security doors before the lockdown gates could seal the civilian exit.
