Chapter 7 - THE ROAD TO BLACKWOOD
The tracked carrier climbed through the forest with its headlights turned off.
Caleb guided Nathan by the faint blue glow of the navigation screen and the white shapes of trees bending beneath snow.
Deputy Cross sat beside Nathan with his radio pressed to one ear.
Hospital dispatch had stopped answering three minutes earlier.
Every call to Miriam went directly to voicemail.
Nathan drove faster.
"The ridge drops on your left," Caleb warned.
"I know how to drive."
"Not here."
The carrier slid sideways.
Cross grabbed the dashboard as the left track broke through a crust of ice.
For one suspended second, the machine leaned toward darkness.
Nathan turned into the slide and accelerated.
The track found rock.
The carrier slammed back onto the trail.
Caleb hit the steel wall behind him.
"Your confidence is going to kill us."
"My confidence is the only reason we are moving."
Cross looked between them.
"Save the marriage counseling for later."
Nathan tried Miriam again.
No answer.
He pictured Lily beneath red emergency lights, holding an empty bracelet while Ethan depended on machines connected to a failed generator.
He had chosen Sarah over the children for less than ten minutes.
The choice already felt like another betrayal.
"Turn around," he said.
Cross looked at him.
"What?"
"The hospital is compromised."
"The county response team is closer to the hospital than we are."
"They are not answering."
"Because the storm is blocking communication."
"Or because Victor controls the network."
Caleb leaned forward from the rear seat.
"If Conrad is at the hospital, Sarah may be at Blackwood with Victor alone."
Nathan looked at him in the mirror.
"How do you know Conrad is at the hospital?"
Caleb paused.
"I am making a reasonable assumption."
"You said his name, not theirs."
Cross turned slowly.
"He is right."
Caleb's face remained still.
"Lily identified Conrad."
"At the estate," Cross said.
"You were in the archive when she did."
"The live video showed him."
"You were not in the room for the first video call."
Caleb reached for the door handle.
Cross drew his weapon.
"Do not move."
The carrier struck something hidden beneath the snow.
A metal cable snapped upward across the trail.
It caught the front of the vehicle and tore through the windshield.
Cross ducked.
Nathan felt glass cut his cheek.
The cable ripped the roof lights away and dragged the carrier sideways.
The machine rolled onto its right track, balanced, then crashed onto its side.
Nathan's shoulder struck the door.
The engine continued running while the cabin filled with the smell of diesel and crushed pine.
Cross lay against the windshield with blood on his forehead.
Caleb hung from the rail by one cuffed hand.
"Turn it off," he gasped.
Nathan killed the engine.
Silence followed except for the storm.
A red laser dot moved across the broken windshield.
Nathan pulled Cross below the dashboard as a rifle shot punched through the driver's seat.
Caleb kicked open the rear hatch.
"The ravine side is covered."
"How do you know?"
Cross asked.
Another shot struck the metal above his head.
"Because I helped design the ambush points."
Caleb ripped his restrained hand against the rail until the plastic cuff cut into his skin.
"Victor paid me to map every approach to Blackwood two years ago."
Nathan reached for him.
"You lied."
"I took the money."
"You gave him access to my house."
"I gave him maps and codes."
Caleb's voice rose.
"I did not agree to murder children."
Cross freed his cuff with a knife.
"You can explain the difference to a prosecutor."
A third shot hit the fuel compartment.
Diesel began spilling into the snow.
Caleb pointed toward the rear hatch.
"There is a drainage channel twenty feet downhill."
"And the shooter?"
"East tree line."
"You seem certain."
"Because that is where I would put him."
They crawled through the rear hatch and slid into the drainage channel.
Snow covered them almost immediately.
Cross raised his weapon toward the trees.
A shadow moved.
He fired twice.
The answering rifle shot struck the carrier's fuel tank.
Flame rolled along the spilled diesel.
Nathan, Cross, and Caleb ran downhill as the vehicle exploded behind them.
The blast threw Nathan into the snow.
Heat crossed his back.
A burning track wheel tumbled past and disappeared into the ravine.
Cross dragged Nathan behind a fallen cedar.
"Can you move?"
"Yes."
"That was not my question."
Nathan checked his arms and legs.
"I can move."
Caleb crawled beside them.
His left sleeve was burning.
Nathan smothered it with snow.
"Who set the cable?"
"Victor uses former military contractors."
"Names."
"I know only one."
A figure approached through the trees.
Cross aimed.
Caleb shouted.
"Derrick Shaw."
The figure stopped.
"Caleb?"
"He is not alone."
Caleb's warning came too late.
Cross fired at a second shadow moving behind them.
Gunfire split the forest.
Nathan pressed himself against the log.
He had spent his life repairing damage caused by violence.
He had never understood how quickly violence reduced the world to angles, breath, and the next place not to die.
Cross fired again.
One shadow fell.
The first shooter retreated toward the ridge.
Caleb lifted a fallen branch and threw it into the open.
A shot struck it.
Cross used the muzzle flash.
His next round ended the shooting.
The storm reclaimed the forest.
Cross approached both men cautiously.
One was dead.
The other had been shot through the thigh.
Derrick Shaw stared up at Caleb.
"He said you changed sides."
Caleb knelt beside him.
"Where is Sarah?"
"Blackwood."
"Which wing?"
"The old hydrotherapy level."
"How many men?"
"Four when I left."
"Victor?"
Derrick laughed weakly.
"Victor is not staying for sunrise."
"Where is he going?"
"The hospital."
Nathan looked toward the distant glow below the mountain.
"Why?"
Derrick's eyes found him.
"Because the trust needs all three children in state custody before nine in the morning."
"What trust?"
"Ask your lawyer."
Cross applied a tourniquet to the man's leg.
"We are out of time."
Caleb removed a set of keys from Derrick's coat.
"There is another snow vehicle nearby."
"You are under arrest," Cross said.
"Arrest me after we reach Blackwood."
Cross looked at Nathan.
"He stays in front of us."
They found two snowmobiles hidden beneath camouflage tarps.
Derrick remained with an emergency beacon and the promise of a rescue team that might or might not reach him before dawn.
Nathan hated leaving a wounded man.
Cross reminded him the wounded man had just tried to shoot them through a windshield.
The snowmobiles climbed the final ridge.
Blackwood appeared below them as a dark complex of brick buildings surrounded by dead pines.
Most windows were boarded.
One wing glowed with yellow light.
A smokestack released a thin column into the storm.
The property fence stood open.
They left the snowmobiles beneath the trees and approached on foot.
A faded sign near the entrance still promised compassionate restoration in gold letters.
Nathan touched the microSD card beneath his boot.
"Where is the service tunnel?"
Caleb pointed toward a maintenance shed.
"It enters beneath the east wing."
Cross stopped them.
"We do this quietly."
A scream came from inside the building.
Nathan recognized Sarah's voice despite seven years of silence.
He ran.
Cross cursed and followed.
The maintenance door was unlocked.
A corridor descended beneath exposed pipes.
The air smelled of bleach, mold, and something burned.
Old patient names had been scratched into the walls.
Some were crossed out.
Sarah's appeared three times.
SARAH CARTER IS NOT CRAZY.
SARAH CARTER REMEMBERS.
NATHAN NEVER CAME.
Nathan stopped at the final sentence.
The letters had been cut into plaster with something sharp.
A dark stain marked the floor beneath them.
Cross placed a hand against Nathan's shoulder.
"Keep moving."
They reached the hydrotherapy level.
Metal doors lined both sides of the corridor.
One stood open.
Inside, an old treatment chair faced a video camera.
Leather restraints hung from the arms.
Sarah's blood stained the headrest.
A monitor on the wall displayed a live feed from Pierce Memorial.
The pediatric corridor glowed red beneath emergency lights.
Miriam stood in front of Lily's wheelchair.
Elaine Foster argued with two officers.
Conrad Vale approached from behind them in a hospital uniform.
Nathan shouted at the screen as if they could hear him.
Conrad raised a syringe.
Before he reached Lily, Rosa struck him across the wrist with a metal oxygen regulator.
The syringe fell.
Miriam shoved Lily's wheelchair through an open door.
Conrad grabbed Rosa by the throat.
The video feed cut to black.
Nathan seized the monitor and tore cables from the wall.
"We go back."
Sarah screamed again from deeper in the wing.
The sound ended in a choking cough.
Cross looked toward the corridor.
"She is here."
"The children are under attack."
"County units are approaching the hospital."
"You said that ten minutes ago."
Caleb pointed to a second screen.
A digital countdown showed seventeen minutes.
Below it were two camera views.
One showed Sarah strapped inside a glass-walled room filling slowly with water.
The other showed Ethan's ventilator in the neonatal intensive care unit.
A remote control interface connected both systems.
Across the center of the screen was a message.
CHOOSE WHICH FAMILY YOU SAVE.
Nathan stared from his drowning sister to his struggling nephew.
A speaker crackled above them.
Victor Hale spoke from somewhere inside Blackwood.
"You always wanted to play God, Nathan."
May you like
"Now you finally have the job."
THE BRACELET IN THE BLIZZARD
