Chapter 5 - Two Faces, One Fate
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet. I fell to my knees beside the cot, my hands instantly tearing at the leather restraints holding Eleanor down. She was painfully thin, her skin translucent, but those eyes—the same blue as Oliver's—were unmistakably alive.
""Eleanor,"" I sobbed, tears spilling down my cheeks onto her cold wrists. ""I didn't know. I swear to God I didn't know you existed until tonight.""
""I knew,"" Eleanor gasped, her breathing shallow as she lifted a trembling hand to touch my face. ""Mother told me... before the accident. She said if anything happened to me, you were the only one who could protect my boy.""
Alexander stood over the bed, his usually impenetrable expression shattered into pieces. He dropped to one knee beside me, wrapping his large, scarred hand around Eleanor’s. ""El... you're safe. I’m here. I’m taking you home.""
Eleanor smiled faintly, a tear cutting through the dust on her cheek. ""Alexander... my fierce protector. But you shouldn't have come. It’s a trap.""
Before Alexander could reply, the cardiac monitor beside the bed began to beep in a frantic, irregular rhythm. Roman shouted from the doorway. ""Boss! They’ve rigged the facility’s main transformer! The whole building is wired with thermite charges! We have four minutes before the floor collapses!""
""Roman, carry Eleanor!"" Alexander commanded without skipping a beat. He hoisted my sister off the cot into Roman’s massive arms while he pulled me to my feet, his weapon scanning the ceiling as pieces of plaster began to fall.
Red warning strobes bathed the concrete walls in blood-colored light. Siren wails pierced our ears. We raced back toward the staircase, but as we reached the ground floor, an explosion tore through the south wing, collapsing the ceiling and blocking our escape route to the front yard.
""Rear emergency tunnel!"" Eleanor pointed with a weak hand toward the boiler room. ""The old coal chute leads to the service woods!""
We scrambled through the narrow access hatch just as the main roof collapsed inward with a deafening roar. The heat behind us was blistering, singeing our clothes as we tumbled out onto the damp pine needles of the mountain forest.
Behind us, St. Jude’s Sanitarium erupted into a massive ball of orange flame, lighting up the night sky for miles around.
Alexander looked back at the roaring inferno, his jaw set in stone. He pulled out a radio and barked an encrypted code. ""Eagle One to compound. Eleanor is secured. Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves, and nobody breathes near Victoria until I return.""
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As we piled into the emergency pickup truck waiting at the mountain road, Eleanor held my hand in a grip that defied her physical weakness. She looked at me, then looked at Alexander.
""Victoria isn't the real head of this, Alexander,"" Eleanor whispered, her breath fogging the cold window. ""She’s just the pawn. The man holding the strings is your own brother, Lucas. And he's already inside your house with my baby.""
