Chapter 24 - THE INFIRMARY GLASS
The Bedford Hills Medical Annex smelled of industrial bleach, floor wax, and the sterile chill of institutional dying.
Ethan walked through the security checkpoints alone. His arm was in a black sling; his face was bruised purple along the jawline. Detective Miller had made two phone calls to get him past the midnight curfew, but Ethan had refused to let Miller accompany him past the heavy steel doors of the third floor.
Room 304 was guarded by a single corrections officer who stood aside with a silent, uncomfortable nod as Ethan approached.
Behind the reinforced glass partition, Evelyn Mercer lay in an adjustable hospital bed.
She looked shrunken. The severe stroke had dragged the right side of her face downward, turning her once-regal mouth into a crooked, slack sneer. An IV drip ticked steadily into the back of her spotted, paper-thin hand. Monitors hummed with the slow, sluggish rhythm of an eighty-year-old heart refusing to stop.
Yet when the heavy door clicked shut behind Ethan, her left eye—bright, predatory, and burning with crystalline hatred—snapped open.
She didn't move her head. She couldn't. But her gaze pinned Ethan to the floor with the same suffocating gravity she had exerted over him since he was a toddler.
Ethan dragged a metal chair across the linoleum, the legs screeching against the floor, and sat directly beside the bed.
"Julian is gone," Ethan said, his voice flat, hollow, devoid of any son's warmth.
A tiny, guttural sound escaped Evelyn’s throat. A twisted, half-paralyzed smile tugged at the unmarred side of her mouth.
"He... was... weak," she rasped. The words came slowly, slurred by the stroke, but each syllable was dipped in pure venom. "Like... your... father."
"They're tearing up the concrete at Pike Lake right now," Ethan continued, staring into her eyes without blinking. "They're going to find Richard. They’re going to dig his bones out of the mud where you left him twenty years ago."
Evelyn didn't blink. A low, wet chuckle bubbled in her chest.
"Let... them... dig," she whispered. "Richard... was... a coward. Left... me... with... two... worthless... boys."
Ethan leaned forward, his face inches from the plastic guardrail of the bed.
"I’m not worthless, Mother," Ethan said softly. "Because I am the one who is going to watch you die in this cage. You spent your whole life collecting secrets, manipulating people, moving us around like plastic pieces on a board. And what do you have left?"
He swept his hand toward the bare, green cinderblock walls.
"No family. No house. No legacy. Just a bed in a locked ward where nobody comes when you ring the bell."
Evelyn’s good eye widened. The slack side of her face twitched violently. Her left hand rose from the bedsheet, her claw-like fingers reaching out, trying to grab Ethan’s jacket collar.
Ethan didn't flinch. He leaned even closer, letting her fingers brush the lapel of his coat before she lacked the strength to hold on.
"Lily will never know your name," Ethan whispered into her ear. "When she asks about my mother, I will tell her she was an orphan who died alone before I was born. Your blood ends with me."
Evelyn let out a choked, furious hiss. The heart monitor beside her bed spiked, its rhythmic beeps speeding up to an erratic, shrill tempo.
*Beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep.*
She struggled to pull herself up on one elbow, her breath wheezing like an old bellows, her lips moving frantically as if trying to spit out one last curse, one final verbal poison to infect his mind for the rest of his life.
"You... don't... know..." she wheezed, spit gathering at the corner of her paralyzed mouth. "You... think... Julian... was... the only... one..."
The beeping turned into a solid, unbroken whine.
The door flew open. Two nurses and an orderly rushed into the room, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the tile.
"Sir, you need to step back! Clear the room!" the lead nurse yelled, grabbing a crash cart from the hallway.
Ethan stood up slowly.
He didn't look at the doctors charging the defibrillator paddles. He didn't look at the monitors flatlining into continuous horizontal lines.
May you like
He turned his back on Evelyn Mercer and walked out into the corridor.
***
