Chapter 44 - THE BLOODLINE REGISTRY
"Out! Through the adjoining room, now!" I barked, grabbing Mia by the scruff of her coat and shoving her toward the connecting door that led to room 404.
Behind us, a violent burst of suppressed gunfire shattered the door of room 402 into splinters. The heavy wooden panel buckled under the impact of armor-piercing rounds, sawdust and plaster filling the air in a blinding cloud. Hayes rolled off the opposite side of the bed, dragging his IV pole down with a deafening crash as he fired three blind rounds through the splintered door, forcing the attackers to momentarily pause their advance.
"Go, Clara! Take the girl!" Hayes roared through the smoke, blood gushing from his reopened stitches. "The freight elevator at the end of the south wing leads to the basement laundry! My truck keys are in my jacket pocket!"
"I'm not leaving you to die in a hospital bed!" Mia screamed, trying to lunge back toward him.
I caught her around the waist, lifting her off her feet with a ferocity born of pure adrenaline, and hurled her through the adjoining doorway. "He can hold the door, Mia! If they take you, everyone dies! Move!"
I emptied half my magazine through the wall, aiming at waist height where the muzzle flashes were originating, hearing a muffled grunt of pain on the other side. A tactical grenade clattered onto the linoleum behind us.
"Down!" I screamed, diving forward and dragging Mia to the floor just as the flashbang detonated.
The world vanished in a roar of white heat and ear-shattering concussive pressure. My ears rang with a high-pitched scream, my vision swimming in blinding spots, but muscle memory took over. I scrambled across the floor of room 404, kicking open the service hatch that accessed the laundry chute behind the nurse’s station.
"Jump!" I yelled, coughing against the acrid smoke filling the corridor.
Mia didn't hesitate. With the reckless instinct of someone who had already lost everything, she threw herself feet-first into the stainless steel chute, vanishing into the vertical darkness. I turned back, fired two final rounds at a masked figure stepping through the shattered doorway, and slid down right behind her.
The fall was a disorienting, skin-scraping blur of metal walls and rushing air. We collided with a massive mountain of soiled hospital linens in the basement sub-level, the soft impact knocking the remaining breath from my lungs.
Above us, the clatter of boots against the metal chute warned that the clean-up team was already following.
"Run!" I gasped, grabbing Mia's wrist and hauling her out of the laundry bin.
We burst through the heavy double doors into the dimly lit subterranean delivery bay. A commercial laundry van stood idling near the loading dock, its driver nowhere to be seen. I smashed the driver’s side window with the butt of my pistol, reached inside, unlocked the door, and tore the steering column cover off with my bare fingers.
Two crossed wires sparked violently in the darkness. The diesel engine coughed, sputtered, and roared to life just as the fire door behind us was kicked off its hinges.
Bullets tore through the van’s rear doors, spider-webbing the side mirrors and shattering the windshield as I dropped the transmission into reverse, slammed my foot on the accelerator, and backed the three-ton vehicle straight through the locked security gate with a deafening crunch of metal and concrete.
We spun onto the rain-slicked Scranton streets, tires screeching against wet asphalt, leaving the flashing red lights of the hospital behind us in the rearview mirror.
Mia was curled in the passenger seat, clutching her knees to her chest, her breathing ragged. In her hand, she still clutched the documents Madame Laurent had given her. Amidst the chaos of our escape, a second folded document had slipped out from the envelope’s lining.
"Clara," Mia whispered, her voice trembling so violently the paper fluttered in the draft from the shattered window. "Look at this. Look at the date."
I glanced over for a fraction of a second while navigating the sharp turn toward the interstate ramp.
The document was an official extract from the Swiss Federal Civil Status Registry, dated three days before Mia’s dress was torn at school. It wasn't an inheritance certificate.
It was an execution order for a genetic trust.
"The girl in the hospital bed... she doesn't need medicine," Mia said, tears finally overflowing and spilling down her face. "Her kidneys are failing because of a congenital autoimmune condition that only affects Sinclair blood. The only way she survives is an organ match from an identical twin."
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned porcelain white, the full horror of the conspiracy finally clicking into sharp, terrifying focus.
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"Vanessa Sinclair didn't send for you because she loves you," I said, my voice dead and cold. "She kept you hidden in Pennsylvania like livestock until your sister’s organs began to fail. And now, she’s harvesting you."
***
