Her eyes filled. “Can I?—?”
James nodded. “One kiss. He’s fragile and heavily sedated. He’s not breathing on his own. Charlotte, he’s not going to be able to wake up for some time. Go get something to eat. I’d say go home and get some rest, but I know you won’t. But you do need to get some sleep. Let us get him settled in the ICU.”
Charlotte crossed the sterility line and took Alex’s hand, now warm with life returning to it. “You’re here,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.” She placed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “I… love… you.”
Forty
WAVERLY COUNTY HOSPITAL CHAPEL
The morning airwas cold against Charlotte’s skin, biting into the sweat-damp fabric of her sleeves. Alex had been in the ER and surgery for over twenty-four hours.
The ICU doors had loomed like a gate to another world. Two floors above her, Alex was alive. She had escaped alone to the hospital chapel, which seemed to hold its breath for her. A highway patrol corporal stood outside the door. A siren wailed somewhere far away, a fading scream against the hush.
Charlotte’s knees buckled before the relief could settle. She dropped onto the cool wooden bench, elbows digging into her thighs, hands shaking like they didn’t belong to her. Her chest clenched with something too big to hold, her throat scraped raw by hours of silence and fear.
“Don’t cry,” came a low voice beside her. “He’s breathing. That’s what matters.”
Her head jerked up.
Elias Ward sat at the edge of the bench, like a shadow that had just remembered how to speak. He wore a black cassockthat clearly wasn’t his—too big, sleeves rolled up. He wasn’t pale enough to be a ghost, but he sat like one—still, distant, dangerous in the way of quiet things.
“How did you get in?” she asked, voice hoarse.
“I was here before you came. I knew you’d come for the quiet.”
Charlotte swallowed, throat tight as wire. “The implants are gone. But… how is he really?”
Elias glanced at the chapel’s windows that depicted colorful scenes of healing. “He’ll recover. Eventually. But they didn’t just alter his body. They rewired pieces of his mind. You can’t just uninstall that.”
She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek to keep herself from falling apart. And then, without thinking, she slid closer and pulled him into a hug. Fierce. Desperate.
He froze. But he didn’t pull away.
“Thank you,” she whispered, voice cracking. “You brought him back. You saved him.”
“I hope I brought him in time.”
She pulled away, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and steadied herself. “I need one more favor.”
His eyes flicked toward her. “I was waiting for that.”
“I want names,” she said. “All of them. I want to know who did this to Alex. I want to know how many more are out there. Who fought. Who turned a blind eye. And…” Her voice faltered, then dropped to a whisper. “I need to know where the facility is.”
Elias let out a breath through his nose. It almost sounded like pain. “You already know some of it. Monroe built the current version. She took my father’s system and made it… efficient. Leaner. Quieter. Then she corrupted it. She wasn’t interested in helping people become survivors. Live productive lives. She wanted weapons. And the government funded it.”
Charlotte’s jaw clenched. “Your father’s patients died or were zombies.”
“He took the severely mentally ill and wiped away the illness. There were some victories.”
“Victories? We didn’t find anyone we’d call a victory.”
“My father didn’t provide you their names. They were told never to come forward. He perfected the wipe. Veterans, rape victims, severely depressed patients who didn’t respond to electroconvulsive therapy. There are survivors.”
“Your father was protecting the program. He kept the successes a secret. And we found the failures.” Charlotte swallowed hard.
“Bray Maddox—Dr. Vance thought he was her ally. He betrayed her. I drugged him to get Alex out. And Dr. Sybil Vance,” Elias added. “She ran the program after my father went to prison. Until the powers that be took it away. She’s not like Monroe. She fought—quietly. She did what she could. Slowed the program down where it mattered. She bought me time to get Alex out. She stayed behind so we could run.”
“And the rest of the workers?” Charlotte asked.
