Alex raised an eyebrow. “I’m chained to a chair in a government black site. You really think I’m feeling chatty?”
The first man knelt beside him and opened the case. Inside: syringes, vials, scalpels, ampoules of clear liquid, other restraints, and a few tools Alex recognized from field survival training—none of them used for survival in this context.
The second man pulled up a stool and sat directly in front of him. “You’ve been asking a lot of questions,” he said. “Ward. Everhart. Elias.”
Alex stared. “Which one bothers you the most?”
The man didn’t flinch. “The fact that you’re still asking.”
He nodded to his partner, who drew up clear liquid into a syringe.
“This is for clarity,” the seated one said. “Not pain.”
The needle went into Alex’s neck fast, sharp. Burned.
“Tell me what you know about Elias Ward.”
Alex let out a breath through clenched teeth. His mind was already spinning, not from fear—but from the drug. Fast-acting. Truth serum? Sedative? Something experimental? His vision blurred around the edges but sharpened in the center.
“What I know,” he said slowly, “is you’re all afraid of him.”
A pause.
The seated man tilted his head. “Why would we be afraid of a dead man?”
“Because you can’t control him,” Alex said, his tongue thick but his voice holding steady. “And… you know who his father is.”
Silence.
Then the seated man stood. “We’ll try again in a few hours. Once the serum settles in.”
They turned to leave, locking the door behind them. Alex slumped in the chair, sweat now beading on his forehead, his heart racing.
Whatever Monroe and her shadow unit were hiding—it wasn’t just a project gone wrong. It was a legacy they couldn’t bury.
Alex was one of the last people alive who could expose it. If he could survive long enough to get out.
Thirty
The Blackwell Institutestood quiet under a washed-out sky, the kind of gray that blurred the lines between afternoon and evening. Brad pulled into the private lot and parked in his usual space. He sat for a moment, hands still on the wheel, then grabbed his coat and stepped out.
He was expected.
Inside the acute care unit, the air was cool and sterile but not unwelcoming. He walked through the sliding glass doors and barely made it past the reception desk before a familiar voice called out, “Brad.”
Tristan Blackwell approached from the opposite hallway, his tailored suit immaculate as always, though there was a tension behind his eyes that Brad caught instantly.
“Didn’t think I’d be this happy to see you,” Tristan said, extending a hand. Brad took it.
“No change?” Brad asked.
Tristan shook his head. “No.”
They walked together down the corridor, the sound of their steps echoing in the silence.
“Anything else I need to know?”
“Mara’s been almost entirely unresponsive. Then you show up, and we see movement. There hasn’t been a flinch or a spasm since. I’ve never seen programming like this in reality. The literature discusses things like this happening in North Korea and the former Soviet Union.”
